The trick I used to bail my money out of abusive casinos

[Floxynice]

What an interesting read. Felt like I was reading a novel. For that your threat, that was very smart of you. Like you said it might not work for low lever licences that casinos this days seems to be acquiring. But if this your story actually happens to everybody that is profitable in betting, then it is something worth worrying over. So it seems like they cherish those that loose their money more. I understand that they make money like that. But why go ahead and deny payment by requesting things that are irrelevant just to withdraw. Anyways, I don't own a casinos, so this is a misery to me.

I am not sure if that was a smart move. If apart from just being an abusive casino, the casino was also a scam or a questionable casino, the casino will close the account without hesitation, that threat will only make their job easier. It was good that the move he made yielded results, but I am convinced that many other casinos will not take that threat seriously.

What I would have done in such situation is to avoid the casino completely once they start frustrating me. If I issue such a threat and it eventually works for me, I will not use that casino again.

[tiCeR]

Now what I wonder is, how did you feel comfortable sharing your KYC data with obviously very shady casinos? You haven't mentioned names here, but I doubt it has been any of the big and trusted names that are also present on the forum?

It's not really a "trick", it was a decision made up front to use casinos shady enough to require a threat from a regulator in the first place. If you simply omit casinos that would risk their reputation for a €20-100 bonus then the issue isn't present at all. In this case prevention is better than extraction.

I agree, but prevention would require collective effort. Everyone can of course make sure for themselves that they neither feed these casinos money with deposits nor data for KYC, but more often than not, these casinos are still successfully fishing for either newbies or gamblers who can't resist seemingly great bonuses. Whenever I sign up for new casinos, I drastically limit my stakes and try out several withdrawals, and usually stay with the proven ones eventually. Bonuses can be tempting at times, but providing KYC data to unknown or new casinos upfront is not very smart. There are several casinos that let you play without KYC, why bother handing over your sensitive data in the first place...

There was a moment when I thought that sending KYC data upfront can make sense, but there have been several cases here where players got fooled although they have passed KYC already.

[Findingnemo]

Now what I wonder is, how did you feel comfortable sharing your KYC data with obviously very shady casinos? You haven't mentioned names here, but I doubt it has been any of the big and trusted names that are also present on the forum?

It's not really a "trick", it was a decision made up front to use casinos shady enough to require a threat from a regulator in the first place. If you simply omit casinos that would risk their reputation for a €20-100 bonus then the issue isn't present at all. In this case prevention is better than extraction.

I agree, but prevention would require collective effort. Everyone can of course make sure for themselves that they neither feed these casinos money with deposits nor data for KYC, but more often than not, these casinos are still successfully fishing for either newbies or gamblers who can't resist seemingly great bonuses. Whenever I sign up for new casinos, I drastically limit my stakes and try out several withdrawals, and usually stay with the proven ones eventually. Bonuses can be tempting at times, but providing KYC data to unknown or new casinos upfront is not very smart. There are several casinos that let you play without KYC, why bother handing over your sensitive data in the first place...

There was a moment when I thought that sending KYC data upfront can make sense, but there have been several cases here where players got fooled although they have passed KYC already.

We are fortunate to be present on this forum but the interner gambling community is wide and they always use the popular social media to advertise their brand for very cheap and their only intention is to make them look like a reputed one by keeping their name showing in many places. An actual casino would require a huge capital to even start the business but the shady ones just require a website and few hundred dollars to promote their names with the social media influencers.

[Texac]

It might just be a thing for most of the casino to attract users they advertisement or some kind of marketing strategy offering you a huge amount on just creating an account on there platform, it would make sense for some users since most of the lisense platforms is offering a small amount for the KYC on there platform, so it wasn't something that is new to some users. If you already do the KYC they would already expect you to play and do deposit to hook you into putting large amount of money.

