How an online casino treats its players goes a long way in building its reputation. Since players are generally very vocal about their displeasure and quickly share any particular mistreatment on online forums, most casinos try to ensure that disputes are settled amicably and to the benefit of all parties involved. However, this does not mean that disputes do not take place. Online players may usually face issues relating to deposit and withdrawal of monies, claiming of bonuses and ambiguous wagering requirements.
When you choose an online casino to play at, the first thing you should do as a responsible player is to read all the term and conditions of the casino carefully. This will help you understand everything about the casino and will decrease the likelihood of disputes. When there are no disputes, any casino player online will enjoy the entire gaming experience. In any case, if a dispute does arise, most casinos have a clear and autonomous manner of resolving them.
Here is what to do:
- Notify the casino: This is the obvious first step to resolve any disputes. If you have experienced any issues that you are not able to resolve on your own, it is important to take it up with the casino. Every online casino has a support system in place. You can contact their customer support by calling them, raising a ticket, live chat or by emailing to them. Most people prefer emailing because that way they have a written record of what transpired. Be clear in your communication and give a brief background of your dispute before giving details of the dispute itself. Your communication should include your name, your login id, the type of dispute, date and the time when the dispute arose. Also be sure to get a complaint or reference number for your complaint. In case your issue is not resolved immediately, this reference number will help the casino pull up the details of your dispute at any given time. This saves a player and the casino a lot of time and effort.
- Be polite: When you get in touch with the online casino customer support, make sure that you use a polite tone and are reasonable. Remember that the customer support personnel will try the best to help you within the purview of their knowledge, skills and abilities. They refer to the rules and regulations of the casino when trying to help you, so be patient. This will not only prompt the customer care representative to help more eagerly but will also get you a friendlier response. If you are not happy with your discussion with the representative, you can ask them to give you the contact details of the casino manager or supervisor. This will help you escalate the matter. If you lose your patience or get rude with the personnel, the casino will simply cancel your account and blacklist you. So it is in your best interest to keep calm.
- Escalate things: If even after repeated attempts, the casino is not able to resolve the dispute or does not seem interested in assisting you, you can escalate matters and get an outside agency involved. There are a lot of third party settlement agencies that regulate casino disputes. An online player may get in touch with the licensors of the online casino. This can really help you expedite things. Some casinos may also employ autonomous auditors such as eCOGRA who help them settle disputes. Before you get in touch with these outside agencies, make sure you obtain all the details of your communications with the casino. If you can, send them the copies of your emails, tickets or chats and the casino’s response to these. The more thorough you are, the more likely is the speedy resolution of your dispute. Once you have got the outside agencies involved, all you can do is to sit and wait. The auditor will take some time to check other variants of such disputes with the casino. They will also inspect some of the audits of the casino and see if this is a regular habit of the casino or yours is a one of a kind dispute.
- Contact watchdog agencies: Ever since online casinos became popular, a lot of watchdog agencies have come up to check unfair practices by them. Since there are not many rules enforced on online casinos, these watchdog agencies ensure that casinos treat their players fairly and do not cheat or defraud them. Casino Meister is one such agency that has been started by seasoned online casino patrons and legal practitioners. They take up your case in a more compelling manner with the casino. They ensure that any player is not defrauded by casinos. Other such agencies include Brian Bailey, Better Betting, Online Casino Gambling Watchdog and many others. A player can get a lot of help from these watchdogs. No casino wants to be badmouthed by these watchdogs. In fact, these watchdogs have a lot of successful arbitrations to their credit. So do not lose heart if you are not able to steer your dispute in the desired direction initially. If the casino still does not yield to any arbitration attempts, the watchdog will circulate a public warning against the casino, warning every online player to stay away from this casino. This will really hurt the casino’s reputation and online image and will make a deep dent in its earnings.
- Take matters into your own hands: In case none of your endeavours seems to work, simply take matters into your own hands. A lot of online forums discuss various casinos and their treatment of their players. A bad review on any of them will damage the casino’s reputation permanently. No casino will really like that. So they will try to resolve the dispute amicably.