I had completed my research some time ago (close to the time I made the post you reference). But, as I stated previously, I wanted a lawyer to review the facts of the situation an provide an opinion before posting a final response in this thread. Unfortunately, that process has been drawn out substantially longer than I had anticipated would be the case.
Because of that delay I have decided to post an an excerpt from the beginning of my draft findings, but not all of the findings and not any conclusions from those findings. Please note that I refer to Marko6 as Marko in the material below. Here goes:
Excerpt from Draft Findings
I view the proper handling of problem gambling-related issues as extremely important. On that basis I took a personal interest in investigating the questions and issues raised in this thread.
Over the past several months I have engaged in extensive research and developed a thorough understanding of the various factors raised in this thread. There have been over 80 private messages between Marko and myself, about 15 email communications with representatives of Playtech plus a discussion with a Playtech representative at the EiG conference, and over 75 email exchanges with Club Gold.
Discussions with Playtech
Within this forum thread it was suggested that Playtech should have access to the chat logs and that they should be able to investigate and rule on the matter. Marko told me that Playtech responded to his request that they investigate the situation on 2 October 2013 as follows:
However, just one day after this thread was started, on 27 August 2013, Club Gold posted that they were willing to provide access to such information to the GPWA:Our team who have a relationship with Club Gold Casino have passed on your complaints to the operators and I understand that they dispute your version of events.
I am afraid that we do not have records of e-mails between you and the operator and although it would be theoretically technically possible for Playtech to access the chat logs from the back end of the system, these logs and all other player data are the property of Club Gold Casino.
We cannot therefore go into the system, access these logs and pass them to you, without proper authorisation. To do so would be a breach of our contract with Club Gold Casino and in breach of Data Protection Laws. We are under contract with Club Gold Casino who will not allow us to go into the system and pass logs to you.
We do understand the difficulty you are in, but the right course of action for you would be either to seek redress through the regulator in Curacao or agree with Club Gold to submit your claim to some kind of independent adjudication or finally, under the terms & condition, seek legal redress against the operator.
Because of this, I was optimistic that the same access would be provided to Playtech for the purpose of investigating the complaint. Consequently I had a number of communications with both Club Gold and Playtech to explore that possibility, hoping that Playtech would subsequently make a public statement on the matter.
What is now very clear to me, based on those communications, is that Playtech takes both the conduct of their operators and problem gambling issues extremely seriously. However, it is also equally clear to me that Playtech correctly understands they are not a regulator. Personally, knowing what I know now, if I were legal counsel to Playtech, I would advise them that they (1) should support regulatory agencies by providing the information they might require to rule on issues, (2) should use information found in investigations they might conduct to determine if the standards they require are being followed and if business relationships should be continued, and (3) should not themselves make public statements directly regarding specific player issues. Indeed, I am not aware of such statements ever having been made by Playtech.
Review of Chat Logs for Explicit Statements of Problem Gambling
Accordingly, in subsequent discussions with Club Gold it was confirmed that they would provide full access to Marko’s chat logs, as authorized by him, for purposes of my investigation. It was agreed that I would remotely view the logs using a product called Teamviewer. From a technical perspective, the Teamviewer product allowed me to connect to a Club Gold computer that had access to the chat logs, and to remotely control the computer including scrolling through the complete set of chat logs and performing searches for specific strings within the chat logs.
One of my primary objectives in reviewing the chat logs was to determine if any requests had been made that should have resulted in Marko’s account being closed due to his having raised problem gambling issues. My personal view is that problem gambling based requests should be taken very seriously and honored immediately, and that there should be accountability for any failure to take such a request seriously.
I began my review of the chat logs by performing searches for various terms including “problem,” “issue,” “gambling,” “compulsive,” etc., that would identify areas within the chat logs that were the most relevant. Subsequent to my initial overview I also carefully reviewed each of the more than 5,000 entries in Marko’s chat logs in chronological order to ensure I understood the complete context of every exchange that had taken place.
I found only one exchange in the chat log where I viewed Marko clearly indicating he had a gambling problem. The exchange took place on 5 June 2013. Marko began the chat with the following statement: "Is it possible to lock my account, so that I CANNOT open it again? I have a reason: I have a gambling problem." Six minutes later, after a brief exchange, including an email confirming that the account should be permanently closed, Club Gold confirmed closure both in the chat session and with a follow-up confirming email.
Review of Deposits and Withdrawals
I also looked at logs of deposits and withdrawals to determine if those were indicative of a problem gambling issue. Those records showed scheduled withdrawals of €5,000 each month from November 2012 through June 2013 for total withdrawals of winnings of 35,000 Euros. In that same time period deposits totaling €10,549 were made: €450 in December, €1,100 in January, €1,700 in February, €1,300 in March, €399 in April, €600 in May, and €5,000 in June. It was immediately after Marko lost all of the winnings he had withdrawn in May and redeposited at the beginning of June, that he requested his account be closed stating that he had a gambling problem.
