Gambling Grumbles

BetSafe Casino
The right answer from the right man
by Steve Russo
June 2010

Sometimes, a casino reacts so quickly to an inquiry sent by Gambling Grumbles that it makes up for all the times that getting some other casinos to treat their customers fairly seem like pulling teeth.

That was the case with Betsafe's response to the problem that Sonja C, of Queensland, Australia had. Less than 24 hours after we wrote to them, we were told that Sonja will get paid.

Sonja had deposited 100 Euros, won another 73, and tried to cash out. She sent the casino her driver's license as proof of identity but they demanded, also, a copy of her passport.

Sonja said that the customer service rep she spoke with "refuses to do anything without my passport which he says he needs to verify my account. I asked how can he verify my passport if he couldn't verify my licence, which is also official ID from Queensland.

"He ignored that question. I told him it was inconvenient for me to get the passport and he didn't care. I asked him what if I didn't have a passport and he responded, 'you accepted these rules when you created your account. End of discussion. Please just send it in for verification and after that you will not have any more trouble regarding this.'"

This is not the first time that Gambling Grumbles has had a complaint about casinos requiring copies passports. Not only do a lot of players not have one, but many people are very hesitant about sending them -- in our opinion, rightly so.

The answer we received from John, the casino's finance manager, did not really get into that issue but did give Sonja what she wanted: her money.

"We will always run an additional KYC-procedure for customers based outside our main markets, generally doesn’t fit our customer segmentation or we find suspicious activity," John told us.

"For the case in question, my team has just followed their guidelines and I was never consulted on the issue. I’m familiar with Queensland ID-papers and can confirm that they are ok.

"We will inform the customer that her account has been verified and she may now proceed with her withdrawal".