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I have been on a soap box about the bonuses recently elsewhere, and I also totally agree with cutting out rogues.
The definition of rogue needs to be defined though – I make a distinction between no pay and slow pay.
The bonuses cost us and the casinos many, many newbie players.
You are a recreational player.
You find a casino, one way or another. You fill out an eternally long questionaire asking way too personal questions (social security number? Are you nuts?) and go to deposit. You click on credit card and get rejected. Most newbie players quit right there, accounting for the many downloads yielding so few players.
But you are a feisty type. After getting your credit card rejected you go to neteller and fill out all of that stuff, the second time. Again, you are revealing a ton of personal info online. Most people are always told not to do that.
You succeed in depositing, and get a bonus credited to your account and you think to yourself that this is a really nice thing.
You play your favorite game – blackjack.
Next thing you know you have won some money and you want to withdraw.
And now you find out that you can’t, that you have to play slots for such and such an amount of wagers as most table games are not permitted.
You play the slots. Normally you now lose your money, but hey. Lady Luck shines upon you and you win.
Now you have fulfilled your wagering requirements and you want your winnings! They tell you now that you have to send in your drivers licence and a second document showing your identity.
This means that now the casino has everything needed for all types of fraud. Identity theft, credit card theft, you name it.
You think about it, and you don’t send the stuff in and you walk away and leave your money behind. You tell all your friends that internet casinos are fraud.
The solution? Simple. Stop giving the bonuses in this fashion. Give bonuses for every so many hands played etc. Make the bonuses work for retention. All the bonuses do now (other than screw newbies out of their winnings) is encourage players to jump from casino to casino to casino.
How smart is that?
The solution? Simple. Stop giving the bonuses in this fashion. Give bonuses for every so many hands played etc. Make the bonuses work for retention. All the bonuses do now (other than screw newbies out of their winnings) is encourage players to jump from casino to casino to casino.
YES!
I can give one example of a paid advertising deal recently that was very reasonable to the casino concerned. Usually on these deals everyone is happy and this casino is reputable but one I had little dealings with.
Front page no1 spots on a couple of high traffic sites…If that doesn’t generate players what will?
400 visits to their casino and not 1 real player in a 2 week period. How sad is that? A+++ SE generated visitors.
You gotta ask yourself why, why, why and I can only say it is due to the aforementioned points.
Good points Blackjack Info. and I am probably going to remove these casinos this month.
The reason I have had them up in the past is I have not received any complaints from my players about them. Also, believe it or not, they were paying me in a timely fashion so based on that I hadnt removed them.
Dom that is one of the best written and best laced with strong points – posts that I have ever read and should be sent to each and every casino out there.
except you left out one important point; at some places; rtg casinos come to mind; if you stepped over to play even one hand of blackjack before the bonus requirements were met; then you have broken the t&c’s and any money you try to cash out will not be honored even if you went and played the slots for the required amounts;
please someone correct me if I’m wrong on that; but I seem to recall having contacted Sci-fi about that and was told that yes; it would break requirements to step over and play blackjack and then go back to the slots.
These bonuses screw up the entire business.
The majority of players – and especially new ones – are not bonus hunters.
To defend themselves against bonus hunters the casinos have painted themselves in a corner – they need to know way too much info about their players, and they are routinely denying winnings.
Wagering requirements are totally exessive. Denied winnings scare new players off and make them complain to all their friends.
Who is willing to give a casino all their personal info including social security and drivers licence? Not me! Certainly not most newbies!
Signups and real player stats suck throughout the industry for us.
Are we being shaved everywhere? Or is the system so flawed players are scared off?
I think a change of bonus system would allow a change in signup procedures and cashin procedures and we would see the industry recover magically.
And that may well help the shaving issue also.
Dom, I second the vote. Your posts make excellent points, well-stated.
I’ve been giving this some thought since reading Dom’s post.
It seems to me that if the casinos are serious about wanting to pay people but are worried about fraud;
and that they are not using these requirements as a ploy to get out of paying players
then I have the answer. ( I bet the casinos won’t go for it because I think that most of them can’t see the dollar for the dime in front of them; thus the reason they shave us) meaning that the fax-back forms and hoops are there as a way to discourage paying winners.
but if they are truly ONLY worried about sending money to someplace it should not be going;
then instead of asking for all the outrageous info they ask for in a fax-back form.
they simply state that there are two things required to get a cash-in;
1. email confirmation: YOU MUST ENTER A VALID EMAIL ADDRESS UPON SIGNUP BECAUSE THAT IS WHAT WE WILL USE TO CONFIRM ANY AND ALL CASH-INS
plus
2. Phone confirmation: a simple call from the casino to the phone# given during sign up to confirm the cashin is to be paid to that address.
Now you can’t tell me that wouldn’t work for 99% of the time.
if I’m wrong; please show me how? I can’t think of any situation where the casino could be frauded (successfully) by someone when they ask for a verbal and email combined confirmation.
The only possibilities I can think of where another party would have access to both the afore mentioned methods to attempt to fraud; would be someone living in the home.
In which case the check would still arrive in the mail made out to the legit person’s name; and to their mail box where they’d likely have first crack at seeing the letter (check).
NETeller and other such would be even harder to use to fraud the casino. since the winnings would always be credited to the email address that was entered upon signup.
anybody see any holes in that?
so if that’s the case; the question then becomes…..
do the casinos want to pay the winners or not?
the #1 thing I hear from skeptics about playing online isn’t that the games are or might be fixed.
