Gambling Grumbles

Big Dollar Casino
No violation, no payout
by Steve Russo
May 2010

The casino's name may be "Big Dollar" but it seems like it makes "little sense" to play there.

No one has ever accused Georgios O of Athens of breaking any of Big Dollar Casino's rules but that hasn't stopped the casino from refusing to send him the 19991 Euros it owes him.

"On March 29th I registered and played at the casino," Georgios told us. "I won 19991 Euros and proceeded to make a withdrawal of 5000 Euros".

He sent the casino the required identification and then waited in vain for the withdrawal or any reply.

Nothing. Zero. Nada.

A week later he opened a live chat session and was told that he had been flagged as a "bonus abuser". When he sought more information, they replied that they had "technical issues" and he would have to wait a few more days.

When he did manage to get ahold of someone, he was told that they had "been trying to get ahold of me through the phone because they had information via an organisation (which they refused to reveal the name of) that I had been doing irregular plays on other casinos.

"Also they informed that since they couldn't get ahold of me on the phone they decided to cancel my withdrawal, confiscate my winnings and refund my deposit."

Finally, he said, on April 20th he spoke with the casino's fraud manager "who informed me that while I had not made any irregular plays on their casino and I had not violated any terms their decision still stood. He told me basically that since in their website it is stated that the casino can cancel any winnings based on irregular plays and behaviour that is their decision."

Georgios told us that he played "fully in compliance to their terms and I didn't do anything unusual" nor did he have any charge backs.

"As a matter of fact in all the casinos I have played I haven't done any charge backs and I always provided any documents they needed".

Did you notice something missing in this report? For example -- the casino's side of the story. Gambling Grumbles always contacts a casino before posting a report. For one thing, we consider it only fair and, perhaps even more importantly, our first goal is to try to mediate a dispute. That means talking with both sides.

Big Dollar, however, didn't even bother replying to us.