A Meditation On Being Anti-Casino

[TheLastCylon]

My earlier post brought up some issues that I want to address more directly. Again, this is half catharsis and half-activism. Also, I want to further affirm that I am not some tin-foil-hat loon.

Pro-Player/Anti-Casino language

I should have better explained my choice of these words, since people read too far into what I was saying.

• I do think that believing the T&C's to be righteous, and thus defending them, is anti-player, even when the person doing the defending is a player him/herself.
• These terms defy casino logic, and I do not blame anyone who is taken in by them.
• Information available from the PAB history reveals an industry that has a long history of confusing its users. I believe that this evinces major problems with the psychology of the online casino world.

I hope to fully explain my feelings with the following information.

T&C's Are Anti-Player

Did anyone else see the episode of South Park where Steve Jobs creates the Human CentiPad? That no one actually reads the T&C's is the running gag of the entire show. In the T&C's of Apple products, in this episode, the user gives permission to be kidnapped, imprisoned, and have their mouth sewn onto the rump of another person. The joke is that the condition being there makes it copacetic and everyone agrees that it is completely fine.

Do you read the legal declaration before clicking “I Accept” before EVERY web page you load? How about every new program that you install? I click “I accept” all the time without reading the terms because they operate on logic that one would expect: do not copy, not liable for damages, etc. If they tried to break the logic of the terms, such as saying that I give up ownership of my computer if I use their website, there would be an outcry and it would not be ruled legal.

Even if the terms are explicitly and boldly stated, I still don't completely blame the users. The terms fly in the face of casino logic. It becomes the logic of a company that is selling bonuses, not casino games. And people unfamiliar with this bizarre bonus world would not understand that. They think that a casino takes bets and pays out winnings, and that's how things work.

To use car dealers as an example again, I would never get angry at someone who went to a dealership, bought a car for a great price, then discovered that the car had no engine. It would not matter that this little proviso was included in the papers, because no one would ever expect a car to be sold without an engine. And if this ever happened, newspapers, television, message boards, and blogs would be alight with the controversy. The practice would not be allowed to continue.

To illustrate my feelings, I looked over MaxD's annual PAB lists, which are ENORMOUSLY helpful. I wish I had found them before making my first post on this subject.

2011:
processable PAB's: 200
Rejected for T&C violations: 52
Percentage of all complaints: 26%

By far the largest chunk of violations that boot people from a viable PAB are violations of terms and conditions that don't even need to be there. If there was any other industry on Earth where fully 25% of dissatisfaction comes from customer confusion, thus resulting in deprivation of goods to the customer, there would be Senate hearings.

2010: 229/55/24%
2009: 270/49/18%*
2008: 281/32/11%*
2007: NA

* Data classification isn't explicit. I assumed the classification based on later PAB summaries.

We are, in fact, seeing a climb in both the real number and the percentage of claims that are rejected for likely T&C violations. We are left to wonder how many of the complainants who go AWOL do so because they come here, complain, and then read all of the information here illuminating their situation to be hopeless, so they simply abandon.

In these data, we also find the number of cases that resulted in payment to the player.

2011:
Total number of cases: 200
Cases paid: 61
Percentage: 31%

So in this first year, of all processable complaints, 57% were either legitimate or associated with T&C confusion. Those are miserable numbers.

2010: 229/76/33%
2009: 270/98/36%
2008: 281/131/47%

For all years, if you combine the T&C violations with the number of legitimate complaints, it exceeds 50% of all processable PAB's.

This is the mark of an industry that is not consumer-oriented. In fact, it is the mark of an industry oriented against the consumer. If the industry was regulated, every homepage that you visit where they have a massive “100 EURO WELCOME BONUS!” there would be a little star next to that claim referencing some text right underneath which would say “With 30X wager requirement. Deposit locked until completion. Many more limitations apply. Click to read further.” And that would be a link to a full, clear, absolute adumbration of all restrictions.

(As I've said, I am not calling for regulation. It is impossible. But this is how things would work if the industry was regulated.)

For example, anyone who has ever been to the United States knows that it is the only Western nation that allows prescription drugs to be advertised directly to the public on television and in print. The righteousness of that not withstanding, there are severe limitations on this practice.

If television ads on TV mention what the drug does, they then have to list all of the most common side-effects. The drug companies obviously do not want to do this, which is why when new drugs are released, for the first six months, they will not even tell you what the drug does in the ads. They only say “ask your doctor about it!” (I imagine a man walking into a doctor's office and asking about a drug from ovarian cysts.)

That is because companies like to keep their customers confused. It prevents true comparison shopping. It prevents informed decisions. And in the absence of good information, many people are wont to assume that things will work as they expect them to. They expect things to be alright, because most people in the Western world as accustomed to regulations that prevent outright scams. Everything will be fine, they think.

I think that my aforementioned anti-casino “bent” is well called for. Vinyl Weatherman described himself as being of the “innocent until proven guilty” perspective, and I think that is right-on. But unless the “guilty” verdict is not confirmed to be outright fraud, I will not blame the player. I will default to blaming the casino.

I do not want to give the impression that I am grinding an axe. I have never encountered any problems with bonuses or otherwise. I go. I play. It all works as I expect it to. But I credit that to my discovery of Casinomeister so early on in my gaming career. If I hadn't, I might very well be the same boat as many people who accept a bonus, decide they don't want to play anymore, and discover that they are locked. Or they win big, and discover that they have violated some element of the T&C's in their choice of game or size of bet.

Perhaps this is because I am relatively new to online gaming, but I feel very strongly that I could be in the shoes of these people. I would be incensed if I hit it big, only to discover that it violated some terms I never expected.

I don't mean that to imply that people here are unfeeling or unsympathetic. I do not want to make people here feel bad for their frustration. I'm very aware that the people here have been dealing with this nonsense for years and years and years, and while the dancers may change, the music is the same.

What I argue is that the frustration is aimed at the wrong target. Do not target people who are taking “advantage” of bonuses, target the fact that the bonuses exist at all, or at least as they are currently designed. Target the bad business of the casino industry.

What About Fraud?

