Betreels - Abuse of Responsible Gaming Procedures

Ruling

Found for the Casino - Actioning a Self-Exclusion request within a few hours or the request being made is considered reasonable and appropriate.

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Player's Complaint

Hello ThePogg,

Please see below the awful time I have had with Betreels Casino. I have spent months trying to fight them myself but maybe the expertise of ThePogg will help me.

Having joined them a few months ago i made two deposits totalling £8,000 Santander recognized these transactions and contacted me which I was grateful for because my irrational gaming was spiralling. I contacted Betreels immediately on their number but no agents available but they have a record of me leaving a voice message at 8.53am. I then went onto live chat but agents were off line so I sent the below email straight away. Please see official evidence below.

28/02/2016 09:03am

Dear Betreels Senior Management,

I joined the site earlier and was allowed to make a £2,000 and £6,000 deposit totalling £8,000. I then tried to make further deposits plus I tried to call your helplines and go back onto live chat to speak to a lady called [EDIT] who I had spoken to earlier about increasing withdrawal limits. However, my last deposit was not accepted saying contact customer upport but you are now offline and no one is answering calls.

Please return my funds otherwise I will need to lodge a complaint,

Best

[EDIT].

With regret, I heard nothing from them for a few hours and eagerly checked my emails at my lunch break and found no response(I had hoped they would have closed my account as they could see how erratic gambling was).

Unfortunately, I was still allowed to log in and deposit a staggering £9,999 which I lost in 10 minutes as was completely irrational. I then received following email

28/02/2016 13:06pm

Dear [EDIT],

Further to your request, we can confirm that your account has now been self-excluded for a period of 5 years meaning that your account will only be reactivated, upon your request, after 28/03/2022.

Should you notice at any point that you are able to access your account after receiving this email, you must contact us immediately.

Please remember that by Self-Excluding from your BetReels Casino account this will also block access to any other accounts you may have on gaming sites operated by Nektan.

If you have Self-Excluded because you have underlying concerns about your ability to control your gaming, you may wish to have a look at our section on ‘staying in control’ and answer our questionnaire. Alternatively, you can contact Gamcare which is a registered charity that offers both online and telephone confidential support. Please click here or call 0044 845 6000 133 between 8am – 2am 7 days a week for further details.

Further details on our Self Exclusion policy and what this entails can be found on our Responsible Gambling page.

We offer players the option to self exclude automatically via a link on this page: https://casino.betreels.com/lobby/betreels/reader/footer/responsibleGambling. For manual requests via email we ask that players allow up to 72 hours for us to implement the request.

We have made a thorough search of our database and find no further accounts registered with your personal details. There is no provision within the regulation for us to collaborate with a player's bank on the matter of self exclusion.

Should you have any further questions please do not hesitate to contact us.

Kind Regards,

[EDIT]

I then responded almost immediately with below email.

28/02/2016 13:35pm

Dear [EDIT],

So can Betreels/Netken Management confirm they will not be returning my £9,999 deposit despite an email being set over two hours earlier mentioning I had responsible gaming issues? I have a tape of our earlier conversation where you admitted my calls and live chat requests earlier did not get through because you were suffering queue's. I also have evidence that I called 0203 621 7021 at 08.52 this morning after my first two deposits were lost(£2,000 and £6,000) as I wanted to talk about my responsible gaming and also made a live chat request where agent just went offline. Feeling disorientated and lost my addiction and irrational behaviour kicked in and I made the further £9,999 deposit over two and half hours later.

Having spoken to someone from a legal stance I must realize and accept that the first two deposits totalling £8,000 are unrecoverable, however, Betreels/Netken failed in responsible gaming policy as I had no phone/chat access and my email was not read so my final deposit of £9,999 made two and half hours after alerting you to issues should have been refused as the irrational behaviour and admittal of previous responsible gaming issues should have been flagged by then.

