Online Casinos Deceive Players, Consumentenbond Says

Consumentenbond, the Consumers Association of Netherlands, asserts that leading online casino operators are deceiving players and motivating immoderate gambling. The claims are supported by the inquiry of the aforementioned Consumers’ Association, in which 6 suppliers were investigated. And what’s more, Toto and Holland Casino owned by the state are mostly to blame for this.

Players are not sufficiently informed when it comes to promotions:

Investigators from Consumentenbond paid close attention to offers, aka promotions, from Holland Casino, Unibet, Jacks, Bet365, Toto and Betcity and concluded that each casino is breaking the law. An example of this is:

• they never inform gamblers enough when it comes to conditions and terms of the bonuses,
•  they advertise free games that are definitely not free
• hiding costs for game options

Additionally, a large number of casinos place a large sum of cash as their standard wager, which further results in the player losing more than intended by inadvertently forgetting to reduce it. And finally, there is a phenomenon that some games have an undefined price since the casinos show the stake in points and not in cash.

Welcome bonus as bait for players:

A huge number of casinos tempt gamblers with jaw-dropping welcome bonuses, which in fact aren’t so welcome, because as soon as players take the bait, the casino raises the initial deposit. For example, a player who makes a deposit of €50 frequently gets the same sum from the casino to bet with.

However, these bonuses frequently come with very bad conditions. An example of this is that casinos have a practice of blocking a deposit as soon as the gambler officially accepts the conditions of the bonus. Another example is with Jacks, where that balance is only “released again after a player has fully wagered the deposit 20 times.” Additionally, it’s impossible to stop earlier even if players want to or to be paid the income. One of the rules is that a gambler who has deposited €50 may withdraw his balance immediately after depositing €1000.

Specifically, at Holland Casino, the “more info” button located below the bonus offer doesn’t take players to an information page, but to a page where they may deposit cash. As soon as they deposit, they will be shown a hidden conditions page located at the link that follows the text at the bottom. If players choose to click the “OK” button, they are deemed to have agreed to the above hidden terms.

Players stalking practice:

In order to stop immoderate gambling, casinos don’t have a permission to offer any bonuses to players mid-game. However, in Unibet and Holland Casino, that rule is not respected because pop-ups frequently appear throughout games. All this means that Holland Casino, Unibet and Toto are “stalking” gamblers with constant offers, going so far as to continue to do so even if players specify that they are no longer interested in receiving offers.

Standard deposit much higher than required:

As for Toto and Holland Casino in particular, they have a practice of entering €50 as the standard deposit required for players to start gambling, when the minimum deposit is €10. By doing so, they jeopardize players and that is definitely not allowed.

Online casinos are responsible for their bad reputation:

Commenting on the said investigation, the Director of the Consumers Association, Sandra Molenaar, gave her opinion which isn’t very good towards online casinos: “One of the aims of opening up the online gambling market was to prevent gambling addiction and to protect consumers. But nothing comes of it this way. Consumers are misled and encouraged to gamble excessively. That is completely irresponsible. And the fact that two state-owned companies are also guilty of this is too insane for words. That is why we have sent a letter to outgoing Minister Weerwind of Justice and Security and asked him to act.”

Moreover, the Consumentenbond also decided to share the results of the aforementioned inquiry with the Consumer & Markets Authority and the Gaming Authority, according to the official press release.