2011:
Fraud: 12
Warning issued/rogued: 17

Again, here we have the two extremes. We have players who turned out to be scammers and casinos who were so bad as to get warned or rogued. The casino count exceeds the player infraction count. This state of affairs is the same for every year for which data is available save for 2008.

2010: 13/33
2009: 31/37
2008: 29/27

Jan 07: 1/7
Feb 07: 2/2
Mar 07: 6/14
Apr 07: 1/5
May 07: 0/4
June 07: 0/1
July 07: 0/0
Aug 07: 1/1
Sept 07: 0/5
Oct 07: 1/0
Nov 07: NA
Dec 07: 0/1
---------------
2007 total: 12/40

Every year, and nearly every month, has the number of rogues be higher than the number of truly fraudulent players. I do not attempt to defend the players, but the casinos are also indefensible. If there was any other industry with this level of corruption, there would be Senate hearings. We can assume that many fraudsters do not come and helpfully report their fraud to CM, but we can likewise assume that many people who are scammed by casinos never come to CM to tell their story.

True fraud on the part of the casino only further cements my belief that the majority of blame lies at the feet of the casinos and the game makers, both for their marketing practices, but also for the industry that they foment and encourage.

An upstanding game maker would not allow this to happen. “Rogue” casinos would not exist. Every client would receive extensive vetting before being allowed to go forward. Rogue casinos would be shut down by the game makers. Instead, we have big boys like RTG and Microgaming almost always claiming the 1-2 spots in the annual list of complaints.

2011: 200 complaints
RTG: 42 complaints/ 21% of total cases
Playtech: 36/18%
Microgaming: 28/14%

2010: 229 complaints
RTG: 54/24%
Microgaming: 35/15%
Rival: 28/12%

2009: 270 complaints
Microgaming: 76/29%
RTG: 37/14%
Proprietary: 19/7%

2008: 281 complaints
Microgaming: 59/21%
RTG: 53/19%
Proprietary: 29/10%

In all cases, the top three account for 50% or more of all complaints. I'm glad to see that they are working hard to keep their brand reputation up.

It could be argued that this would be expected, since Microgaming and RTG are both very large. But NetEnt is very large, as is IGT, and neither of them register very high on this list. And in any other industry, the biggest guys are expected to be the best, not the worst.

Rogues-

2007:
RTG: 16
Microgaming: 5

2008:
RTG: 5
Microgaming: 1

2009:
RTG: 2
Microgaming: 4

2010:
RTG: 5
Microgaming: 0

2011:
RTG: 2
Microgaming: 0

Playtech and the variety of crappy little nobody companies that you expect to fill up a complaint list round out the data. Rival also explodes onto the scene in 2010, but I'm primarily interested in the two big boys.

Their numbers drop off significantly, but that is only new rogues. For many months, a large number of PAB's come in against Microgaming and RTG that were simply against already rogued or NCD casinos. Again, I do not think this has anything to do with their size. For example, NetEnt is very large, but it only has two warnings to its name since the data start.

Demand And Ye Shall Receive

I don't demand more of Casinomeister. It has no official power and is limited in what it can do. And any customers who come with complaints should certainly not expect the world from it. In fact, the job that Casinomeister is doing is nothing short of amazing.

What I do want is the position that I have taken, an anti-casino “bent,” to not be seen as irrational. It's not. I actually think that it is well-supported by the evidence.

I understand that it isn't an intellectually perfect proposition to gauge the quality of an entire industry based on complaints. If we did that, all industries would be unhealthy. But it is statistically sound to gauge the industry based on the makeup of the data, and here, the number of complaints would be halved if T&C's and bonuses were either rejiggered to not be stupid, or simply eliminated, thus allowing casinos to operate as, I dunno', casinos.

Likewise, the number of rogue complaints would be cut significantly if major players like RTG and Microgaming gave a crap about their customers and shut down casinos that didn't abide by rules of good conduct. If they don't demand it, we should.

So, yes. I demand perfection. Casinos that provide will get my money. Casinos that maintain their reputation will receive my kudos and my recommendations. Casinos that do not will receive nothing but scorn and as many bad words as I can conjure.

While I understand that MaxD's ICE report only revealed some casinos to maintain virulently anti-player sentiments, that still means “greater than none.” And as long as that is true, I shall respond in kind.

 

[bpb]

I pretty much agree with everything you've said here.

I think the lion's share of problems could be avoided if the software enforces all game and betsize restrictions for bonuses. There's no reason it can't. The software provider would simply rather spend their time cranking out a new slot machine rather than do this. If a condition for CM accreditation was that there could be no betsize or game restrictions that weren't enforced by the software, I'm pretty sure you'd see RTG, MG and Playtech add the functionality VERY quickly.

Same goes for country restrictions. If you select Zaire as your country of origin when registering, then claim a bonus, you damn well shouldn't void winnings because people from Zaire aren't allowed to collect bonuses. The software provider can take a few minutes to add

if (country is in <list of bonus banned countries>)
then bonusRequest = HELLSNO

Violating one rule buried in 13 pages of T&Cs doesn't necessarily make you a cheater or fraudster, as many posters here would lead you to believe.

 

[Surasanji]

Did anyone else see the episode of South Park where Steve Jobs creates the Human CentiPad? That no one actually reads the T&C's is the running gag of the entire show. In the T&C's of Apple products, in this episode, the user gives permission to be kidnapped, imprisoned, and have their mouth sewn onto the rump of another person. The joke is that the condition being there makes it copacetic and everyone agrees that it is completely fine.

Do you read the legal declaration before clicking “I Accept” before EVERY web page you load? How about every new program that you install? I click “I accept” all the time without reading the terms because they operate on logic that one would expect: do not copy, not liable for damages, etc. If they tried to break the logic of the terms, such as saying that I give up ownership of my computer if I use their website, there would be an outcry and it would not be ruled legal.

While I do not disagree with the point you are trying to make, I feel it my duty to let you know: The Joke in this case was that people stupidly click anything on Terms and Conditions without reading them- because they are LEGAL DOCUMENTS.

