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Below we highlight the terms that players should be aware of when playing with Aspire Global run properties.
Dormancy Term – Term 4.5.1 states: “Starting 1 October 2016, if you are a UK resident and you have not logged in to your Player Account for six (6) consecutive months, then your Player Account will be considered as “dormant account” and We will charge a monthly maintenance fee that will be deducted from the balance of your account. Such fee being the higher of: (a) ten (10) percent of the then current balance of the account; or (b) GBP 5, until the balance of the account reaches zero.” 24/07/2018
Responsible Gambling – Term 4.6 states: “To recover funds from dormant or closed accounts, player can log in at any time and request withdrawal of any funds present in the account. Prior closing an account, WE ensure that all funds have been withdrawn. If the account is blocked due to fraud, and the account has a remaining balance, refunds will be issued on deposits made as winnings will be forfeited by a player who violates the terms of use and/or the bonus policy. If a player decides to exclude himself temporarily, and a balance is kept in the account, the funds will only be available to the player once the exclusion has ended. In case of permanent exclusion, player will be advised to requires a cash-out as soon as the request is received.” Specifically we have concern with this term enforcing a lock on withdrawing funds if an exclusion is requested. Exclusions should limit the facility to lose further funds, but should not limit access to withdraw funds already within the account. This could be viewed as a disincentive to making use of responsible gambling tools. In our opinion it is likely that the operator would not enforce this aggressively (i.e. they would accommodate withdrawal requests from excluded players), but we are uncomfortable with this being stated within terms and conditions.
Timeline for the Provision of Identification Documentation – Term 2.4 states: “We reserve the right at any time to request from You evidence of age in order to ensure that minors are not using The Company Services. We further reserve the right to suspend or cancel Your Player Account and exclude You, temporarily or permanently, from using The Company Services if satisfactory proof of age is not provided or if We suspect that you are underage and such satisfactory proof is not provided by You within five (5) days of our requesting such proof, Your Player Account shall be closed and You shall forfeit all funds in Your Player Account, such decision shall be final, binding and not subject to appeal.” 24/07/2018. Giving a player only 5 days to submit identification documentation leaves players with a very short window if there are any issues that need to be addressed.
Maximum Bet bonus term – “When a bet abuses the betting system – regardless of which game it was placed on – it will not count towards a player’s wagering requirements. If the player placed single bets equal to or greater than £4 or £0.50 per line or 15 percent of the bonus amount before the wagering requirements for the bonus have been met, we reserve the right to withhold any amount in excess of the player’s original deposit from a player’s withdrawal. In addition, if a player deposited with Skrill or Neteller and placed single bets equal to or greater than £2.50 of the bonus amount before the wagering requirements for the bonus have been met, we reserve the right to withhold any amount in excess of the player’s original deposit from a player’s withdrawal.” – The inclusion of “or equal to” is of no significant or relevant benefit to the operator in terms of prevention of bonus abuse and as such serves only to trip up players who skim read the terms. 25/09/19
.com serves as an Alternative Dispute Resolution (ADR) service for Aspire Global license as part of their MGA license requirements. This means that we can offer legally binding rulings for all complaints submitted to this service from jurisdictions subject to the MGA license.
In April 2018 Lucky Thrillz were re-reviewed and were entitled to move to Recommended status, having completed their probationary year of listing on .com and now offering an affiliate program (this was not available at the time the review was first posted). As such we contacted them to set-up an account.
Multiple weeks passed without a response or approval of our account application. We eventually pushed their rep regarding and received the following response:
“Hm , This does not look good for us!
and why did you put us on your side when we have not even discussed a deal or partnership? to give our casino bad judgment and then want to open an account with us does not look good.”
Our response to this is simple – we do not require permission to review any operator, we look to be as comprehensive as possible and cover as wide a sector of the market as possible and all new operators are listed in the Needs Work section of the site for the 12 months to ensure that any player issues are given a chance to rise to the surface before the operator are moved to Recommended status. We also pointed out to the rep that they were now entitled to move to Recommended status, that their peers on the Aspire Global platform had all been moved to Recommended status weeks ago and the only thing preventing their own move was their own slow response to our application.
Sadly we didn’t hear back from the rep after this point.
This cuts-off one further channel of communication when it comes to the management of player complaints and as such would prevent a Recommended status in itself.
It should be noted that the Lucky Thrillz Affiliate program are the only affiliate program to ever decline Recommended status for their properties on this site due to being unhappy that they were not asked for permission before a review was posted.
Shortly after this interaction it was pointed out to our team by associates within the industry that this response was likely motivated by something other than displeasure at a review being posted without their permission. Information was passed to us demonstrating a potential familial relationship between the “co-founder” of Lucky Thrillz and a representative of another operator who holds a negative status with this site and who chose to make abusive and inappropriate comments both in messages communicated to this service over Facebook and on Facebook pages belonging to other sites where the owners had mentioned .com. The conflict with the other operator happened in the months immediately preceding this interaction with Lucky Thrillz. In short, it seems likely that the Lucky Thrillz rep has looked for a reason to shut down any working relationship with this service due to what we would view as mis-placed loyalty/displeasure with our management of this other operator and their representative. Had we been aware of this connection prior to our communication with Lucky Thrillz we can say that we would never have made any application to them in the first instance.
Unfortunately the information that has come to light precludes any possibility of any working relationship between ourselves and Lucky Thrillz in the future and creates a second and far more significant barrier when it comes to having any constructive dialogue with this operator.
For references see Lucky Thrillz Issues