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Confiscation of huge 19.55 BTC win won from their Wednesday free spins promo


This Wednesday I participated in the Wednesday free spin bonus offered by Bitstarz, which I frequently take part in. It requires a 150 euro deposit, and IF and ONLY IF you wager the amount of your deposit, you receive 80 free spins. I did meet the wagering, in fact I confirmed with their customer service on Wednesday that I met the wagering requirement and they confirmed I more than met it.

I noticed the free spin bonus was not credited the next day by the deadline, so i contacted their support. They advised that they have now added the 80 free spin bonus, and they I would need to play it on Game Art's "Dragon King." I thanked them, and went to my profile were the bonus titled "Dragon King" was available to claim.

I claimed it, and proceeded to play, and was very excited to win 19.55 BTC!

I then carefully reviewed the bonus terms, and proceeded to work towards meeting the wagering requirement, which I did for several days. I brought the balance down to 16 BTC, then up to 24 BTC, then down to 14 BTC, and was at around 7-8% wagering met around 3 days into the win. I was excited, having fun, and felt I had a chance to meet the play through requirement within the 30 day deadline. I was careful to bet within the specified limits, etc., and follow all terms.

To my extreme disappointment I logged into Bitstarz today to play, and saw that my BTC balance was 0. I had no email, no call, no message from them, just a 0 balance.

I immediately contacted their chat customer service, roughly an hour ago, and was informed that they had given me the bonus for the wrong game. They claim the "Dragon King" free spin Bonus is not to be used on the Dragon King game, and that they should have given me a bonus for different games instead. They insisted they had to cancel the bonus, since it was an "error."

I explained that was very unfair, especially considering their customer service specifically told me by chat that I had to play the game on Dragon King, that the bonus was called Dragon King, and that I proceeded to play and win on Dragon King. I also told them I am sure if I lost with that bonus they would not have given me 80 free spins on another game, and that it is clear they are only taking this back since I won big (19.55 BTC) using the bonus that I had earned.

They had me wait a while, and then came back to the chat and claimed that the win was also an error, that it paid more than it should have.

So they are asking me to believe (1) it was an error that they specifically told me I had to play the Dragon King game for my 80 free spins (2) that the bonus they credited to my account called "Dragon King Bonus" was not to be played on Dragon King (3) that their system was in error by allowing me to use the 80 free spins on Dragon King (when I opened the game the 80 free spin banner came up and it proceeded to let me play the spins on that game), and (4) that the win itself was also an error.

Furthermore it took them around 3 days to take the money back. As my bonus balance rose up to 24 BTC that must have worried them, since it seemed I was on my way to earning the bonus. And they took the bonus without telling me, no email, no call, no message. I had to contact them when I logged in and my balance was 0.

They are offering me 80 free spins on another game now, which I feel is totally ridiculous.

In my opinion, since they told me I had to play on this game, since the bonus was titled the name of the game I played, and since I won on this game, they should have to honor the bonus and let me continue with my play through to see if I am lucky enough to earn it. Since this was not a free bonus. It was not a no deposit bonus. It is a bonus I had to deposit 150 euro and playthrough 100% to earn. And i successfully did so, as I do frequently (and often loose my 150 euro in the process). Since this is a bonus I paid to earn, I don't feel its fair to just take it back. And I did not violate any of their terms, I did everything right, so it really is totally unfair.

How can they claim all of the error above and also claim even the payout was an error? Can there be that many errors stacked upon each other? I feel they were sure no one would win that much in Dragon King (although it has been done before at other casinos I have found through some research), and that is why they made me play my free spins on that game. Then when I won big, they claimed the bonus was in error, and should have been for other games. And when i questioned the fairness of that, since they themselves told me I had to play on Dragon King and thats the name of the bonus they gave me, they came up with another out which was "payout error."

I spent probably 25 hours playing intensely trying to meet the wagering (with 27 days to go), and all of that time, the excitement of the win, tell everyone I know how great they are, it was all crushed when I logged in today and saw a 0 balance with no explanation.

I hope you can help me reach a favorable outcome. Why would anyone try to earn these bonuses knowing that if you win big they will take the money, even though you comply with all of their terms? They should credit the bonus back, and let me try to earn it. It won't be easy, but then at least it is fair. Otherwise, of course I will never play there again, why would I, knowing if I win big on bonus or real money they will try to get out of it.

Thank you for your help.
Disputed Casino BitStarz Casino
Reason Other

Discussion

User name
Based on submitter's last post AskGamblers Complaints Team consider this case as Resolved and it is officially closed now.