While I agree they should be logical, there are plenty of real world examples of legal binding documents that are full of bat-shit crazy language. Including that which is potentially harmful to at least one person in said document.

It is your responsibility to protect yourself from that kind of language by reading and understanding those terms and conditions- just as it is your responsibility to undersand and read any other legally binding document that is presented to you and requires your signature, or other action.

Rather than hoisting this responsibility onto software-providers or the casinos I feel players need to be educated to keep an eye out for these kinds of terms that hurt them- and REFUSE to play with those casinos.

An informed and educated playerbase is FAR more powerful.

 

[Nifty29]

A very relevant aspect has been overlooked by the OP.

It is NOT mandatory to accept a bonus.

If you don't like the terms of a particular bonus, or you don't want to wade through 13 pages of terms (huge exaggeration BTW), then DON'T TAKE THE BONUS.

What the OP is talking about is how crappy bonus terms are and how they are anti-player, and that anyone who "defends" them is anti-player (how a player can be anti-themselves is beyond me). Well, I don't think that anybody, including me, says in reply to a complaint about breach of terms that "those terms are fantastic! I can't believe you're complaining about breaching them when they're so awesome!". Now, if someone did say that, you could accuse them of being disturbed or uneducated, may warrant your label of "anti-player".

When I respond to such a complaint, my opinion/POV is completely unrelated to the logic or reason for having the term in the first place....that is a totally different argument. My view is that, regardless of why, the RULE IS THERE. The player accepted the terms when accepting the bonus. If they couldn't be arsed reading or understanding what they accepted, then why should the RULE then not to apply to them, especially when the vast majority of players don't have a problem? Rules are rules. If you don't like the rules, don't agree to be bound by them. The rules might be stupid, ill-considered, or even downright awful.....but they aren't mandatory, because bonuses aren't mandatory.

If a casino is going to give you money, there are going to be restrictions....no free lunches these days and all that. If you dont want restrictions, don't take their money. It's simple.

The only way the industry is going to stop offering bonuses is if playersbstop taking them.....and in many cases demanding them.

My POV is not anti-anything. It is simple logic and all about adults being responsible for their own choices....CHOICES....bonuses are a CHOICE. If you can't make an informed choice, then you shouldn't be taking bonuses at all....or even gambling for that matter. It's time for some to grow up and stop blaming everyone else for their own mistakes and poor judgement.

 

[slotplayer]

I hardly ever took bonuses. Why anyone takes them is beyond me. They're to say the least user friendly. Wr, restricted games, max cashout, max bet requirements all burried in a long winded, rats nest of other complicated terms.

The land casino would send me some bonus play credits now and then, the rules are simple, you can't cash them out and if you try and play them in an inelgible slot machine, they won't download. You can keep what you win off it. I can bet max coin or low roll.

 

[maxd]

I read Cylon's post and had the niggling feeling that something wasn't quite right. When I went back to read it over again I recognized the speed-bump when I hit it:

By far the largest chunk of violations that boot people from a viable PAB are violations of terms and conditions that don't even need to be there. If there was any other industry on Earth where fully 25% of dissatisfaction comes from customer confusion, thus resulting in deprivation of goods to the customer, there would be Senate hearings.

I believe the bias expressed in the above undermines the entire argument, however diligent Cylon has been in forming that argument (and kudos for that!).

First of all the idea that the T&Cs "don't even need to be there" is highly dubious. It is a fact of our times that a great many disputes are argued in courts by lawyers and with that has come the "legalese" of T&Cs. To argue that the T&Cs needn't be there is like saying you want to eat the ice cream but you don't want the sugar, fat and dairy that comes with it. In other words if you want those services in this day and age you're going to get the lawyers involved and that means you'll have the T&Cs to cope with. It's a fact of life not an arbitrary impediment thrown in the player's way simply to trip them up: there are much larger forces at work and for very good reasons. Saying "it shouldn't be so" is wishful and irrational thinking.

Secondly the leap of logic involved in concluding that PAB cases closed because of T&C violations were the result of "customer confusion" is seriously misguided. At least half -- probably closer to 75% -- of those cases are the result of wilful misinterpretation of the T&Cs, the diametric opposite of "confusion". In other words the propensity for people to weasel through, around, under or over the T&Cs in order to gain some advantage is completely missed in Cylon's argument.

My claim here is that a significant proportion of cases tossed for T&C violations are the result of deliberate violation, not accidental. These cases don't get classified as "fraud" because the complainant hasn't deliberately falsified anything or been involved in collusion, code hacking, multi-accounting, etc. But the intent to manipulate the system was there, a deliberate act and most definitely not an accident or "confusion".

My point is this: if you look at T&Cs from the point of view that players are universally honest, easy-going and cooperative then sure, the T&Cs look a bit predatory. But if you look at the flip-side of that, that a significant portion of players are out to beat the casino by gaining whatever advantage they can, then the T&Cs can be seen as basic and well justified self-protection. I'm suggesting the latter is much closer to reality than the former. In my experience malicious player intent is a serious and pervasive problem in this business, I'd go so far as to say it is a "fact of life" for casinos if they want to offer gambling services via the internet. As such the casinos would be negligent and irresponsible if they didn't take actions to protect themselves from it.

 

[maphesto]

Nifty:

You know that there are some casinos where you cannot decline bonuses, right? I would happily see those casinos in the Rogue Pit, but they aren´t there at the moment.

 

[maxd]

... I would happily see those casinos in the Rogue Pit, but they aren´t there at the moment.

While I don't agree that "forced bonuses" are grounds for a Rogue listing I certainly would agree that players need to be alerted WELL IN ADVANCE of such "grey hat" techniques. Bryan recently introduced a "reservations" listing, maybe that would be the place to flag such things:

"The Reservation"
... The casinos listed here are casinos I have reservations about; some players may find them fine 'n dandy, others may have bad experiences. This section allows me to state what my reservations are.

 

[vinylweatherman]

While I do not disagree with the point you are trying to make, I feel it my duty to let you know: The Joke in this case was that people stupidly click anything on Terms and Conditions without reading them- because they are LEGAL DOCUMENTS.

