Venting This is why I don't take bonuses...

[Valhalla]

I'm so annoyed at myself
Each time I go to deposit at Vbet I'm reminded I have multiple bonuses available (which I usually ignore), but the other night I took leave of my senses and accepted a 125% match bonus for POPOK(?) and Pragmatic Games - deposited £60 and received £75 on top; balance £135 obviously. Went straight to Sugar Rush and played at £0.80 spins. I was clearly using my deposit funds first as the "locked balance" was going down while the £75 remained intact.

Anyway, at £96 (total) or so remaining I won £250 - nice. I played a bunch of other slots before getting bored and reading the terms. If I cancel a bonus I will lose all bonus funds, but I can still withdraw my deposit and any winnings on my account. Sounds good! I'll lose the £75 but still have a decent balance, plenty of other casinos work that way; you only "owe" for the bonus once you start using it.

I checked and my deposit was £21 remaining, plus £75 bonus untouched and whatever winnings on top for almost £300 total. I cancelled the bonus and my balance dropped to £21. Not once did it say/warn me "if you cancel now your balance will be erased and all you will have left is the £21 remaining on your deposit" (or words to that effect). So here I am feeling like a right moron, just gave away a few hundred pound that I could have sat playing away on higher stakes to potentially win decent money. Alas... I'm an idiot and bonuses sicken my happiness

 

[KasinoKing]

I checked and my deposit was £21 remaining, plus £75 bonus untouched and whatever winnings on top for almost £300 total. I cancelled the bonus and my balance dropped to £21. Not once did it say/warn me "if you cancel now your balance will be erased and all you will have left is the £21 remaining on your deposit" (or words to that effect). So here I am feeling like a right moron, just gave away a few hundred pound that I could have sat playing away on higher stakes to potentially win decent money. Alas... I'm an idiot and bonuses sicken my happiness

I can't understand that at all

If you only ever played with your real money and didn't touch the bonus funds - how can they take away your winnings?
Sounds like very ROGUE behaviour to me
Is it really in their T&Cs that they can do this???

KK

 

[dunover]

I can't understand that at all

If you only ever played with your real money and didn't touch the bonus funds - how can they take away your winnings?
Sounds like very ROGUE behaviour to me
Is it really in their T&Cs that they can do this???

KK

That's what I thought - if you never touched the bonus, how come they've taken your cash wins? UK bonuses are 'parachute' affairs now, whereby they award a second chance after you lose your cash deposit. This is why they mostly have conversion limits and why cash bets don't count towards wagering of bonus.

 

[Valhalla]

I can't understand that at all

If you only ever played with your real money and didn't touch the bonus funds - how can they take away your winnings?
Sounds like very ROGUE behaviour to me
Is it really in their T&Cs that they can do this???

KK

These are the images I took before I cancelled the bonus. I definitely played £39-ish from my initial deposit, you can see the £75 bonus remains intact - I hit the big Sugar Rush win when my balance was approximately £96 in total.
Upon reading the terms I cancelled the bonus and my entire balance, save for the £21, was removed immediately.

 

[SCATT3R]

Sadly, at first sight, you don't have a case here, mate, but you already know that As the screen shot shows, all your wins went in to the bonus balance, even if they were from real money bets. It's not right. In fact it's outright scummy from the casino. You should do a PAB and hope Max & co can persuade the casino to give you what should be rightfully yours. Best of luck to you.

 

[jasonuk]

The crux is going to be which regulations Northern Ireland have followed. As Dunover mentions, under UKGC regulation all bonuses are structured as second chance (two-tier, parachute etc) - and in most cases cash is used first, then bonus funds.

As a UKGC player, I had a look at their welcome bonus (as an example) and after some digging (!) found:

Using your Casino bonus:

• After having made a first deposit of at least £10, the 125% Welcome Bonus of up to £150 and the first deposit amount will be automatically credited to a customer’s Casino bonus balance

So they openly admit to UKGC-facing players that they transfer your deposit amount into your bonus balance, which was outlawed under the UKGC regulations at

You do not have permission to view link Log in or register now.

You must ensure that:
* that Promotional Play Restrictions and Wagering Requirements (if applicable) do not apply to any play by a consumer with their Deposit Balance except where in-game mechanisms automatically prevent a consumer from placing a wager that contravenes the Promotional Play Restrictions

Operators must allow players to withdraw funds from their deposit balance, even if they are allocated to a bonus including when a bonus is pending or active in the account.

If the NI version of the gambling commission has similar legislation, then the deposited funds (and thus the winnings) should have never touched the bonus balance - and your interpretation would be correct.

There is a rep on the forum (@Vbet Representative) but they haven't been seen in nearly two years. So hopefully Max will be able to help with this one.

 

[SlotGrinder]

But if you hadn't taken a bonus you would have ended in profit
So there is no way they can take all that money
Its not like you ran out of real money and went into bonus money only before winning
Even if they take some money from you at MOST they could only take the relative proportion which would be 75/135% of total funds - then they could say your funds were comprised of 60% bonus money so when you cancelled the bonus then 60% of total balance was removed. This is the MOST they can possibly get away with (unless you broke bonus terms, which it doesn't seem like you did)
As it stands they have removed legitimate winnings which your real money balance contributed to and claimed it ALL as bonus money... it's definitely not acceptable practise
Have you contacted them and asked them to reinstate the bonus? I guess its a longshot but seeing as what they are doing is not actually legal maybe they will agree haha

 

[jasonuk]

This thread is a few months old, so given it's been bumped I am curious what happened in the end - really hope @Valhalla got paid because that's some really rogue behaviour that you'd expect from Costa Rica, not from Northern Ireland.

 

[itsme123]

This thread is a few months old, so given it's been bumped I am curious what happened in the end - really hope @Valhalla got paid because that's some really rogue behaviour that you'd expect from Costa Rica, not from Northern Ireland.

There's a real grey area for NI players such as myself. I had an issue last year with a site where i felt i had been treated unfairly and contacted the UKGC and they said that their licensing doesnt cover NI.
I then contacted the casino and asked what license did they take my wagers under, and they said UKGC, so i forwarded this response to the UKGC and they said it was false misrepresentation, went back to the casino and they said they wouldnt tell me what license they used to take my wagers.
Checked with both Alderney and Malta and the casino didnt have a license for either.
NI is under archaic local gambling laws and to be honest it feels like there are no player protections.

 

[Valhalla]

Soon after this... nonsense, they sent me a highly intrusive SOW request
I replied back that I'm not about to send them the kind of information they are requesting, not a bit of it. So they can close my account.

Never got the bonus money back, but I did close my account there which is the same as winning really.