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Predatory Dormancy Term – automatic Not Recommended. 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 Dormancy Terms should never be used to enhance casino coffers – charging a small monthly maintenance fee for the upkeep of dormant accounts is acceptable deducting 10% of an existing balance is not.
Problematic Responsible Gambling Terms. 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 Prior closing an account, WE ensure that all funds have been withdrawn.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.
Unfair Timeline for the Provision of Identification Documentation – automatic Not Recommended. 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 and then using the failure to be able to work to such a tight timeline as an excuse to seize balances is not a policy we support.
.com serves as an Alternative Dispute Resolution (ADR) service for Jaak Casino 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.
Ordinarily the term issues highlighted above would result in a Casino Reliability rating reduction. However this is offset by the use of our ADR service, which assures us that we can intervene if any issues do arise.
Slotsmoon previously directed their affiliate links to the Staybet casino affiliate program. As such we feel it is reasonable to conclude that there is some degree of association in terms of ownership between these two properties.
Staybet have been involved in the confiscation of a significant win from a player due to a maximum bet term violation while playing with a bonus. Ordinarily we would not view this as problematic, however in this case the single bet violation lost, causing detriment to the player, benefit to the casino and having no impact on the balance being confiscated. Where these terms are intended to prevent abusive behaviour, in this case there’s no evidence to support a claim of abuse. The single bet violation was clearly a mistake and was used in an opportunistic fashion by the operator to avoid paying. We view this to be predatory behaviour.
Staybet have been involved in a further player complaint issue where they acknowledged that a player was due payment, claimed to have sent payment, then when the player failed to receive payment became non-responsive to our attempts to follow-up with them.
Staybet have been non-responsive to player complaints.
For references see Staybet Player Issues
Only casinos carrying Deposit Guarantee Seal can score higher than 8/10.