While I agree they should be logical, there are plenty of real world examples of legal binding documents that are full of bat-shit crazy language. Including that which is potentially harmful to at least one person in said document.

It is your responsibility to protect yourself from that kind of language by reading and understanding those terms and conditions- just as it is your responsibility to undersand and read any other legally binding document that is presented to you and requires your signature, or other action.

Rather than hoisting this responsibility onto software-providers or the casinos I feel players need to be educated to keep an eye out for these kinds of terms that hurt them- and REFUSE to play with those casinos.

An informed and educated playerbase is FAR more powerful.

There is a big difference though, in the "real world", such documents are regulated, and terms that are viewed as "anti-consumer" can be struck out, even retrospectively after a customer has signed "I agree". This protects customers from the more predatory practices, and ensures that there is something constraining the creativity of the business lawyers involved.

Online, no such protection exists, yet it is an environment where customers are even LESS likely to read the terms. The problem is that the terms have to be read there and then, usually right in the middle of an installation process or registration. In order to avoid being interrupted, customers click "I agree" solely to be allowed to complete the process they are currently in the middle of. Having done this, they tend to forget that they haven't really read those terms, and carry on blind to what they have agreed to. In the real world, you can take the terms away with you, and sign and return them at any point between enquiry and agreeing to take the product or service. You also get time to "sleep on it".

Casinos have already admitted that "instant gratification" is key to their success, and that if any part of the process forces players to "sleep on it" and come back tomorrow (such as pre verification), many customers decide NOT to follow through by depositing and playing. These are even instances where the design of the process makes it IMPOSSIBLE for a player to read the terms until they have registered their details and installed the software, at which point they can be interrupted by pop-ups and phone calls encouraging them to hurry up and make that first deposit. All designed to make them act on impuse, rather than go away and think about what they are agreeing to.

I have seen countless "fake" landing pages where everything you try to look at, even terms and conditions, just forces the software download pop-up to appear, the ONLY option is to download the software and hope it presents the terms and conditions to you during the process, and often you only get to see the software terms, not the casino terms. Inexperienced players easily fall for this, and never get to find out the terms that willl apply to that first deposit.

The other inconsistency is the argument that bonuses are a gift, not a right, yet some casinos make them COMPULSORY, and when challenged, one even stated that allowing a player to deposit WITHOUT claiming a bonus was itself "abusive". It is clear that the official explanations do not match the REAL explanations behind the bonus rules in some cases. I believe this little gem came from a rep for Virtual casino group - he didn't stick around for long

With all the BS, contraditions, etc, does the industry really expect players to believe their explanations?

A true FACT is an absolute, however "fact" produced by casino reps seems to differ widely between one casino and the next, with many direct contradictions. It is clear that these "facts" are merely "opinion" presented as fact.

Does the industry REALLY want every player to read and fully understand the terms before clicking "I agree", or would they go bust because so few would proceed with this fuller understanding.

 

[TheLastCylon]

While I do not disagree with the point you are trying to make, I feel it my duty to let you know: The Joke in this case was that people stupidly click anything on Terms and Conditions without reading them- because they are LEGAL DOCUMENTS.

That is true, but the actual legality of them is highly questionable. These are known as click-through terms and conditions, and they have rarely actually been tested in court. This is primarily because places where CT-T&C's usually apply, software, are filled with the standard, logically expected bits of legalese.

The few times that they have been tested in court, sadly never in the US, they have not held up.

Truly, time and time again, when contracts are shown to be unreasonable, judges in all jurisdictions have no problems tossing them out.

While I agree they should be logical, there are plenty of real world examples of legal binding documents that are full of bat-shit crazy language. Including that which is potentially harmful to at least one person in said document.

Yes, but most of the time, the harmful contracts that actually hold up are harmful not because they were initially unreasonable, but because of loop-holes. The contract was meant to be reasonable. "Good" legalese makes an art form of making the unreasonable sound reasonable. And again, the online world is dominated by click-through contracts which are legally dubious. I do not have a lawyer present. I do not have a representative of the company walking us through the details. I do not get to debate the language. It's all or nothing.

And even if I did accept, just because a car company states in its T&C's that the car that I am buying may explode during use, it does not make it alright that the company sold me a car that might explode. T&C's do not excuse bad behavior.

And even if they did, I don't care. I'm not concerned with the absolute legality of the sitution because there is no law. All of these casinos operate in different countries, I live in the US and Canada, there is no way that any of these T&C's could ever actually be brought before a court. For the same reason that regulation would never work, laws do not apply.

All that applies is common sense, logical expectations, and whether companies live up to expectations or not.

Playing with bonuses is everyone's choice, and I choose to not play with bonuses. I am still going to attack the casinos for offering the bonuses, though. For example, I drive a car, but I still attack the companies for not building safer, more petrol-efficient cars, though. I make noise, because that's what begins the gears of change. I do not simply accept the status quo. And since we here are the community, we should be making the most noise, not excusing the casinos for their bad business models.

Rather than hoisting this responsibility onto software-providers or the casinos I feel players need to be educated to keep an eye out for these kinds of terms that hurt them- and REFUSE to play with those casinos.

An informed and educated playerbase is FAR more powerful.

I can only say that I completely and whole-heartedly disagree with your first statement. The casinos make the industry, the customers simply line up. If the industry sucks, it is not the fault of the people in line.

I completely agree on your second point, but I would go one further. An informed and educated playerbase is the only power that we have, which is why I think it important to make as much noise as possible on these forums.

A very relevant aspect has been overlooked by the OP.

It is NOT mandatory to accept a bonus.

That has not been overlooked (And as Maphesto pointed out, this is not always the case). It is immaterial to my post's point. Go to Virgin Casino, a respectable casino that I like a lot. Every "join" button, on every page, is paired with the bonus. The bonus is mentioned on nearly every page.

And just as with every casino, there is nothing on the first three pages of information to indicate that the bonus comes with a list of provisos. No little star above the image. No information until well after your account is created and, in some cases, deposited money. Just because it isn't mandatory in the end, doesn't mean that the crappy gift isn't wrapped well.

