Gov approved casinos are much worse than I thought

[alani123]

I tried to sign up to a licensed casino in my country and somehow I miraculously won a couple hundred bucks on free spins.
I was allowed to do free spins and deposit by bank even before completing KYC somehow.

After completing KYC though, I realized they never had the intention to let me withdraw.
They claimed someone had attempted to use my credentials to sign up before and provided a sign up email address that was from... The Philippines. Even having a name not matching my gender. I am European and had provided them my full id including live face identification.
Yet somehow someone with Philippino credentials is also me?

They subsequently closed my account end even confiscated my deposit claiming it was tied to bonuses and was "lost" while in fact it was a separate balance.

These casinos are supposedly overlooked by the local Greek government but apparently their practices are like the mafia's.

You can deposit before KYC. KYC is super strict, even if you complete it withdrawals take ages and you might be impulsive and lose it all before you have the patience to wait to withdraw. And then there's also completely made up issues like the platform claiming someone non-existent signed up with your info like in my case.

It's funny that they only cared about my account's legitimacy after I won around 200 EUR with their free spins.
My conclusion is to never play again at a full KYC government approved casino. They have so many disadvantages and the government just backs them up instead of actually regulating them.

The games aren't even provably fair there so they could be cheating in a million ways. The only singular advantage I spotted is that they had a certain few matches on sports bets where they would remove the house edge as part of promotions therefore giving boosted odds for picking the right winner. But literally nothing else. Also the taxes are killing the entire profit incrntivd if you win above a certain amount from a certain point on. This amount is 250€ profit which most punters will not reach but a single big win gets you there if you get a bit lucky. Imagine winning big and suddenly seeing the odds you were expecting reduced because of high and automatically witheld taxation.

I just also learned the hard way that KYC is not a protective measure for the player but rather a huge security risk. Because how in earth is a casino going to claim to offer services to a single country's residence and then tell me they accept someone with a Philippino email address as the real me??? KYC just enables identity theft in these cases. Especially since someone stealing a certain nationality ID could earn a lot on unutilised casino promos.

[mikel_012]

In Brazil the government approved casinos are much safer because they can be sued and the judge will help the player get all his money back if he is right in the case

Not approved casinos you can’t do anything and many times they will block you and stop answering to anything. Many casinos are just a scam waiting to rob enough people before shutting down

I’m sorry in Greece it does not work the same way

[Smartvirus]

I tried to sign up to a licensed casino in my country and somehow I miraculously won a couple hundred bucks on free spins.
I was allowed to do free spins and deposit by bank even before completing KYC somehow.

After completing KYC though, I realized they never had the intention to let me withdraw.
They claimed someone had attempted to use my credentials to sign up before and provided a sign up email address that was from... The Philippines. Even having a name not matching my gender. I am European and had provided them my full id including live face identification.
Yet somehow someone with Philippino credentials is also me?

They subsequently closed my account end even confiscated my deposit claiming it was tied to bonuses and was "lost" while in fact it was a separate balance.

These casinos are supposedly overlooked by the local Greek government but apparently their practices are like the mafia's.

That’s crazy and this explains how identity theft could be such a menace to these proceedings and even so, a physical verification should have being a way to vindicate all that and the fact that, the place of origin of usage by the supposedly someone or bad actor coming from the Philippines while you’re supposedly accessing from a European country should have said a lot on whom owns what.

Also, tying your deposit and won bet to your bonuses while refusing to allow you any form of withdrawals, that says a lot already. How they can randomize certain scenarios and hedge on it to not allow legitimate users full access of their account.

[EluguHcman]

It's funny that they only cared about my account's legitimacy after I won around 200 EUR with their free spins.
My conclusion is to never play again at a full KYC government approved casino. They have so many disadvantages and the government just backs them up instead of actually regulating them.

This is a casino that you were given free spins even before you made your deposit to continue the trail as you were so much carried away with the welcomed free spins.

The earlier we understand that all these free bonus offers especially when you have not made a first deposite on your newly casino account, so it is better for us to stay vigilant and not embrace the site because of those free offers because the end is always a trap with their policies hidden until you falls into the trap on requesting withdrawal orders.