Thank you all for your cooperation.
User name loyalty-level-2
Hello BitStarz, and thank you for the detailed and informative reply. I appreciate the transparency you have provided, and the explanation that helps me understand the nuts and bolts behind what happened. I have to admit I was surprised by your reply, I expected something far less cooperative and thoughtful. Now that I understand what happened, and the timing of my chat with customer service which apparently was just after the money was deducted from my account, by coincidence, I am satisfied with the outcome and would like to withdraw my complaint. Given your handling of this disappointing yet understandable situation, you certainly stand out from others and set a positive industry standard. I will be back, and as far as your offer of the 1 BTC that can be withdrawn with no play through requirement, I certainly do appreciate that concession. I just hope for your sake I don't end up playing with those funds rather than withdrawing and winning 19 BTC again, which is certainly possible :)

Thank you.
User name
Hi there,

First of all, we're extremely sorry about having to make this confiscation due to this malfunction,
I know an apology is a very small consolation when you've just had money deducted from your account
but with that being said, I think it's important that you receive an explanation as to why it was made in
the first place.

1. We normally don't notice bonus wins until a player would complete the wagering requirement so the bonus gets converted to real money ,or make a cash out. That's when we normally do our checks. The reason we discovered this earlier was a pure coincidence.

2. Once we noticed a really high bonus release as a a result from playing 80 free spins we were quite surprised. Even more after pulling some numbers together. If a player is having 80 free spins on bet value 0.25 mBTC. To get a total amount of almost 20 000 mBTC in 80 free spins this would mean you would have on average 80 wins with 1000 x multiplier. Or several wins high over 1000 x multiplier. We've been playing slots for years and I have never heard, read or came close to something so impressive and at the same time unbelievable as this. So we did a small test. I credited myself 20 free spins to see if I could get lucky as well and land some 1000x multipliers. After playing few spins I saw small wins of 0.5 mBTC, 2 mBTC, etc everything seemed to be normal except my balance was 5.8 BTC. I took immediately a screenshot of this http:/­/ww­w.s­cre­enc­ast.co­m/t­/f8­l2b­eymfhv

You can see that my 5.8 mBTC win was presented as 5800 mBTC win. After experiencing this, the 20 BTC win didn't seemed so impressive as it was clear that it was probably just 20 mBTC. We immediately reported this to GameArt (which is the game developer of Dragon King) to double check the behaviour of free spins and they have confirmed that indeed the wins are being added with 1000 multiplier when playing free spins. They have also sent over the screenshot visible from their end where you can see that from a win of 0.1 mBTC i got 100 mBTC - http:/­/sc­ree­nca­st.c­om­/t/­Xi1­LHV­aXbpLa.

As the bug was confirmed, we felt it was fair to immediately let you know about this and to cancel the bonus. Our support was briefed about the situation and was just about to send you an email when you have came to online chat. The time span between us canceling the bonus and us sending you the newsletter would be perhaps 5 min. We canceled the bonus because we didn't want you to waste any more of your time and we felt you should know about this immediately.

3. From 80 free spins you have received from us you have won around 20 mBTC were due to Softswiss - Platform provider Free spins integration bug they were wrongly shown as 1000x more.

I do understand how disappointing it must have been to learn this news from us after so many hours of play for which we are again very sorry. On a good note you have played and spent 6 BTC of bonus (I don't think anybody has received that much bonus so far for only depositing one day earlier).

5. The reason there is so many big wins from one player is because that particular player was playing max bets on all games with an extensive bankroll for quite a long period of time. We plan to change the top winner list in the future to show only players best (highest) win instead of listing his all wins. So it will enable other players to be listed there as well.

Let me just explain again that this is the first time we have experienced such malfunction in the casino platform and the main reason for this issue was that untested version of free spins functionality for GameArt games that was released by our platform provider Softswiss. This functionality worked correctly for EUR, AUD and other real money currencies but was incorrect for BTC wagering. While game provider gave to softswiss the correct result of the game win (The game worked at all time correctly) the platform provider who receives this information about win for every spin has mistakenly multiplied this result by 1000 multiplier. Also to note that this malfunction affected only manually given free spins on GameArt games. We have checked in our logs and only 2 players have received this GameArt free spins in BTC currency. The other player won 1.5 BTC bonus (1.5 mBTC) but spent the bonus before he managed to cash out so we didn't notice it.