One element of good marketing is obfuscating the bad parts, and the bad parts of bonuses are thoroughly obfuscated.

If you don't like the terms of a particular bonus, or you don't want to wade through 13 pages of terms (huge exaggeration BTW), then DON'T TAKE THE BONUS.

Thirteen pages may be an exaggeration, but I don't feel it to be a huge one. I've read about how T&C's exist on one page of the site, different (and sometimes contradictory) T&C's on another page of the site, different (and sometimes contradictory) T&C's that comes with the bonus, and even then I have read that if anything is out of sorts on any of those pages Casinomeister members have recommended that you should email, call, or chat with Customer Service, who may give you different (and again contradictory) T&C's, and this information (I have also seen in posts) is not binding because it is ultimately contradicted at the end of the whole mess when the Casino Manager comes in and basically pulls something out of their bum.

If this is the process required to cover myself, then, firstly, the casino is broken, but also the industry and business model that facilitates this is also broken.

My view is that, regardless of why, the RULE IS THERE.

And my view is the rule SHOULDN'T BE THERE. And as long as it is, the casino shall receive my aforementioned scorn.

If a casino is going to give you money, there are going to be restrictions....no free lunches these days and all that. If you dont want restrictions, don't take their money. It's simple.

The only way the industry is going to stop offering bonuses is if playersbstop taking them.....and in many cases demanding them.

What the industry should do is change the nature of bonuses, not simply write problems into the T&C's. Why does no one have a "pay as you go" bonus. The end result is the same, extended playtime, and there is no need for T&C's. The problem is not on the player end, the problem is on the casino end and the fact they are apparently too daft to appeal to their user base without an awful business model.

It's time for some to grow up and stop blaming everyone else for their own mistakes and poor judgement.

This is what I mean when I say that this behavior is anti-player. You consider yourself a different kind of player, and are thus anti-other kinds of players.

Again, would you blame people for taking a medication that hurts them, even when drug companies work to hide these side effects? Afterall, the person chose to take the pill.

I would not. The company is the one creating the environment and setting the rules. That people get confused in this environment is to be expected. Would they have benefited from greater analysis? Certainly, but it is pointless to blame the constituents when the system itself is what is convoluted.

First of all the idea that the T&Cs "don't even need to be there" is highly dubious.

It is not dubious because I am not saying that they don't need to be there in the current environment. I'm arguing that the goal, extended playtime for the player, does not require a bonus system as it is implemented. A better system can be designed that doesn't require T&C's and operates exactly as one would expect a casino to operate.

It is a fact of our times that a great many disputes are argued in courts by lawyers and with that has come the "legalese" of T&Cs.

Yes, but courts are something that essentially none of these online casinos need be concerned with. With the goulash of jurisdictions and player locations, a real, honest-to-god court filing will likely never happen. That is why we have Casinomeister, to provide some semblance of consequence for crappy behavior. If court cases were a legitimate concern, CM would likely not exist in its current form.

To argue that the T&Cs needn't be there is like saying you want to eat the ice cream but you don't want the sugar, fat and dairy that comes with it. In other words if you want those services in this day and age you're going to get the lawyers involved and that means you'll have the T&Cs to cope with. It's a fact of life not an arbitrary impediment thrown in the player's way simply to trip them up: there are much larger forces at work and for very good reasons. Saying "it shouldn't be so" is wishful and irrational thinking.

I think that this analogy does not work. Ice cream requires those ingredients to exist. Gambling does not require T&C's to exist. T&C's are not part of gambling's "recipe". The rules of the game are. It's like saying without bricks, walls would not exist. Yes they would. You could build them from mud, steel, wood, and any number of other materials.

Secondly the leap of logic involved in concluding that PAB cases closed because of T&C violations were the result of "customer confusion" is seriously misguided.

I was giving them the benefit of the doubt, because my point was that they should be given the benefit of the doubt.

At least half -- probably closer to 75% -- of those cases are the result of wilful misinterpretation of the T&Cs, the diametric opposite of "confusion". In other words the propensity for people to weasel through, around, under or over the T&Cs in order to gain some advantage is completely missed in Cylon's argument.

It is not missed, I thought it irrelevant. A willful misinterpretation is not diametric opposition to confusion. That would be understanding the terms fully and then ignoring them. I will proceed assuming that you meant that.

Do you find that surprising? Legal documents, like T&C's would like us to believe that they are, are defined by using loop-holes to weasel around in them. If people try to find loop-holes, that makes perfect sense. Casinos are doing the same thing. This is again the fault of the industry because they have built a world where loopholes can exist.

My claim here is that a significant proportion of cases tossed for T&C violations are the result of deliberate violation, not accidental. These cases don't get classified as "fraud" because the complainant hasn't deliberately falsified anything or been involved in collusion, code hacking, multi-accounting, etc. But the intent to manipulate the system was there, a deliberate act and most definitely not an accident or "confusion".

Again, it is the industry's fault that players can cheat without cheating.

My point is this: if you look at T&Cs from the point of view that players are universally honest, easy-going and cooperative then sure, the T&Cs look a bit predatory.

I'm not looking at it that way. I'm looking at it as a dispassionate third-party, and from that perspective, the T&C's are absurd. The T&C's apply to the entire spectrum of users, good, bad, and ugly, and my argument is that it doesn't matter from which group the user comes; the T&C's remain stupid.

But if you look at the flip-side of that, that a significant portion of players are out to beat the casino by gaining whatever advantage they can, then the T&Cs can be seen as basic and well justified self-protection.

Ummm, yes. That is what players do. It's why things like systems exist. People are always trying to get an advantage. It is again the fault of industry to create this environment where "rules" can be broken.

A well-designed system cannot be broken. It has catches, prompts, and protocols. The mere existence of T&C complaints shows that this is not the case. For example, I accept a bonus and play an unapproved game. A good system prevents me from even doing that. The T&C's become a part of the game logic.

To reiterate, if we assume that T&C's are legal documents, then trying to find loopholes is what you do. It is the nature of legal documents. That is why legal documents have no place in playing a freakin' card game.

