caruso

On the 3rd and 10th February just past, Interwetten sportsbook and casino ran what looked like a very good promotion. The relevant text went thuswise:


The terms are quite unusual, as they state that for each €100 loss they would refund €10, or 10%. Cashbacks are usually based on net losses for the day, but this looked different. I had no idea if the text was a misrepresentation of the deal, so I decided to check it out on the second Sunday and see what was what.

Sure enough, as per the above description, for each €100 lost I was refunded €10. Up front, no waiting.

I played reasonably hard, and racked up winnings of around GBP 5000 (USD 10,000) by the close of play, at which point I transferred the money back to the sportsbook and logged out.

Next day, my account was locked.

After a non-committal series of emails, I received the following:


In essence, Interwetten say they made a mistake and we'll have all our money back, thank you very much.


There are a number of problems with this course of action:

1) The terms stated what happened: 10% of each loss amounting to €100. The text is not vague, it's categoric.


This was what was stated, and this was what happened. There was no discrepancy.

2) They state that the rebates were "wrongly issued" up front as opposed to the next day. However, this does not affect point one. Whether or not it should have been upfront or next week or next month, €10 for €100 lost does not change. The timing of the rebate is immaterial to the amount. I would still be owed €10 for each €100 lost as per the terms.

3) They state that money cannot be won with bonuses. However, the bonus credits being, at the point of their posting into my balance, my money and not bonuses, what I do with them is my business. I can win, lose, push or straight withdraw. They are my money.

This point may need further explanation for anyone not acquainted with the nature of the Chartwell bonus system – please skip this bit if your eyes start to glaze over:

Chartwell bonuses are almost always issued post-wager, ie. after you've completed whatever terms are associated with the bonus. They are not posted direct to your balance. Sometimes they ARE, however – and when you wager with a Chartwell bonus credited BEFORE the requirements are met (ie, upon deposit / transfer), any wagers you make with the bonus itself do not qualify for the bonus terms, because they are not your money yet. This is fair enough – if TERRIBLY confusing, as a pre-wager Chartwell bonus is a kind of "ghost" bonus, which exists in some ways but not in others.

However, these bonuses had no terms attached to them. As soon as they appeared as a part of the 10% rebate, they were mine as basically fully cleared and earned as per the terms - the "condition" for their receipt was simply to lose €100. As such, they are no longer "non-withdrawable bonuses". My money is my money, as is the case with any bonus whose requirements have been successfully completed, and money which is no longer anything but mine is not bound by terms relating to other types of casino money, ie. unreleased bonuses.

4) The casino uses phrases like "technical error", "false amounts" and "erroneously created", all of which is fair enough: if they made mistakes, if they set things up in a way which, in retrospect, they wish the hell they hadn't, that's all well and good. We all bollocks up occasionally – I've made a few "errors" of my own which have cost me money. However, it's my responsibility to pay for them when I make them, not someone else's. If Interwetten made "technical errors", then it's their job to accept responsibility for them.

There should not be one rule for the players and one for the casino on the basis of the casino having the money and being in a position of strength as such. That is unfair and very anti-consumer.

5) One final point:


That's over GBP 5000 you've whipped out of my account, but there's "no disadvantage".

Yup. Gotcha. That's how rich I am.

Interwetten is "regulated" by the Malta Lotteries & Gaming Authority, with whom I'll be filing a complaint in the fullness of time – I'm currently having the matter looked at by the complaints team at Sportsbook Review (Bill Dozer & Co.). I'm pessimistic that the LGA, a governmental but heavily casino affiliated body, will find in my favour, and I am hoping that there are avenues in EU law which will give me grounds to take this matter through the courts in some form. I know that such practices are covered by UK law, and after the Lucky Aces matter I know that Gibraltar law has almost identical legislation, but I don't know how actual EU law might come into play as yet.

Feedback on this would be appreciated, along with any other thoughts or opinions you may have.

eek

Sounds like they messed up with their numbers, something which you were well aware of.

The usual procedure in somewhere like Vegas is to make them pay up, at the end of the day a bet is a bet.

If you mess up in the stock market then its tuff tittie and your company has to pay millions.

That's the free market.

eek

This company is also extremely lucky insofar that a few years ago hundreds/thousands of bonus whores would have flooded into their site and raped them.

But there ain't that many advantage players left now, so the damage shouldn't be fatal.

joeyl

The least they could do is cut a deal if they have made an error.

It's not a palpable error.

GrandMaster

Let me just make sute I got this right: if you played blackjack at EUR100/hand, you would get EUR10 back immediately if you lost. This gives the player an edge of more than 4%, with suitable changes of strategy, I am sure you could make it at least 5%. Just by reading the T&C, I would have thought that they would refund 10% of the net loss for the day, or EUR10 for each whole EUR100 lost, but clearly they programmed something else into the computer. The question is whether this was a mistake or this is what they intended all along and they only realised later that it was costing them too much money. The timing of the cashback is irrelevant and they cannot penalise you for that.

How much would you have won or lost without the bonus?

caruso

It'd be impossible to say without manually totting everything up. I would guess I was down.


Not only programmed otherwise; the terms specifically state 10 for 100 on each loss, as I said above. Standard cashbacks are worded - and set up - very differently, usually along the lines of "if the house wins we will refund 10% of your total losses up to £XYZ between...and..." etc.

Not so here:

"For each EUR 100,00 loss at the Interwetten Online Casino, the customer will get EUR 10,00 Chips credited to his Interwetten Casino account."

Which is exactly what happened.


I expected to see an outcry that following Monday. Yet not a dickie bird.

joeyl

It also say's the prize credits will be removed.

thelawnet

Really?

It says "For each €100 lost, you will get €10".

That's a very odd way to write 10% of net losses.

Clearly each time you lose €100 they give you €10

Foolish promotion, but you don't catch them telling the players betting on their keno at 10% HA that they are throwing their money away.

Sirius

The terms are slightly unclear but could be seen either way. If you played blackjack then I suppose it would have been like an unlimited 20Xbonus offer on blackjack which is not really seen nowadays (especially the unlimited part). Even 20x means to totally be sure of winning (to within 3 SD's) you'd need 5000 hands. Other games would have given you a better edge though and it would approach the realms of 10x blackjack bonus offers. So basically it wasn't that much of a screw up since I remember many sites doing equivalent sort of bonuses (same edge) some years back that were basically unlimited.


By the way, that promotion is still in the google cache of the page but it's been removed from the current site.