Casino Extreme - Failure to adhere to Responsible Gaming, did not allow player to self exclude, continued to send promotional material

Ruling

Declined - If you choose to play with weakly licensed, or unlicensed, operators the protections they will offer against gambling addiction will be minimal. Our intervention won't change that.

Read our Casino Extreme Review.

Player's Complaint

Firstly, I wanted to thank you for the service you provide and the great deal of assistance and value you bring to the online gambling community - thank you.

Back in 2019, I joined sister casinos Extreme and Brango. I was a chronic gambling addict and lost over $80,000 in 3 months.

Although I did not originally discuss having a gambling addiction, my patterns clearly showed it - I gambled for hours every single day, losing thousands.

The casino exhibited predatory behaviour to maximise my losses, such as limiting my use of match bonuses to 2 per day, then any thereafter in order to receive a match bonus I had to deposit a minimum amount of $150 and $250 (different percentage match applying to each).

Most minimum deposits are $20, so this alone shows their predatory behaviour.

I referenced to the pit boss having lost over $50,000 in 2 months. They were very well aware of my blatant gambling issue, despite not saying the words.

In addition to my gambling problem there were customer service issues and stingy responses to wanting chips.

On 8 October after being tired of how much money I was losing, how terrible they were to deal with and how depressed I was getting, I asked to permanently close my accounts, which was actioned but the casino manager.

I then responded stating I wanted to ensure the account closures for casino extreme and brango were both permanent and that I wanted to self exclude.

He advised I could do this for a set period or permanently. I requested permanent, and asked for my cashbacks up to that point which was fair.

Unfortunately he advised they can’t open and close an account in a day, so to give me my cashbacks I would have to then come back the next day and request the self exclusion again….

He could have just left a reminder for himself, but he knew how much I was spending and didn’t want that to end.

Unfortunately after asking to self exclude, the single only change the casino made was to cease sending me me deposit confirmation emails for me to track how much I was losing, which is so predatory it is unbelievable. I brought this to their attention on countless occasions via both chat and email, of which I have all the records of, but they just kept putting me off over and over and still to this day have never provided my deposit history which I have asked for via email 9 times.

After the self exclusion request on 8 October 2019, of course I didn’t come back the next day to action it, they left it open, stopped sending me deposit confirmations and allowed me to continue losing several thousands more.

Although I didn’t use the term gambling addiction on that date, as I said I okayed every single day at both casinos, losing approx $25,000 AUD a month for 3-4 months.

Throughout October and November I referenced my gambling addiction to the casino several times, discussing how I had tried to self exclude, I was a gambling addict and how they manipulated my addiction into maximum profits for themselves.

I even referenced wanting to milk myself at one point due to my addiction.

I had already had my account closed that day when I requested to self exclude and permanently - I obviously know the difference between an account closure and permanent self exclusion.

Both casino Brango and casino extreme continued to send me promotional material after this date.

They have also started resending them recently, casino Brango is sending them every second day, despite knowing I’m a gambling addict.

It is only because of this unconscionable behaviour that I am now logging a complaint, as I want to draw attention to their predatory behaviour.

I wanted to lodge a complaint at the time, but as I said, I tried countless times to get a deposit history and they just continued saying my information was deleted the day I told them I was a gambling addict, to protect their casino.

I would greatly appreciate your help as the massive minion deposit amounts, deliberately keeping my account open after self exclusion request, sending me promotional material, and deliberately stopping sending deposit confirmations when I asked to self exclude is all so incredibly disappointing as an addict.

I have worked hard to stop playing, and I haven’t touched an online casino in 2 years, which I’m proud of, but the emails coming through have caused me to hit my local casino the past month since their promotional emails commenced again.

I can provide supporting documents to back every single claim I have included in this complaint, and I look forward to working with you on this.

Thank you again. Please advise me what documents you require as I have collated it all.

Read the casino review

3 Responses