And even if we then assume that many people fully understand the terms and try to legally weasel around them, we are still left with many people who are legitimately taken in, and many more who never find their way to these halls to righteously complain. If even one is taken in, I consider it an injustice, and one that doesn't need to exist because bonuses can be designed to not need T&C's.

I'm suggesting the latter is much closer to reality than the former. In my experience malicious player intent is a serious and pervasive problem in this business, I'd go so far as to say it is a "fact of life" for casinos if they want to offer gambling services via the internet.

I would like to turn this around. If manipulating the language of T&C's is "malicious player intent," because we aren't talking about real fraud here, then when casinos do the exact same thing, it is "malicious casino intent," which I consider to be a much bigger and more pervasive problem. A player can only "scam" so many casinos, but a casino can "scam" as many people as it can vacuum up.

As such the casinos would be negligent and irresponsible if they didn't take actions to protect themselves from it.

Exactly! And the necessary actions do not involve convoluted T&C's that will sometimes dynamically change to cover exposure, they involve advancing the business model to something that isn't inherently problematic for both the consumer and the casino. And the failure to do that is entirely the fault of the industry.

 

[MJackson]

Excellent post OP.

I think the lion's share of problems could be avoided if the software enforces all game and betsize restrictions for bonuses. There's no reason it can't. The software provider would simply rather spend their time cranking out a new slot machine rather than do this. If a condition for CM accreditation was that there could be no betsize or game restrictions that weren't enforced by the software, I'm pretty sure you'd see RTG, MG and Playtech add the functionality VERY quickly.

Same goes for country restrictions. If you select Zaire as your country of origin when registering, then claim a bonus, you damn well shouldn't void winnings because people from Zaire aren't allowed to collect bonuses. The software provider can take a few minutes to add

Violating one rule buried in 13 pages of T&Cs doesn't necessarily make you a cheater or fraudster, as many posters here would lead you to believe.

This is a great idea, certainly not a new one either. The system is designed that way. It is intentional, obviously. People have been posting exactly this sort of thing for years and years, it never changes.

 

[MJackson]

While I do not disagree with the point you are trying to make, I feel it my duty to let you know: The Joke in this case was that people stupidly click anything on Terms and Conditions without reading them- because they are LEGAL DOCUMENTS...there are plenty of real world examples of legal binding documents that are full of bat-shit crazy language. Including that which is potentially harmful to at least one person in said document...It is your responsibility to protect yourself...legally binding document that is presented to you...Rather than hoisting this responsibility onto software-providers or the casinos I feel players

I agree with you 100%. I think recreational players are idiots who deserve to get ripped off if they can't accurately assess their own abilities wrt complex legal analysis. I think gambling is stupid and no one should do it. Therefore everyone should approach the terms and conditions just as a good Manhattan M&A lawyer would approach reviewing a balance sheet, or for that matter, how a highly skilled surgeon might approach repairing a dissected aorta - with careful judgement, sober precision and the years of passionate study that are required for such accomplishments.

You wouldn't let Dwayne the Degen with the camouflage deer hunting hat from local the Indian casino perform an exploratory laparotomy on your grandmother would you? Then he shouldn't be involved in complex transactions like casino bonus plays either, plays which he cannot understand, by design. Let the priesthood tend to matters of the church.

Let the wolves eat themselves.

 

[Tirilej]

I agree with you 100%. I think recreational players are idiots who deserve to get ripped off if they can't accurately assess their own abilities wrt complex legal analysis. I think gambling is stupid and no one should do it. Therefore everyone should approach the terms and conditions just as a good Manhattan M&A lawyer would approach reviewing a balance sheet, or for that matter, how a highly skilled surgeon might approach repairing a dissected aorta - with careful judgement, sober precision and the years of passionate study that are required for such accomplishments.

You wouldn't let Dwayne the Degen with the camouflage deer hunting hat from local the Indian casino perform an exploratory laparotomy on your grandmother would you? Then he shouldn't be involved in complex transactions like casino bonus plays either, plays which he cannot understand, by design. Let the priesthood tend to matters of the church.

Let the wolves eat themselves.

Couldn't you at least have written an intelligent answer that actually said something?

 

[MJackson]

That you exist and are willing to display yourself bolsters my arguments.

 

[Tirilej]

That you exist and are willing to display yourself bolsters my arguments.

Sorry, but I didn't understand this sentence either, but I'm sure someone explains it to me.
What I mean is that it's okey to have different view's of things. You don't have to quote him like he was an idiot with his thoughts. At least that's how I read it.
Maybe I was wrong, my english isn't always as good as I wish it was.

 

[Seventh777]

Whilst I wholeheartedly agree with everything the OP has stated I also agree with Nifty`s response, so I can pretty well sum all this up in one word, so that respective new and old customers do not fall foul of T&C`s that they have completely failed to read, why not completely remove all of this ball-crap so people cannot go wrong whilst playing a bonus.

And the one word is..........

32Red

It really is that simple, 32Red have done it, then why can`t the others?.

Do I agree with all these anti-player rules and regs?, hell no, but whilst they are in place we have to adhere to them.

 

[Nifty29]

It has become clear from the op of the op, and their answers to the points i raised, that his POV is actually quite simple, and didn't require 1000+ words....

...I.E.....every problem related to online gambling is the casino's fault.

He is prepared to excuse any and all cases of poor judgement, poor choice, and ignorance by the player......but not the casino.

If you take a pill, then anything that happens as a result is the manufacturers fault. After all, they held the person down physically and forced the pill down their throats.

Well I say "Vote 1 for thelastcylon!". The era of choice without responsibility is here!. You can lose your savings playing the casinos, and get it all refunded because it's not your fault! You can buy some prescription pills from a street dealer and sue the manufacturer for any side effects.....because its not your fault! You can drive a manual car without knowing how to change gears, have an accident, and sue the car maker....because its not your fault!

See the pattern here? I'm not "some other type of player"....I'M AN ADULT who can READ and WRITE and am prepared to accept the consequences of my actions. I would say the vast majority here are the same as me. The other small % are those who believe in free choice with zero responsibility, and blame the casinos and/or everyone else for not reading terms of the bonuses they take. If the terms are awful DON'T take the bonus. It's OK for 99% of us, so why should the ignorant get a free pass?