We received a statement from the CEO of our platform provider SoftSwiss to confirm this unfortunate bug: http:/­/ww­w.s­cre­enc­ast.co­m/t­/vM­Qeo­YvsGTz and furthermore, you can also find proof from our conversation
with GameArt: http:/­/ww­w.s­cre­enc­ast.co­m/t­/p3­WtG­ZrplzBY

On top of this, we also asked GameArt for an export of your game rounds so you can cross-reference
this, which can be found in an attachment here: https:­//w­ww.b­it­sta­rz.c­om­/sy­ste­m/c­omf­y/c­ms/­fil­es/­fil­es/­000­/00­1/9­25/­ori­gin­al/­102­451.xlsx

We just want to end this by saying that we are again extremely sorry about this malfunction, but
as our terms and conditions states:

"4.10
Bitstarz.com reserves the right to declare a wager void partially or in full if Bitstarz.com, at its own discretion, would deem it obvious that any of the following circumstances have occurred:

4.10.5
- due to an error, such as a mistake, misprint, technical error, force majeure or otherwise, wagers have been offered, placed and or accepted due to this error."

With that being said however, we're very sorry this occurred and we understand if you are extremely disappointed,
just as we are that this could happen. With that being said, we've decided to give you 1 BTC in pure cash for the inconvenience,
this which you can withdraw right away. All we ask is that you go to Customer Support via Live Chat and ask for it to be credited
to your account.

If you have any other questions, don't hesitate letting us know.

Kind Regards,

BitStarz

BitStarz Casino Complaint Stats

Resolved 18 / 18
Avg. Amount $2,639
Avg. Complaint Duration 3 days
Avg. Response Time 1 day

BitStarz Casino Complaints

See all complaints for this casino
Original Deposit Not Returned After Failed Verification

Good day

I have an issue with BitStarz Bitcoin Online Casino.

On the 28th of December 2020 I requested a withdrawal after making 5 deposits into my BitStarz online casino account. In total it was 9.89678893 BTC.

Here is the Bitcoin Address I paid to and the Blockchain link showing the transactions.

Address: 37wzzF7M1NZVpVRhimXhS4pebXRiwRPyxp

https://www.blockchain.com/btc/address/37wzzF7M1NZVpVRhimXhS4pebXRiwRPyxp


During my gambling session, I won roughly 30 BTC. I made a withdrawal request and shortly after I received an email from Sean at from BitStarz Support (Ticket #W82TG) asking for Verification Documents.

I then sent what they requested.

- A copy of my passport.

- A photo of my face (selfie) with my government issued passport with a paper with the word Bitstarz and the date.

- My proof of address.

Doing that already made me uncomfortable because the whole reason for using Bitcoin is to stay anonymous. However, I did as they requested.

Later that day, I received a phone call from one of the Bitstarz support / finance department personal. I have spoken to him and he seemed satisfied.

Yes, after all of this, they reversed my withdrawal. I had over 40 BTC in my account. During some more gambling, I have lost and my remaining balance was +- 22 BTC.

After this, I received an email saying that they are blocking my account until they are satisfied with my verification. Which I've already sent to them.

As things stand now, my account is blocked. I cannot get access to the +- 12 BTC I've won, not even my own 9.89678893 BTC that I have deposited.

After numerous emails back and forth, I have requested that they return my original 9.89678893 BTC to the original address that I've sent it from. In turn, I received an email saying that they have seized the BTC.

In my layman understanding of this is that they are not satisfied with my verification and refuse to return my original BTC to the original address it was sent from. In other words, they literally stole 9.89678893 BTC from me. I have done what they asked and they still are not satisfied.

I humbly request that you assist me in this matter. 9.89678893 BTC is a lot of money that I cannot just write off. They said something in one of the emails about AML legislation etc which is absolutely ridiculous. All I ask is that they return my original 9.89678893 BTC to the addresses it was sent from then there is no AML issues at all. Yes, they refuse and by the looks of things they want to steel my 9.89678893 BTC and the winnings on top of that.

I really hope that you would be able to assist me in this matter.

Kind regards,

Petrus < surname removed >

Status rejected Rejected
BTC10
Unjustified duplicate account accusations and confiscated winnings
Hi, I write to you from Denmark with an issue with Bitstarz. They refuse to cooperate on this mattter.

A couple of days ago I signed up on 2 Direx N.V. casinos , Bitstarz (and Golden Star), where I deposited and played.
I actually checked on here that they accept players from Denmark, which they do.