For mediation purposes I will for sure close the case should your management refund the £9,999 deposit thus leaving me with losses of £8,000 for the morning rather than £18,000.

If Management do not want to alter their stance then I have been advised to get a complaint reference number so that I cam escalate the case to the various gaming authority/commission plus review website sites/platforms

Sincerely,

[EDIT]

Months have now passed and they have gone silent and although I hold my hand up to being 100% responsible for the first two deposits of £2,000 and £6,000, I can only see it being negligible that they take the £9,999 payment of a few hours later bearing in mind they have compelling evidence of me trying to phone, access live chat and write an email to alert them of my gaming dilemma and the only way to proceed is via raising awareness,

Sincerely,

[EDIT]

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6 Responses

ThePOGG

November 22, 2017

Hi rafa7878 - welcome back!

Your complaint is obviously of a complex nature and I need a few days to go over the details. I will revert to you in the first half of next week.

Thanks,

ThePOGG

rafa7878

November 22, 2017

Thanks Mr Pogg I appreciate that. Thankyou for your prompt reply and showing an interest in my case Sincerely [EDIT]

rafa7878

November 25, 2017

Mr Pogg. Would it be worth me contacting my mobile provider to get itemised call logs from 28th February to prove that I contacted Betreels and that call was connected and that I left a message?

ThePOGG

November 29, 2017

Hi rafa7878,

Here are my thoughts regarding your issue:

- Santander called you about these transactions because they were large. Most UK banks will put a stop on abnormally large transactions and seek verification before processing. Happened to me on Monday when purchasing a laptop from Dell for a fraction of the sums you were depositing.

- The email that you sent on the 28/02 at 09:03am relates to not being able to deposit. It does not give any indications of any type of gambling problem. If you want your account closed you need to ask for that.

- The email you received at 13:06 is a clear response to a request to Self-Exclude. Did you make this via an email that you haven't provided? Was this part of the answer machine message that you left?

My genuine opinion here is that it's unlikely you have a case. I have asked the Gambling Commission for some clarification on the expected response time to a requested account limit left via email or answering machine, but my strong suspicion is that a figure of 24 hours will be returned.

Once I receive feedback from the Gambling Commission I'll revert to you.

Thanks,

ThePOGG

rafa7878

November 29, 2017

Dear The Pogg Yet again thanks for prompt and in depth help and advice on this. No. the closing of my account was from a live chat when I asked to speak to a manager. They didn't yet hear my voice message. I tried live chat before leaving my voice message earlier in the day but no agents were available. So, I said on voice mail about gambling problem couldn't reach them via live chat and then regrettably the demons if chasing my £8,000 losses set in and I deposited a further £9,999 which would never have been allowed had they answered the phone to me or live chat to me a few hours prior as reponsible gaming measures would have kicked in. Best [EDIT]

ThePOGG

January 5, 2018

Hi rafa7878, I've had a lot of back and forth with the UKGC regarding this issue. The UKGC obviously don't comment on individual cases but the general message I've taken away from this conversation is that the time taken to act on your email would be considered reasonable. Unfortunately that would mean that there's no case for BetReels to answer here. I'm sorry we couldn't bear more positive news for you. Given the nature and degree of your issue I do want to make another offer though. At the beginning of February we will be launching a new free tool for players intended to help them control their online gambling. This tool will allow you to restrict from accessing thousands of online gambling sites for a variety of different lengths of time by stopping your device from being able to visit online gambling sites. If you'd be interested in beta testing this tool for us I would be happy to provide it to you as soon as it's finished. If you are interested let me know the devices and platforms you require (i.e. laptop/Windows, mobile/Android etc). Finally, while we cannot do anything further to help you directly with this case you may want to submit it directly to BetReel's ADR IBAS. They may not be able to help as this is a Responsible Gambling issue. If that turns out to be the case I would recommend submitting your complaint directly to the Gambling Commission. ThePOGG