I don’t think €20 is really that much money for any casino if it helps them get any new active gambler. So I doubt they miscalculated anything. For any casino, it’s basically just the cost of acquiring new customer, just like advertising or affiliate payment.

At that point, it doesn’t matter how profitable it might be for casino to bring them back with €20 or €100 bonus. Once any gambler decides to withdraw their money and close their account, operator shouldn’t be trying to convince them to stay or keep gambling. And I think this is exactly where regulated casino should be different from regular offshore platform, gamber should have real way to contact the regulator if casino create problem with withdrawal or refuses to close account.

[famososMuertos]

It's the usual story, and unscrupulous casinos seek profits beyond the simple TOC, using any situation to intimidate players. Obviously, mental exhaustion is part of the strategy. Most would say, "It's just a couple of dollars, I'm not going to waste my time." The recommendation is always to play at reputable casinos, and when you take a risk at a new casino for whatever reason, be careful with the amount you deposit.

[M47AK16]

I'm not sure if this will work with casinos under the Curacao or Anjuan license though which seems to be the most common here.

Of course, it won't work on casinos that have a license to operate within multiple jurisdictions and they know gamblers aren't going to run after them for a few dollars or euros nor is the license provider going to cancel their license for it. Such things can only work with casinos that are specifically operating within the country of your residence and are regulated there with regulatory bodies and authorities and they know this might harm their business.

By the way, if we talk about this in general, I think it's pretty common behaviour from a casino business to not let gamblers easily win and withdraw funds unless they have already deposited and lost enough for their business to be profitable from that gambler. I know, they shouldn't do this, but they do, because if you have deposited $50, and have won more than $200 with bonuses and everything, that is not good business for them, and they will surely try every tactic to stop you from getting away with it.

That's a great way or strategy to get your funds from casinos operating within your country, but as you said that you are not sure, I also don't think this method is going to work on online crypto-based gambling platforms that are mostly available in this forum.

[Nathrixxx]

I have not had this type of experience with any of the local casinos here and there have never been a time I got free money without first making deposits.

Sometimes the casino can decide to give the user a bonus to entice them to use their platform. To me, I see it as a kind of trap being set for them; we have to be more careful with casinos that tend to offer us free offers without any conditions attached, because what they may get from us later will be bigger than what we are getting from them.

[Localhostspeed]

I have not had this type of experience with any of the local casinos here and there have never been a time I got free money without first making deposits.

Sometimes the casino can decide to give the user a bonus to entice them to use their platform. To me, I see it as a kind of trap being set for them; we have to be more careful with casinos that tend to offer us free offers without any conditions attached, because what they may get from us later will be bigger than what we are getting from them.

There is a casino thread I saw here that scam people after they couldn't withdraw and it's because they were able to used bonus to make people come use the casino. When they launched, they offered all kind of bonus and actually they did show the amount on each user's that deposited, gave 200% for deposits and they wagered while the scam was going on, they were moving money out of the deposed addresses until people withdrawals weren't going through before they alert everyone of what was going on. Till date, the casino ran away and some people that represent them on the forum here have to settle some part of the debts.

Bonus are not bad but don't chase it. If your casino gives you some bonus use it and if they don't, wager there. The other casino that are using bonus to call you might not value you the way you are valued on the regular one. Sometimes, the casino you know and have been with for very long time is all you need, forget about all these sweet bonus.

[Queen uloma]

I have not had this type of experience with any of the local casinos here and there have never been a time I got free money without first making deposits. Maybe such things happen in your country and not here. However, this back-and-forth delay tactics is common among casinos because they believe that the more your money is with the casino, the higher the chances of you placing bets and losing them.

For me I think this kind of delay tactics isn’t suppose to become a normal  thing in casino. The moment a person request for withdrawal and everything went okay, the process is suppose to be straightforward. Keeping someone’s money for too long can tempt the person to continue betting and possibly lose it.