On my second deposit of 100 EUR started to get some winnings, and made an withdrawal of EUR 2000 .
I got an email asking for the verification documents, which I provided instantly. (attached)
I later cancelled the withdrawal and ended up winning more, and withdrawed in total EUR 3800.
Now this is when the nightmare starts.

I got an email from support stating that I have played using 2 accounts, and have used the welcome bonus 2 times,
and gives me an email and an fake ID issued in the UK. (see comments) I thought I'd faint , as this is very serious.


Now, the fact is that I live in Denmark , it's not my email , and I have not registered an account in the UK that I play with.

Even though IF the fact were that I lived in the UK and in some way had an account, I still would not be able to play on BitStarz as stated in their T&C. 3.7

"If you are a player from Spain, Sweden, France, the UK, The Netherlands, Dutch West Indies and Curacao, US or any of its states, you won't be allowed to play real money wagering games including bitcoins."

I have asked them to send all the details for the supposed active second account, but they refuse to cooperate, and are threatening me, with that I should withdraw 100 EUR or I will loose them as well. (see comments in the conversation)

They falsely accuse me of playing on duplicate accounts using the same danish IP address, which I have asked for proof of, but they refuse to send this , and only (repetedly) ask me to withdraw 100 EUR so they can close my account. I have also asked for logs when "I" have been logged in on this other account, dates and times. They do not want to send anything I ask for, and I am in shock over the whole situation. This is a behaviour I have never encountered before.

I refer to their T&C 6.3
"In the event of any dispute, you agree that the records of the server shall act as the final authority in determining the outcome of any claim."

As they don't want to provide records of the duplicate account, the dispute is only looked at from their side.


If looking further at the T&C's it says that only one account per IP, household and PC is allowed. That is of course standard for any casino, - I am always aware of the casino TC's. But in this situation it doesn't add up , they do not wish to cooperate, and I am left frustrated and sad that people can be like this.

Thankful for any help.
Status rejected Rejected
€3,800
Inadequate assistance with a game glitch

Bitstar game "The Nutcracker kicker me out up in getting 5 x free spin symbols after putting several thousand dollars into the machines.

Issue occurred Friday 6 Sept 2019 @15:54pm. at the time I had 17 free games remaining an was already on a x 4 win multiplier with 17 games remaining. Butstarz strung me along telling me that I would receive an email and that the game would be fixed and finally telling me almost 3 days later that I could log in and culd resume my feature if I again removed all cookies and history and did a fresh log in or used another device. I dd this repeatedly for several more days loging in daily and advising again that the game would allow me back in:

Customer Service last message was on Mon, 09/09/19 12:14 pm saying that the game had been fixed.

I followed up imediately 10 minutes later o@ Mon, 09/09/19 12:25 pm advising that the game kept booting me despite the instructions I'd been given having been completed repeatedly. Supplying both error screen shots and asking for resolution.

I then follow up via the ticket lof and I believe via support aswell checking the game on a daily basis. Post Bitstarz last contact I have email message via the ticket on the following dates:

4 Days +6 hrs Tuesday, 10 September 2019 10:41:06 pm - My free games still hasn’t returned, I can log in to the game but no free spins, and

upon attempting to spin the reels I get the attached error message. Further screen shots attached showing the error messages received proving issue not resolved and asking for a url I might be able to access the game through manually.

"6 Days + 16 Hours after incident "Friday 13 September message saying that it is almost a week and I hadn;t heard from anyone since the

NO RESPONSE 2019, 2:08:22 am" previous Monday, just long enough for the deposits to clear from the CC then I didn't hear from them again in response to any of my message. Advised that isn't sorted by then i’ll lodge an official complaint with your licensing body, and report the to ask gamblers. I don’t want to take that route, But have no chouce as I;m not hearing from them. Still heard nothinig.

6 days + 19 hrs Emailed Nick Head of casino Who emailed me regarding a big winner so I responded syaing that I;ve been waiting over a week for a resolution and without any update to repeated inquiries at all for 5 days so instead of self promoting why don;t you service the customers issues. AGAIN NO Response now as of Moday september 16th haven't heard back from anyone since Mon, 09/09/19 12:14 pm, not a peep in over a week and since all the transactions cleared. Voted best casino??? What a joke.

I have all the screen shots from the game, all the communications about the issues and proof of issue game number just need an email address to send it.