You see, your arguments would be sound if humans were brainless drones who don't have the ability to choose for themselves.....but 99% of us aren't.

The best way to initiate change is to vote with your wallet. Nothing else is going to even scratch the surface.

 

[max1mike]

You wouldn't let Dwayne the Degen with the camouflage deer hunting hat from local the Indian casino perform an exploratory laparotomy on your grandmother would you?

yeah, i would...she's kind of a bitch.

what else ya got?

 

[maxd]

I'm arguing that the goal, extended playtime for the player, does not require a bonus system as it is implemented. ... Gambling does not require T&C's to exist. ... I was giving them the benefit of the doubt, because my point was that they should be given the benefit of the doubt. ... If people try to find loop-holes, that makes perfect sense.... I'm looking at it as a dispassionate third-party ....

No offence but you are anything but a "dispassionate third-party". You've obviously got a strongly felt position on this and you are voicing it with some vigor. Good on ya but you've not been "dispassionate" nor an uninvolved third-party, not by a long stretch. You are proposing people should be "anti-casino": hardly an uninvolved, "third party" stance. You've gone to some lengths to imagine and support your vision of a world without bonuses and T&Cs and so forth, and not at all dispassionately. You've argued that people should weasel their way around the T&Cs because ... because they are there? Whatever, not "disspassionate" and not "third party".

Let's be clear, I'm not faulting you for taking these particular positions, I'm just saying that (a) I disagree with your picture of the industry and your prescriptions for it and (b) I think you've misinterpreted the data available to you, largely because you're reading things into it that aren't there and/or making sweeping assumptions that undermine your entire argument, and (c) you're not exactly what you are claiming to be. Or perhaps you're not really who you think you are. Either way, a "dispassionate third party" you are not.

I've said that the industry will have T&Cs as long as there are lawyers on hire by casinos who believe they need to protect themselves from those who would take advantage of them. You can argue until the cows fly home that "it is not necessary" or whatever but it is a fact of life in this business and to me it seems that pretending it's not is like debating the shape of virtual clouds. Thanks but no thanks, I'll pass on that.

As to the benefit of the doubt I'd have to say this: after well more than a decade in this business I don't think anyone "deserves" the benefit of the doubt. Regardless of who they are -- punter or industry professional -- they pretty much have to demonstrate that they are worthy of it, IMHO. This business is so riddled with fraud, scheming, scamming and various and sundry weaselings from all sides that I believe people are worthy of the benefit of the doubt when the evidence indicates they have earned it. It's like the man from Missouri said, "show me". I'm neither pro-player nor pro-casino but I am very much anti-bullshit regardless of who is doing the shovelling.

And what does that have to do with your point? I'd say that your argument that the T&Cs are uncalled-for is based on some theoretical idea of this industry which I have never seen the merest hint of since I got involved back in '97-98. Maybe someday what you are envisioning will be a reality. Great! But until then I live in a different world than that and not to put too fine a point on it but your imagined world is not of particular interest to me, nor I dare say a lot of other folks who ply these waters on a day-to-day basis. T&Cs do exist and will for the foreseeable future -- which looks a lot like forever to me -- as do bonuses, player scams, casino scams and so forth ad nauseum. T&Cs are a tool for the real world and you're likely to find them in use and rather pervasive for some time to come. If you wish to argue that that makes the casinos the bad guys and that everyone should be against them then that's your position and you're welcome to it. I think there are more even-handed approaches to the whole business but there you go.

Anyway, as I've pretty much said, you have your axe to grind and that's great, rock on! More power to you! But let's skip the "I'm only a dispassionate nobody" stuff shall we? It's bunk and I seriously doubt I'm the only one who thinks so.

 

[jetset]

Could not have said it better myself.

I intensely dislike the excessive bonusing culture that has evolved in this industry, and the disputes and disruption that it daily generates, but if there was no player take-up, there would be little point in operators offering hese inducements, and I fear that in a competitive environment they are here to stay for as long as a significant proportion of the gambling community takes them...and the risks they entail.

In the real world, T&Cs are everywhere, and necessarily so to spell out the rights and obligations of both sides to a transaction.

 

[Mojack]

I would like to see complete terms and conditions located in one place, written in staight forward concise layman's terms.
I hate to see a small book written in small font. Perhaps a glossary of casino nomenclature could be included ie "Spirit of the Bonus" etc...
Casinos should keep it customer friendly, imo.

 

[jetset]

I agree with you 100%. I think recreational players are idiots who deserve to get ripped off if they can't accurately assess their own abilities wrt complex legal analysis. I think gambling is stupid and no one should do it. Therefore everyone should approach the terms and conditions just as a good Manhattan M&A lawyer would approach reviewing a balance sheet, or for that matter, how a highly skilled surgeon might approach repairing a dissected aorta - with careful judgement, sober precision and the years of passionate study that are required for such accomplishments.

You wouldn't let Dwayne the Degen with the camouflage deer hunting hat from local the Indian casino perform an exploratory laparotomy on your grandmother would you? Then he shouldn't be involved in complex transactions like casino bonus plays either, plays which he cannot understand, by design. Let the priesthood tend to matters of the church.

Let the wolves eat themselves.

On first reading this post I assumed it was an attempt at satire or amusement, so arrogant and bigoted is its tone. Now I'm not so sure, but I do know that such a condescending attitude and abusive characterisation of other gamblers is unlikely to resonate well with many members here.

However. I agree with the proposition that we are all responsible for our own actions; we all have freedom of choice; and it is necesary to research before approaching a casino, and then ensure we are familiar with it's rules before playing.

 

[vinylweatherman]

Could not have said it better myself.

I intensely dislike the excessive bonusing culture that has evolved in this industry, and the disputes and disruption that it daily generates, but if there was no player take-up, there would be little point in operators offering hese inducements, and I fear that in a competitive environment they are here to stay for as long as a significant proportion of the gambling community takes them...and the risks they entail.

In the real world, T&Cs are everywhere, and necessarily so to spell out the rights and obligations of both sides to a transaction.

