But seriously what kind of predatory policy is that in the first place?
predatory policy
gambling site
same thing.
be this site
advertise to kids using discord servers
if they win from gambling, ban them bc they’re underage
if they lose, it’s their loss anyway
double your profits with a simple trick
btw this is not just a meme. This is something they literally do, see this vid for more details: https://youtu.be/yJZ9SwRArqs
My nephew fell for this trick. He’s not a child, but he was gambling online on a European site as an American. He won big, tried to withdraw, they asked for a European passport. RIP his entire account.
For any finincial anything always do a round trip with a $10 too see if it’s possible.
He was putting in thousands, about $5,000 USD. They were letting him withdraw a few hundred here and there. Then he won something like $10k that’s when they did a Know Your Customer check. Which he failed, obviously. They kept his principal and his winnings, lol.
Hopefully he took it as a lesson. Not much else he can do. They said on their terms of service Americans were explicitly forbidden. Not much recourse.
That’s not a trick, that’s a legal requirement. They have to do KYC on a few grand and AML once it gets bigger. I had to go through this with Wise when I received a life insurance payout from another continent and I had to phone customer support to get it cleared.
I’m not saying it was illegal or anything, just that they probably make a lot of money turning on the KYC after big wins. They’ll never do one to a losing customer.
In that sense, I do believe it’s a bit tricky.
Hmm…
I’d wager KYC applies either way (anyone placing a bet should be known, not just who ends up winning) and not paying out wins is a clear breach of contract.
So very clearly doubly illegal. First they let any rando gamble, and then they don’t pay out wins.
Can I be real. I think it shouldn’t be a snap to close accounts normally. If your account gets stolen you might like to be able to recover it if they try to scuttle it.
Not defending this site though fuck gambling.
Having worked in the industry, there’s actually an explanation that is only half predatory.
Most of those addicted to gambling can’t and won’t shake it. They refuse to seek professional help, and the decision to quit only lasts the “temporary embarrassment” phase of losing all their money. Meaning: most gamblers who decide to quit (and we’ve got statistics on this), about 80-85% on average, is back to their favourite gambling service within 60 days.
At the company I worked at, the primary reasoning for having a cooldown period instead of instant deletion was the following:
- the cooldown period can already be linked with our lockout service which blocks the person from using the service for X days, so if they REALLY wanted to, they could block themselves for the entire time (and it surprisingly is being offered as part of the cooldown period)
- if there’s a regulatory block (meaning you got formally diagnosed by a doctor, and that doctor, with your consent, reached out to the local regulatory body and requested a blacklist entry for you), the service is blocked either way
- the users who do come back, don’t want to lose their “stats” - their previous bets, wins, losses, etc. would all be gone with a new account. In fact, the number one complaint from returning users was that their data was gone.
Basically the idea is “if they’re coming back anyway, we might as well make it easy for them”.
Now the thing is, for all the regulations… Gambling services are unfortunately not responsible for the addiction they cause. In my opinion they should be, just as a doctor would be held responsible if they fed into a patient’s painkiller addiction. And for all the regulatory crap… most people in gambling companies aren’t interested in compliance that much. It’s very much a “do it then say sorry and fix it in post” attitude from the leadership and higher management. So while the above might be the “official” explanation, I have zero doubt that the decision makers don’t give a fuck and are specifically doing it to psychologically pressure people into coming back.
Basically the idea is “if they’re coming back anyway, we might as well make it easy for them”.
What exactly is the non-predatory half of that?
Had to account hop as fedia.io is down…
The intent isn’t necessarily predatory. To explain it from business/product side, it boils down to two options:
- we keep the user’s account and they can easily log in once they’re back and continue spending money through us
- or we can delete the account at which point the user will think “hey if I have to re-register anyway, why not go to a competitor”, losing out on that business
Remember, that level of any corporation operates on a KPI based approach. They don’t see people, they don’t see individuals, they see profit per user, they see user retention after a long term break, they see user losses to competitors because “their company has features X Y and Z, while ours don’t”.
That’s why regulations are a joke. These very same people will go on about how preventing gambling addiction and general negative effects of gambling is good, then do the polar opposite. This is a big part of the reason why I left. Zero accountability of the people who make the decision while us peons were forced to do biannual compliance training and other BS, even though we never interacted with customers…
“Basically the idea is “if they’re coming back anyway, we might as well make it easy for them”.”
Thats extremely predatory, you are leaving bait in a trap.
The responsible thing would be to delete and ban them since they have an addiction.