[Itz-prisigold]

One important lesson I’d take from this experience is that a bonus isn’t really as juicy as the casino may make it look, not until you’ve actually known how you can be able to withdraw the resulting balance. A casino can actually make a bonus look very attractive and generous, but what’s really worth considering is what would really happen the moment you stop being a profitable customer. And this is mostly the reason why I focus more on withdrawal rules and how they handle their disputes rather than the bonuses offered by the casino.

I believe that is actually a better way to approach bonus, because most users are often more focused on the bonus amount and they end up forgetting that the true challenge is when you're ready to withdraw your funds from the casino. I have also observed that individuals can spend more time comparing bonus offers than trying to see the payout procedure.

To me it would be better to have a small bonus and clearly defined terms of withdrawal than going for large bonus which is good at the start but appears to have a lot of conditions later.  And I also believe that the way a casino handles withdrawal and some kind of issues tell you more about a casino than the amount of bonus they offer user's.

[Dogedegen]

TL;DR: on licensed casinos you can bail out your balance and withdraw very fast even if they're BSing you by requesting an account and closure and threatening to contact regulators. I'm not sure if this will work with casinos under the Curacao or Anjuan license though which seems to be the most common here.

This is a good pressure tactic. I have used similar methods with services that rely on reviews, often pushing with a negative review and that gives a fast response to your case. There are private ways to push them like the one that you used, but there are also public ways. It depends where the platform is active and why. Sometimes I have seen people have issues with some exchanges and they try to plead their case in public in Reddit and often get a much faster answers then they would just like that.

It's the usual story, and unscrupulous casinos seek profits beyond the simple TOC, using any situation to intimidate players. Obviously, mental exhaustion is part of the strategy. Most would say, "It's just a couple of dollars, I'm not going to waste my time." The recommendation is always to play at reputable casinos, and when you take a risk at a new casino for whatever reason, be careful with the amount you deposit.

The strategy works and there is a financial part from the side of the person. If it is really a couple of dollars lets say $20, how much time should you spend trying to get it back? People fail to account in the value of their time. Almost everyone has a job and this can be the starting rate, but let's say that you earn $5 per hour. If you spend more than 4 hours on this case trying to recover $20 then you are wrong for doing that, it does not make financial sense and it would be better to give up. So while some effort should be put to try to recover the money, there must be a limit to it.

[tiCeR]

It's the usual story, and unscrupulous casinos seek profits beyond the simple TOC, using any situation to intimidate players. Obviously, mental exhaustion is part of the strategy. Most would say, "It's just a couple of dollars, I'm not going to waste my time." The recommendation is always to play at reputable casinos, and when you take a risk at a new casino for whatever reason, be careful with the amount you deposit.

This is perhaps a crucial point you are bringing up here when you think about an effective scamming strategy for the casino. Everyone would think that casinos are after those huge amounts, but if they scam gamblers for amounts below a certain threshold, the mental effort these gamblers have to go through to get their money back outweighs the anger they might go through for a day or two and just move on. So when casinos scam for big amounts of money, they only draw attention to their place that they might not really want. I know this myself, I had situations when I simply gave up because I thought it is not worth the effort.

Terms and conditions are worthless 99% of the time. They have all sorts of interpretation that you can't argue against and at the end of the day they play their joker, which is "we can't disclose what player X did wrong for security reasons. Others could exploit it".

We have seen this so many times here.

[fredericktaylor]

One important lesson I’d take from this experience is that a bonus isn’t really as juicy as the casino may make it look, not until you’ve actually known how you can be able to withdraw the resulting balance. A casino can actually make a bonus look very attractive and generous, but what’s really worth considering is what would really happen the moment you stop being a profitable customer. And this is mostly the reason why I focus more on withdrawal rules and how they handle their disputes rather than the bonuses offered by the casino.

I believe that is actually a better way to approach bonus, because most users are often more focused on the bonus amount and they end up forgetting that the true challenge is when you're ready to withdraw your funds from the casino. I have also observed that individuals can spend more time comparing bonus offers than trying to see the payout procedure.