Status rejected Rejected
Unjustified accusations and confiscation of deposit

BitStarz Casino,

20 Free Spins yielded a win. A maximum withdrawal amount of up to 0.3BCH after playthrough is met according to the Term Agreement. However the system would not allow me to submit a withdrawal request. The crypto address field is disabled and so I sought the assistance of a BitStarz support hero. Here comes Henry to save the day! Henry reviews the account for a minute and figured: “ To enable the withdrawal method you need to make deposit with it.” I asked how much, it was 0.14BCH (chat log attached in this email)

I made my deposit as instructed. As I waited for confirmations to complete, I realized I need to know what will happen to my deposit of 0.15BCH which was added to my post playthrough balance of .528BCH at the time. I opened chat again (spoke to Mark) and was advised to add my deposit on top of the 0.3BCH. I submitted the withdrawal in the amount of 0.45490560BCH. After the cashout confirmation email process, I received an email from Richard that said they found my account as duplicated and is a violation of BitStarz’s T&C. And all funds in my account has been seized in full, the account was also disabled and I can no longer login. I thought maybe there was a mistake and so I asked to be sent a copy or documentation of this alleged violation charged against me. BitStarz replied saying there is no charge. Claimed that multiple accounts were linked to my account and so a decision was made to confiscate the full balance. (Transcript of conversation attached with this email)

Now I’m really confused and frustrated. I have been accused of a violation but refused to provide evidence to substantiate the charge. Denied me access to my winnings and deposit monies. But no there is no charge against you. Are you serious? This is the best you can come up with? I wonder how many others experienced my situation.

Here’s another view of the scenario:

Status solved Resolved
Cannot get my winnings

I recently signed up and made several deposits using my credit cards totalling almost 1200$. I played and requested to withdraw 900. However, they wont pay me back to my credit card and only are giving me the instadebit and ecopayz options. I do not have either of those. My instadebit account was closed several years ago and cannot open another. And i dont have the ability to open an ecopayz. So they say they wont pay out my winnings. I physically cannot open those accounts/options so they told me I lost all money/deposits. I have the chat transcript where they told me this.

Andrew Thu, 04/25/19 08:33:58 pm America/Rankin_Inlet

Hello. How may I help you?

momo84 08:33:58 pm

Hi. I am from canada and trying to withdraw, but unfortunately my instadebit accont is blocked, and i cannot get access to my ecopayz..

Andrew 08:34:47 pm

you will need one of these unfortunately

momo84 08:35:05 pm

but i dont, so what do you expect me to do?

i cant force them to give me an account

Andrew 08:35:41 pm

you will need to gain access unfortunately

momo84 08:35:50 pm

they wont let me

what dont you understand

Andrew 08:35:59 pm

i understand

you need to please understand that these are your two options

so you will need to gain access

momo84 08:36:26 pm

and i cnnot gain access

so how do you expect me to

i have been in contact with them, and i cannot get access

Andrew 08:36:58 pm

you will need to use one of these methods or you cannot withdraw

momo84 08:37:08 pm

so i lose my money?

i need to speak to somone who can help me. i deposited in good faith with my credit csrd. now i want to withdraw and i cannot

that isnt fair

Andrew 08:37:56 pm

you will need to use one of the methods

i am best placed to help in this scenario

momo84 08:38:17 pm

oh my god. I CANNOT use those methods

Andrew 08:38:24 pm

then you cannot withdraw

momo84 08:38:26 pm

the company wont open my account!!!!!

Andrew 08:38:33 pm

then you cannot withdraw

momo84 08:38:38 pm

so i deposited and lost all mu money

Andrew 08:38:57 pm

unfortunately if they will not open the account yes

momo84 08:39:03 pm

wow

Andrew 08:39:19 pm

is there anything else i can help you with?

momo84 08:39:21 pm

you cannot just take peoples money

Andrew 08:39:36 pm

we did not, you are saying the two options we gave you will not work

we gave you those options and so you need to make them work otherwise you cannot withdraw

is there anything else i can help you with?

momo84 08:40:25 pm

i want to escalate this

this is not fiar

this was supposed to be a reputable casino

Andrew 08:40:52 pm

it is

unfortunately there is no escalating this

momo84 08:41:01 pm

and i deposited. its not my fault i cannot withdraw and im from canada so you wont put it back to my credit card

Andrew 08:41:19 pm

those are the two options

if there is nothing else to add i will need to close the chat unfortunately

momo84 08:41:40 pm

so i just lost 1200@

Andrew 08:41:55 pm

unless you get one of the methods yes unfortunately

Status rejected Rejected
$900