Its this: “why if they didn’t need all that info to take my money; do they need it to pay me?”
I think that the extra players = income that would be brought in by changing this around; would more than make up for anything extra lost due to fraud and not asking for all the rediculous information.
The amount of fraud the casinos are subjected to IS staggering. I dont believe most of us have any idea how bad it really is as the casinos are reluctant to release such figures.
The vast majority of the fraud is by highly organized groups and it runs the gamut of stolen credit cards, fake addresses and IDs and even outright extortion. The casinos have to protect their assests through stringent checks and balances and as partners we should understand the situation they are placed in.
I have no problem with them requiring verifiable forms of ID for cash outs over $1000. This is NOT an excessive requirment and I dont think there is much that can, will or even should be done to change this policy. I think BB1s idea of a verfication phone call is a good idea and could help reduce SOME red tape, but lets face it, the casinos CANT just authorize every large cash out without proper verification procedures in place.
That being said, I DO agree that the bonus requirements imposed by many casinos are a source of confusion and frustration for players and certainly can make it appear that the properties do no want them to cash out legitimate winnings. This is something that should be addressed.
I think these are seperate issues though and not related. We should tackle each one seperately in my oppinion.
I for one do not give my correct phone number to casinos and do not allow them to call my home. I just do this to avoid my number being used for solicitations.
I assume there are a lot of players who do not wish others in their household to know about their play and would dislike a call for that reason.
Also, many play after hours when spouse and kids are in bed. No calls wanted there either.
And how about those who play at work?
Just give bonuses after a certain amount of play instead of up front.
You will eliminate wagering requirements as well as fraud, and you will improve retention.
No need to get any info but the email address.
That’s a great idea, Dominique. Bonuses as you play, and not upfront. The whole bonus business has gotten terribly out of hand, and is damaging the industry.
On another note, do you ever wonder why it is so important for the casinos to verify identities for payouts, yet not for initial purchases?
Seems ass backwards to me.
If I may just butt in momentarily:
On another note, do you ever wonder why it is so important for the casinos to verify identities for payouts, yet not for initial purchases?
Because players don’t want to wait when they have a gaming itch. In past, neteller transactions weren’t instant, and I’ve had countless emails from angry players wondering why it took so long to have their deposit show up in their account.
Most don’t even want to wait for the next business day. There are antifraud systems in place with the transactions, but there is always someone out there who knows how to work around them.
Anyways, back to your great thread. It really is interesting for those who are on the other side of the fence.
BB1, Can you explain what you asked SciFi support? The slot playthrough requirement doesn’t specify that you must play games in a certain order. Just that you play the required playthough on slots some time before you cash in.
SciFi is also looking for new ways to bonus players without getting burned. As far as retention goes, they relax the requirements quite a bit for players they know are not there to only abuse the bonus. The CS staff is trained very well at looking for patterns and the supervisors are given the freedom to make judgement calls on an individual basis. One of the reasons they have such high player values is because they take good care of the non-abusing players.
Jeff
Yes, some casinos do very well with retention and you are one of them, I know.
It is the aquisition that is in trouble, and without it the industry cannot grow.
And we all are old enough to know what happens when industries stop growth.
If new players who are not familiar with this WR stuff keep running into a brick wall, they will surely think the industry is crooked.
I get letters like that, I cater a lot to new players. I get some very angry and disappointed letters sometimes – people playing and winning and not being allowed to cash out. They don’t understand. They don’t want to play slots. If they had known, they would have never taken the bonus. They just want to have a good time playing their favorite games, no reading complicated things, no counting hands, no playing games that don’t excite them.
Maybe you guys can try giving people a choice. Instant bonus and WR, bonus every so many hands and no WR. That still doesn’t get rid of asking for way too much information, but at least people won’t feel robbed.
Aquisition is in deep trouble – it takes a lot more downloads to convert now than a year or two ago, a lot!!!
Hi,
well here is the obvious answer.
ask the player before they play, how they want their cashins to be verified; and perhaps instead of having the player fax a form with enough info to make it easy for identity theft. they instead have a form that must be signed by the player stating how they want the confirmation to be done; and that they reckognize the risks they take by choosing to forego the confirmation requirements.
in other words, you could agree that your cashins are to be sent to your email address at NETeller; the one you used to sign up with at the casino; and that no confirmation is needed as long as they have a NETeller proof of transaction that the money was paid to that agreed upon email address; I don’t see how the casino can be held liable for any wrong doings.
I’d go for that.
ps.
those are excellent points about hiding it from a spouse; I didn’t think of that.
getting back to my original point though; is that would not the industry see more than enough in extra profits that it would justify whatever losses might be incurred due to fraud?
I think so.
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Jeff, I got that information from either your support team or you. and I even wrote and asked about whether if the player went and played a hand of blackjack; and then came back to slots; would they break the requirements.
I was told yes.
Perhaps I misunderstood. but that is how I remember it.
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one more thing; now days a $1000 is nothing. I think the casinos should payout the $2400 winners; stuff like that; without putting a player thru hell to get it.
maybe move the “hardline” up to $10 k.
I forgot to add, yes, I am with Dom on this one; I’d rather see the “before” bonuses a thing of the past. reward for play is what will keep a player there.
its much easier to keep an existing customer than to get a new one.
but I don’t think the casinos see that.