This is why it is also good to test the water with small amount. Though some sites will await you to request huge amount of withdrawal and then reveals how strict or clinching they may be with their unnecessary excuses like that of your experience.

[BitMaxz]

This is a false accusation on your account because you have already submitted your documents and are not a Filipino. The data they had and thought you had an alt account is false; your documents prove that you are not him.

For me, that's a scam to keep you out of the casino without your winnings.

I'm not sure if your casino can be sued, but I'm guessing this will be ignored because the stakes are low.

[Hispo]

Welp, That pretty much sounds as a nightmare scenario, in my opinion. People have the expectation casinos and bookies which enjoy the sponsorship of one's government would be actually fairer than private casinos with little to no relation with one's government.
It seems in your case the Greece government or some officials within the branch who is supposed to control gambling and regulate has decided to abuse their position of power in order to keep all deposited money and not to favor those who managed to be lucky enough to win a few hundred dollars with welcome bonuses.

Thanks for giving us the heads-up though, I will never gamble in a government casino, specially if it's administration is willing to abuse their power in such blatant manner.

[fullfitlarry]

It's just weird though that of all the nationalities, it could have been a Filipino.

Although there has been reported of recent hacks on our country from local exchanges to government own websites with our data on it. And I would agree that this could have been an excused by that local casino not to pay you and obviously, it's a scam run by them.

[r_victory]

~snip

They did everything they could to make things difficult. You said the casino has government approval, which means it can operate legally. Did you try anything outside the casino's own boundaries? I mean, some legal body that could help you with this issue. In a way, you were harmed because the scammers tried to impersonate you.

[KiaKia]

Government approved casinos can be called to justice if they do something wrong to you, they have a reputation to protect and having a bad name won't be good for business, they can easily be dragged.

In my country you can't do anything bad to the public as a casino owner, if there is genuine evidence that a casino do something like cheating it's customer or others they will be easily questioned.

I am sorry that you went through such experience I would avoid such casino completely.

[Don Pedro Dinero]

OK, so you had a rubbish experience with a regulated casino in your country, and you’re jumping from that one isolated incident to a general conclusion. You don’t seem to be very good at logic. I’ve been gambling at various regulated casinos for a long time – years, in fact – and I’ve never had a problem even remotely similar to what you’re describing. In fact, I haven’t had any problems at all.

[noorman0]

In many cases, KYC justifies casinos for denying winners withdrawals. But that's the murky nature of the casino industry, even if they only serve local customers. If their main backing is local authorities, it's a sure sign the casino is infested with specialist behind-the-scenes mafias.

[Mhizlove]

An experience like this do makes people feel that some platforms takes compliance more seriously only when money wants to exit or withdrawn from  the system. Even if it was a misunderstanding or not, once the communication is poor and decisions isn't that clear enough, the trust will quickly vanish or be lost. That's why reputation alone isn't enough, a good platform is suppose to show consistency in how they handle both withdrawals and deposits, because is during this process users will know if the service is reliable or not.

[tread93]

I tried to sign up to a licensed casino in my country and somehow I miraculously won a couple hundred bucks on free spins.
I was allowed to do free spins and deposit by bank even before completing KYC somehow.

After completing KYC though, I realized they never had the intention to let me withdraw.
They claimed someone had attempted to use my credentials to sign up before and provided a sign up email address that was from... The Philippines. Even having a name not matching my gender. I am European and had provided them my full id including live face identification.
Yet somehow someone with Philippino credentials is also me?

They subsequently closed my account end even confiscated my deposit claiming it was tied to bonuses and was "lost" while in fact it was a separate balance.

These casinos are supposedly overlooked by the local Greek government but apparently their practices are like the mafia's.

You can deposit before KYC. KYC is super strict, even if you complete it withdrawals take ages and you might be impulsive and lose it all before you have the patience to wait to withdraw. And then there's also completely made up issues like the platform claiming someone non-existent signed up with your info like in my case.

It's funny that they only cared about my account's legitimacy after I won around 200 EUR with their free spins.
My conclusion is to never play again at a full KYC government approved casino. They have so many disadvantages and the government just backs them up instead of actually regulating them.