Review of Setting and Removal of Self Imposed Gambling Limits
Marko did seem to set self-imposed limits on deposits and session-times virtually every time he gambled. Most chat sessions began with a request to remove self-imposed limits he had set at the end of a previous session, typically after first asking which bonuses were available to him. Sometimes, if he was not happy with the bonus offer available to him, he would decide not to play, and would not ask that the limits he had previously set to disallow future play be removed. In total I counted over 80 requests for limits to be removed. Once in October, 6 times in November, 15 times in December, 16 times in January, 13 times in February, 14 times in March, 7 times in April, 7 times in May, and 3 times in June. While it is clear Marko had to explicitly request that self-imposed limits be removed, and could not change them on his own, in most cases limits were changed when requested without significant delay beyond the time required to send a confirming email message
After carefully reading the logs I decided to research responsible gambling practices with respect to self-imposed limits because I was concerned about the ease with which I saw they were removed. A common theme I found among those who thoughtfully considered the matter was that there should be some cooling off period between when a request to remove limits is made and when the limits are actually removed. As an example, the Remote Gambling Association (RGA) currently recommends that once a self-imposed limit is set, it should only be relaxed after 24 hours notice. This is recommendation 67, given on page 11 within the RGA publication titled "Technical issues: Good practice guidelines for the remote gambling industry."
Armed with this information I asked Club Gold about their business practices with respect to self-imposed limits. I told them that while the RGA guidelines were only suggested guidelines, even for RGA members, I viewed they represented a reasonable best practice with respect to self-imposed limits that they would be well advised to consider. I received the following response:
Review of Payout DiscussionsThe issue of problem gambling is one which is taken very seriously by Club Gold Casino and it has always been one of our top priorities to offer all possible assistance to any player who feels that he/she may be the subject of a possible gambling problem. While it is true that we did not have any policy in place with respect to a cooling off period following player requests for the removal of self-imposed limits at the time of the interaction with Marko, Marko's case actually acted as a prompt for us to consider such a policy. We are pleased to advise that since August this year, a 7 day cooling off period has actually been implemented in respect of all requests for the removal of self-imposed limits by players.
I also investigated the question of payouts, and whether Marko had been told he was required to keep his account open and continue to submit requests each month in order to receive his balance. I view the most important chat on this topic took place on 26 October 2012 immediately after Marko won 50,000 Euros. In the chat Marko posed the following question: "On what webpage can I read all about your withdrawal rules?" to which Club Gold responded "http://www.clubgoldcasino.com/terms-conditions/"
The relevant provisions from the terms and conditions page are quoted below:
Since terms and conditions sometimes change, I used the archive.org website to determine if the relevant terms were different in October 2012 at the time of Marko’s win. In fact, I confirmed that these terms and conditions have remained unchanged since at least 2 May 2012, as shown in the archived version of the terms and conditions page made effective that date and available at the following url:Originally Posted by TermsAndConditions
https://web.archive.org/web/20120502215330/http://www.clubgoldcasino.com/terms-conditions/
Paragraph 3.19 of the terms and conditions states explicitly that funds in a player account will be paid out after a player account is closed, and that there is no requirement for a player account to remain open for the balance to be received. In the chat sessions there were extended discussions about creating withdrawal requests, about the reversal of withdrawal requests, and about claiming bonuses for reversing withdrawal requests in the context of an open account. There were also extended discussions regarding withdrawal limits. However, there was no discussion of closing the account, how account closure was handled, or any discussion that contradicted the terms and conditions quoted above.
Findings Incomplete
The above findings are incomplete in several respects.
1. They do not cover unavailability of games.
2. They do not cover the specifics of Marko's claims.
3. They do not present any conclusions with respect to Club Gold, or with respect to Marko's claims.
Thread Locked
From my perspective, I had a choice to make. I could have deferred posting additional information before the findings were completed. However, because of the long delay, I felt that was no longer appropriate. However, I am also about to attend the iGaming North America conference this coming week, and additionally I don't really feel it is appropriate to discuss partial findings until full findings are available, or when I cannot devote the time to respond to them. Consequently, in the interest of making partial findings available on an interim basis, I am locking the thread at the present time even though the full findings are not yet posted.
In the meantime, I welcome feedback in the form of private messages to me, although please understand that it will probably be slightly more than a week until I am able to respond to them. If you do sent a private message to me on this topic, I will assume it is acceptable for me to post your comments on the topic in this thread if I should choose to do so unless you explicitly tell me otherwise.
Michael