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OnlyWinners.com Refuses to Pay Blackjack Player $5,000 in Winnings

Not his luck at blackjack, but his luck at getting paid when he won. When he tried to redeem $5,000 that he won playing blackjack at OnlyWinners.com, the site refused to pay him.

Joe (he asked that his last name not be used) lives in Maryland. This summer, he received an email promotion from MyPoints.com, a Web site that offers points that can be redeemed at various national retailers. Members of MyPoints.com earn the points, the site says, "by reading email, shopping online, touring web sites and more."

He signed up at MyPoints.com. One of the first offers he then received was an email from Gaming Club Online Casino (www.gamingclub.com). The casino said that if Joe logged on and deposited $100, it would give him another $100 in free chips.

"I love to play blackjack, so I tried it," Joe told RGT Online. "I won and they paid me. They wired to my account a nice little sum of $3,000.

"I was very apprehensive about them sending me this money. I called their support number and they told me how it all worked and they assured me everything would be fine, and it was. Now all my fears were put aside."

This was in mid-August. It was the first site where Joe had ever gambled online.

By this time, Joe was getting deluged with email offers from other online casinos. An offer from OnlyWinners.com appealed to him. First, there was the free money – $80 in free chips if he deposited $100. Second, the site's no-download software interested him.

Joe accesses the Net on dialup. He says that not having to download the software can save him up to an hour's time. OnlyWinners' tag line is "The Net's Most Trusted No Download Casino."

Joe deposited $300 at OnlyWinners, from his PayPal account. He started winning at blackjack. He said he follows basic strategy, and has his own system for when to increase his bets.

With a $100 betting limit, it took him awhile to run up a big score. But playing about two hours a day, he said, over four days, he ran his account up to $7,000. He cashed out $5,000.

"Then I got very greedy, very quickly," Joe said. "I stopped using my system, and lost the remaining $2,000 in about 20 minutes."

"Your Redemption for $5,000 Has Been Received"

On Sept. 17, Joe received an email from the accounting department at OnlyWinners. It said: "Your redemption for $5,000 has been received by our accounting department for processing. Your transaction will be cleared within 24-72 hours of this request."

The email went on to explain how redemptions are made, and how long they might take.

Although the email said mailing time for a cashier's check "might take as little as 2 weeks within the United States," Joe got antsy after a week and wanted to talk to someone at OnlyWinners. That's when he realized that there was no phone number on the site.

"That got me a little curious," he said. "I wanted to talk to somebody. I remember on the other site (Gaming Club) they congratulated me when I called, and told me how it would all work, and I appreciated it."

OnlyWinners does have online chat with its customer support staff. Joe used that to seek the reassurance he wanted. The first representative said he didn't know anything about Joe's account, but said he would make sure that Joe got emails from the accounting department.

A week or so later, Joe had another online chat with customer support. This time he was told that his account had been "de-activated," but the representative couldn't say why.

Then came an email from Roger in customer service at OnlyWinners, accusing Joe of fraud and saying that his account has been closed.

Roger's email, sent Oct. 2, was a reply to an email that Joe sent the previous day. Roger's email stated (the spelling mistakes were in the original):

"Thank you for choosing Onlywinners.com the net most trusted no-download casino.

"I regret to inform you that upon further investigation, it was discovered that you were engaged in fraudulent activities and your account has been permanently close on this basis. Our company policy dictates that any customer who engages in such activities violates the very fabric of our existence as a reputable and honest establishment.

"We deeply regret this unfortunate incidence that we are force to deal with and hope that this does not reoccur in the future. We appreciate your understanding and co-operation in this matter."

"You Are Most Welcome to Play Our Free Games"

As a final "screw you" kind of comment, Roger added: "Please note you are most welcome to play our free games."

That's it. No explanation of the "fraudulent activities" that Joe supposedly engaged in. He's sent numerous emails demanding an explanation. He even had a lawyer write a threatening letter, but OnlyWinners has not responded.

"For the life of me, I can't imagine what they're accusing me of," Joe said. "Their silence for all these weeks made me really believe that it was not a misunderstanding, that they're just ignoring the matter. To add insult to injury, they still email me, offering promotions."