The games aren't even provably fair there so they could be cheating in a million ways. The only singular advantage I spotted is that they had a certain few matches on sports bets where they would remove the house edge as part of promotions therefore giving boosted odds for picking the right winner. But literally nothing else. Also the taxes are killing the entire profit incrntivd if you win above a certain amount from a certain point on. This amount is 250€ profit which most punters will not reach but a single big win gets you there if you get a bit lucky. Imagine winning big and suddenly seeing the odds you were expecting reduced because of high and automatically witheld taxation.

I just also learned the hard way that KYC is not a protective measure for the player but rather a huge security risk. Because how in earth is a casino going to claim to offer services to a single country's residence and then tell me they accept someone with a Philippino email address as the real me??? KYC just enables identity theft in these cases. Especially since someone stealing a certain nationality ID could earn a lot on unutilised casino promos.

Damn why even do anything if youre going to he so stingy. These casinos and everything else is all games and money and gambles. What are you gonna do ya know. Its already something they lose a lot on so they probably feel they need to Crack down and minimize loss to keep the house edge!

[Cointxz]

Government casino should be more careful with this kind of shady behavior because they can be reported on your own license provider that usually take action seriously.

What’s shady on you case is how someone from different countries can verify on your account while the casino you are using is probably licensed to operate on your country so it’s pointless to verify using different country ID.

[CryptoHeadlineNews]

It's funny that they only cared about my account's legitimacy after I won around 200 EUR with their free spins.
My conclusion is to never play again at a full KYC government approved casino. They have so many disadvantages and the government just backs them up instead of actually regulating them.

It's very sad to see a casino that was licensed by your country keep acting this way after you might have won with a free spin and completed your KYC which was requested by the casino before withdrawal. Because I can remember facing this same issue with a casino that ones promoted their signature campaign here on this forum, I made an  scam accusations about them, before my funds was eventually given out for proper withdrawal and everything was verified. And sometimes, making your own personal research before using any casino is always very important, because not all licensed casinos in your country might have the intention of its local gamblers. Some might be a tool by its government to scam it's citizens.

[rbynxx]

I just also learned the hard way that KYC is not a protective measure for the player but rather a huge security risk. Because how in earth is a casino going to claim to offer services to a single country's residence and then tell me they accept someone with a Philippino email address as the real me??? KYC just enables identity theft in these cases. Especially since someone stealing a certain nationality ID could earn a lot on unutilised casino promos.

You submitted your KYC already and that's what you'll get instead, that's unfortunate tbh. I don't know how much was the similarities from the name but they should have based the face as well not just the name. There's no way a Filipino would have the same as Greek, not even close I swear. Did you argue your case or you'll have the higher authority involve?

[alani123]

In Brazil the government approved casinos are much safer because they can be sued and the judge will help the player get all his money back if he is right in the case

Not approved casinos you can’t do anything and many times they will block you and stop answering to anything. Many casinos are just a scam waiting to rob enough people before shutting down

I’m sorry in Greece it does not work the same way

So what, are you going to take a casino to court over $500?
500 bucks isna substantial amount in both Greece and Brazil but if you lose this amount, the court also has fees which are expensive and it's not worth the money to start a case. Casinos know that most people are broke and that's why they steal little by little. If they steal a few dozen bucks from their millions of users they still become ultra rich.

[viljy]

An unpleasant incident. Even if such small amounts are not paid, this characterizes such legal casinos in a very negative light. Legal local casinos have higher costs than casinos with offshore licenses, and local casinos are tempted to cut their costs at the expense of customers with these tricks. As for the client's ability to protect their rights in legal local casinos, as we can tell from the OP's story, unfortunately this is not always the case.

[mindrust]

Everything the government touches turns to shit. It is as simple as that. Try to avoid any government presence all the time because they always do more harm than good. Don’t even go to voting because if you vote, you legitimize this abomination of a system. We need less government and more private companies. Governments are lazy and inefficient. Don’t even befriend government officials. They don’t deserve it.

[mitchr4]

That sounds really bad. KYC is the biggest problem here. It is meant to protect players, but it actually gives the casino a reason to block withdrawals. And worse, sharing personal documents is risky because that data can be misused by anyone. It is strange that a casino approved by the government ends up being this disappointing.