To me it would be better to have a small bonus and clearly defined terms of withdrawal than going for large bonus which is good at the start but appears to have a lot of conditions later.  And I also believe that the way a casino handles withdrawal and some kind of issues tell you more about a casino than the amount of bonus they offer user's.

It's true, don't get carried away with the big bonuses, of course, it's more important to pay attention to the bonus terms and conditions and withdraw money by fulfilling the simple conditions. The bigger or more the bonus, the more difficult the conditions will be, so it's better to focus on the small ones, thus protecting yourself from big losses. But most gamblers are attracted to big bonuses in the hope of making more money, as a result of which they face financial losses when they fail to meet most of the bonus terms. Giving more bonuses does not make a good casino, of course, it is very important to be transparent in terms of terms so that the gambler can easily fulfill the conditions and withdraw the bonus money.

[sunsilk]

It's the usual story, and unscrupulous casinos seek profits beyond the simple TOC, using any situation to intimidate players. Obviously, mental exhaustion is part of the strategy. Most would say, "It's just a couple of dollars, I'm not going to waste my time." The recommendation is always to play at reputable casinos, and when you take a risk at a new casino for whatever reason, be careful with the amount you deposit.

That is true about just giving up and forgetting what exactly happened because that amount doesn't mean to us.

But if it starts to become significant amount of money, I guess that we'd do everything we can just to get and withdraw that money.

At first, everyone will be patient and will adhere to the policies but when it is taking longer and those policies have been modified due to your case. That will be the time to make actions and it's good that what OP did was a success but, think before of doing it because it can't be successful to us.

[angrybirdy]

I have not had this type of experience with any of the local casinos here and there have never been a time I got free money without first making deposits.

Sometimes the casino can decide to give the user a bonus to entice them to use their platform. To me, I see it as a kind of trap being set for them; we have to be more careful with casinos that tend to offer us free offers without any conditions attached, because what they may get from us later will be bigger than what we are getting from them.

That's their technique, giving huge bonuses at first so that many players will become curious and register at their casino. In that way, it benefits them because when many people try their site, they get free advertising from those who received the bonuses. As we know, word of mouth can be very powerful...a typical form of free advertising that works worldwide.

I don't think it's necessarily a trap because many gamblers already know this tactic, especially when it comes to newly launched sites. We just need to be more cautious and do our part, which is to investigate and research the casino before proceeding with a deposit after we've exhausted the sign-up bonuses.

[Hispo]

This reminds me of something I saw today on Twitter. There was a guy who wanted to close his account on a casino and he wanted it to be done as soon as possible. So he got in contact with the bot who serves as a customer service agent in the casino and he expressed his desire to close his account. The bot told him that it was not possible and he was offered a 90-day period of self-exclusion. He wanted the immediate closure of his account, so he immediately said to the bot that he was actually a teen, legally a 14-year-old boy. So the bot immediately got triggered and told him that his account was going to be immediately closed. It was quite funny, but it seems there are ways to bypass some of the rules or protocols of casinos in order to get whatever we want when it comes to casino account closure.

[arallmuus]

-snip

You have to consider that if your country has no local regulator which acts as the licensing authority, then the casinos you play at are probably licensed in Curacao or Anjuan. These are the licenses we all know as minimal to no regulation so instead of being compelte unlicensed, it's what most crypto casinos prefer.

Well that explains why crypto casino are not really strict on KYC compared to the regular fiat casino

This is the reason I explicitly said in the OP that this will probably not work in casinos with these licenses.

I guess since you 'trick' most likely cant be used on Curacao or Anjuan licensed casino, threatening them to post the whole bad experience on CasinoGuru could be the other alternative to do. Most of these casino really care about their reputation so provided if we dont break any of the rules then the casino probably could give in on this kind threat

New information for me, I never would have thought threatening them to report it to the regulators would somehow works