"I will never go online and do this again," Joe said. "I had some success with it. I had some fun with it and probably for a week or two, got the bug and really liked playing it."

Asked why he didn't just stay with Gaming Club, a site that paid off promptly, Joe said the offer of $80 in free chips is what enticed him into trying OnlyWinners. Gaming Club, which uses Microgaming software, is licensed and regulated by the Kahnawake Gaming Commission, a tribal authority near Montreal, Canada.

A Gambling Software.com Site

OnlyWinners is based in Grenada, which does not regulate gaming. The site uses software from Gambling Software.com, which is also based in Grenada.

Postings on message boards and on watchdog sites in the last year have indicated problems with Gambling Software.com sites. The most notorious case involved a licensee of Gambling Software called Players Fortune Casino.

After less than three months in business, Players Fortune closed abruptly in October 2000. It had offered bonuses that were far more generous than it could afford to pay. Players were stiffed for thousands of dollars.

When players demanded reimbursement from Gambling Software, the company refunded the money that players had deposited at Players Fortune. It initially refused to pay any of the players' winnings, but eventually – in January, 2001 -- agreed to pay 15 percent of their winnings.

That episode led the Online Players Association to put all of Gambling Software's licensed casinos on its "Not Recommended" list. The GameMaster Online also includes casinos that use Gambling Software on its "The Warning List."

RGT Online sent an email to OnlyWinners, asking to discuss Joe B.'s case. We received no reply.

We also called Mark Waters, the co-founder of Gambling Software. He confirmed that OnlyWinners is a licensee of Gambling Software.

"They're definitely one of our top licensees," Waters said. "You can't succeed unless you pay your players." He said his company has not had any other problems with OnlyWinners.

Waters said he would talk to OnlyWinners about Joe B. He also said he could investigate directly what Joe did at the OnlyWinners site.

"We have access to the back end," Waters said. "I can review his game play and I can find out what the deal is. After the whole Players Fortune thing, we've really tightened down if there's some sort of issue. We just can't take it in the chops like we did last time.

"But at the same time, it's kind of hard because ultimately it's their (the licensee's) decision, right? . . . We can argue with them, but it's kind of a tough situation. But I'll definitely look into it, because I don't take it likely."

In a Negative Database

Waters called us a few days later to say he had not heard back from the owners of OnlyWinners. He said Roger in customer service told him that the owners instructed Roger to close Joe's account because Joe was in their negative database.

Negative databases are used by online casinos, and often groups of casinos, to combat fraud. The data may include credit card numbers that are stolen or fraudulently generated and the names of players who used them or tried to use them. The data may also include information on players who try to cheat casinos by using multiple identities, perhaps to obtain bonuses that are only offered to new players, or players who regularly cause chargebacks to the casinos by telling Visa or MasterCard that they never deposited money at a site.

It's not clear whose negative database allegedly included Joe. Waters said it wasn't Gambling Software's database. The Interactive Gaming Council, a trade group whose members include Gambling Software, arranged a couple of years ago for a negative database to be created and shared by members. There are other negative databases organized by other groups.

Waters said the owners of OnlyWinners have other sites that use other companies' software. "They're experienced in the industry," he said, refusing to name the other sites.

"I'm led to believe that they've had experience with this guy (Joe) in the past," Waters said. "I would like them to be a little bit more descriptive of what that history is, because I just don't know."

Waters refused to say who owns OnlyWinners. He said the site is "fairly new," having been in business about eight months.

It's been more than two weeks since Waters called. He apparently doesn't know any more about Joe's situation, or care.

Joe, meanwhile, has sent several more emails to OnlyWinners, which refuses to respond.

Joe is like a defendant in the legal system of a police state. He's charged with some vague crime, which no one will specify. He's been judged guilty, and the punishment is forfeiture of his $5,000 in blackjack winnings.

If Joe is in a negative database, it would be interesting to know when his name was added. Because in a very short period of time, OnlyWinners was perfectly willing to take the money he deposited, only to then refuse to pay him on the grounds of "fraudulent activities."

For this "reputable and honest establishment," Joe turned out to be a problem only after he tried to redeem his winnings.

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