William Hill Casino Club - Please help - casino not paying out

Hi Jdsports60 - welcome to ThePOGG.com!

Before I can do anything to help you I need you to provide your username and email address at both William Hill Casino Club and 21Nova.

I will state in advance that the William Hill group are typically non-cooperative with complaints, so I don't expect to make any progress, but I'll be happy to try.

Thanks,

ThePOGG

Hi Jdsports60,

I've heard back from William Hill Casino Club and as expected they're unwilling to discuss any aspect of this complaint with us.

They have quoted the following terms in reference to the issue;

11. COLLUSION, CHEATING, FRAUD AND CRIMINAL ACTIVITY

The following practices (or any of them) in relation to the Service:

abuse of bonuses or other promotions; and/or

using unfair external factors or influences (commonly known as cheating); and/or

taking unfair advantage (as defined in paragraph 11.5.3); and/or

opening any Duplicate Accounts; and/or

undertaking fraudulent practice or criminal activity y (as defined in paragraph 11.5)

constitute " Prohibited Practices" and are not permitted and will constitute a material breach of the Terms of Use. We will take all reasonable steps to prevent and detect such practices and to identify the relevant players concerned if they do occur. Subject to the above, however, we will not be liable for any loss or damage which You may incur as a result of any Prohibited Practices, and any action we take in respect of the same will be at our sole discretion

If You suspect a person is engaged in any Prohibited Practice, You shall as soon as reasonably practicable report it to us by e-mailing us or telephoning Customer Service

You agree that You shall not participate in or be connected with any form of Prohibited Practice in connection with Your access to or use of the Service

If:

we have reasonable grounds to believe that You have participated in or have been connected with any form of Prohibited Practice (and the basis of our belief shall include the use by us (and by our gaming partners and our other suppliers) of any fraud, cheating and collusion detection practices which are used in the gambling and gaming industry at the relevant time); or

You have played online games with any other online provider of gambling services and are suspected (as a result of such play) of any Prohibited Practice, or otherwise improper activity; or

we become aware that You have "charged back" or denied any of the purchases or deposits that You made to Your Account; or

in our reasonable opinion your continued use of the Services may be detrimental to our regulated status, including our continued ability to be licensed by the Gambling Commission and/or the Gibraltar Gambling Commissioner; or

You become bankrupt or suffer analogous proceedings anywhere in the world

then, (including in connection with any suspension and/or termination of Your Account) we shall have the right, in respect of Your Account (and/or any other account held by You with an Operator Group company) to withhold the whole or part of the balance and/or recover from the account the amount of any deposits, pay-outs, bonuses or winnings which have been affected by or are in any way attributable to any of the event(s) contemplated in this paragraph 11.4. The rights set out in this paragraph 11.4 are without prejudice to any other rights (including any common law rights) that we may have against You, whether under the Terms of Use or otherwise.

For the purposes of this paragraph 11:

" fraudulent practice" means any fraudulent activity engaged in by You or by any person acting on Your behalf or in collusion with You, and shall include, without limitation: (a) fraudulent charge-backs and rake-back activity; (b) the use by You or any other person who was participating in the same game as You at any time, of a stolen, cloned or otherwise unauthorised credit or debit card, as a source of funds; (c) the collusion by You with others in order to gain an unfair advantage (including through bonus schemes or similar incentives offered by us); (d) any attempt to register false or misleading account information; and (e) any actual or attempted act by You which is reasonably deemed by us to be illegal in any applicable jurisdiction, made in bad faith, or intended to defraud us and/or circumvent any contractual or legal restrictions, regardless of whether such act or attempted act actually causes us any damage or harm;

" criminal activity" shall include, without limitation, money laundering and any offence under section 42 of the Gambling Act 2005; and

" unfair advantage" shall include, without limitation:

the exploitation of a fault, loophole or error in our or any third party's software used by You in connection with the Services (including in respect of any game);

the use of Bots for poker games and/or for skill games and for any other use which would otherwise constitute any other Prohibited Practices;

the use of third party software or analysis systems; or

the exploitation by You of an Error as defined in paragraph 18.1 below,

in any case either to Your advantage and/or to the disadvantage of us or others.

In exercising any of our rights under paragraph 11.4 in relation to a Prohibited Practice, we shall use all reasonable endeavours to ensure that, while complying with our regulatory and other legal obligations, we exercise such rights in a manner which is fair to You and to our other customers.

We reserve the right to inform relevant authorities, other online gaming or gambling operators, other online service providers and banks, credit card companies, electronic payment providers or other financial institutions of Your identity and of any suspected Prohibited Practice by You, and You shall cooperate fully with us to investigate any such activity.

The above terms don't tell us a lot. It's a list of 'prohibited practices' with a wide range of possibilities. What does concern me in the context of a complaint where the player has been told they've been involved in 'promotion abuse' is the phrase "abuse of bonuses" without definition of what constitutes "abuse".

Essentially the casino haven't made any effort to give any idea as to what their problem is here. There's a lot of potential situations covered by the above terms and we don't have any reasonable way to determine which is appropriate here.

William Hill Casino Club have asked us to forward you on to their internal complaint system by emailing [email protected]

Beyond that I would recommend contacting their stated Alternative Dispute Resolution service IBAS (you can find their details at http://www.ibas-uk.com/).

Sorry we could not be of more help in this situation.

ThePOGG