Given the lengths companies go to, the ordinary layman doesn't stand a chance.

Recent TV documentaries have gone behind the scenes of the dark art of "marketing", and shown the art to be darker than anyone would expect. Forget clever lawyers, we are talking PHD Psychology, behavioural analysis and manipulation, emotional response prompting, etc - all in the line of emptying our wallets. No one customer has the level of knowledge to see the big picture when presented with the resultant array of marketing prompts. A small number of these techniques are so "dark" as to be banned by law, such as subliminal messaging during a visual stimulus, such as an advert for a product, or even a sponsored entertainment product. It's banned because it works.

Many shops use subtle smells and lighting in order to control the mood of customers, and thus prompt them to buy the products that generate the most profit. That's why your local WallMart (trading as ASDA in the UK) might smell faintly of lemons.

 

[ksech]

Just to add my worthless two cents...

Casinos have been FORCED into to writing these mega-paged, mind-boggling, need-to-be-a-lawyer-to-understand T&Cs because human nature has created players who have created every possible scenerio from playing honestly to plying every trick imaginable. (Now how's that for a run-on sentence???) There was a member here just a few months ago who posted about hacking one of the casinos/softwares/games (?) to place bets that shouldn't have been allowed. It's players' like this that T&Cs are molded after. Or the player who "accidently" makes 170 spins@ $110, or the player who has multiple accounts at a casino but "geesh" I forgot I already took the SUB and opened another new account, etc.,etc.,etc...

If casinos weren't faced daily, with scammers/trickster/cheats, but who only had HONEST players, then the need for T&Cs would be obsolete. But this will never happen. The only way to insure YOURSELF from being free of entrapment from T&Cs, is to play bonusfree or to not play at all.

 

[Simmo!]

There is a good point in the OP though and that is that anti-casino feeling does exist. And the reason it exists is because it's an unusual industry in that there really is no product: it's all about winning someone else's money. Casinos want the player's money, the player wants the casino's money and right down through the ages and for evermore, you have two sides that compete with each other. It's not a mutually beneficial transaction like buying something in a shop.

That's gambling. But...it can be managed.

While casinos insist on selling themselves through offering "free money" signup bonuses it ain't ever going to change because those will often attract the sort of player that a casino doesn't want to deal with and consequently end up in opposing positions with. The "anti operator" sentiment will always be there to a degree from some quarters but it is exacerbated by the signup bonus culture and the only people that can prevent that are the casinos themselves. I have no sympathy with either side.

I could also bang on about more effective regulation to stop some of the dodgy casinos touting their wares inappropriately - that would help. But it's been covered recently so I won't.

 

[maxd]

If casinos weren't faced daily, with scammers/trickster/cheats, but who only had HONEST players, then the need for T&Cs would be obsolete. But this will never happen.

I reckon one of the first sets of T&Cs were the 10 Commandments. If humans weren't full of human nature then even those would have been unnecessary. Yet here we are, a few thousand years on doing the dirt we do. So it goes.

The only way to insure YOURSELF from being free of entrapment from T&Cs, is to play bonusfree ....

Sadly even that isn't true anymore: forced bonuses, capped withdrawals on small deposits for low rollers, "manager" bonuses given without notice, etc, mean that even the no-bonus crowd is in the game, whether they like it or not.

 

[bpb]

Just to add my worthless two cents...

Casinos have been FORCED into to writing these mega-paged, mind-boggling, need-to-be-a-lawyer-to-understand T&Cs because human nature has created players who have created every possible scenerio from playing honestly to plying every trick imaginable. (Now how's that for a run-on sentence???) There was a member here just a few months ago who posted about hacking one of the casinos/softwares/games (?) to place bets that shouldn't have been allowed. It's players' like this that T&Cs are molded after. Or the player who "accidently" makes 170 spins@ $110, or the player who has multiple accounts at a casino but "geesh" I forgot I already took the SUB and opened another new account, etc.,etc.,etc...

If casinos weren't faced daily, with scammers/trickster/cheats, but who only had HONEST players, then the need for T&Cs would be obsolete. But this will never happen. The only way to insure YOURSELF from being free of entrapment from T&Cs, is to play bonusfree or to not play at all.

And you've fallen into the brainwashed mentality that HONEST players don't accidentally set the betsize too high. And that HONEST players don't forget that they already signed up at a casino a few years back. And that HONEST players don't mistakenly play a game that restricted due to their deposit amount/deposit method/country of origin/country of residence/etc.

Again, these and a multitude of other things can be caught by simple software checks. But casinos don't want to implement them, because it would cut off a revenue stream.

 

[Simmo!]

But casinos don't want to implement them, because it would cut off a revenue stream.

*Some* casinos. And those bring down the reputation of the rest. Like *some* players act fraudulently and that's detrimental to the honest players. Ineffective regulation.

 

[ksech]

And you've fallen into the brainwashed mentality that HONEST players don't accidentally set the betsize too high. And that HONEST players don't forget that they already signed up at a casino a few years back. And that HONEST players don't mistakenly play a game that restricted due to their deposit amount/deposit method/country of origin/country of residence/etc.

Again, these and a multitude of other things can be caught by simple software checks. But casinos don't want to implement them, because it would cut off a revenue stream.

I'm not saying accidents don't happen. Accidents DO happen and an honest player will go to CSR immediately and explain, NOT wait until 100+ spins go by, or open a multitude of accounts. It's a players' responsibility to CHECK which games are allowed if they are going to take a bonus. What's wrong with going to CSR and asking if perhaps you may have played there before, before you open an account? Maybe I AM one of the "brainwashed" mentality, but at least I know I don't have to worry. I read T&Cs. If I did play a bonus I carefully read the rules or asked questions before I played so I understood. A player has to take some responsibility too.

A lot has changed in the last 10-15 years since I started to gamble online. It's not fun anymore, so I stopped playing almost 2 years ago. I still read though, I sympathize with the players. Casinos who "spring" surprise bonuses on players' should be outlawed, IMO. And having maxcaps on withdrawals is bogus. There's a lot that isn't fair in this business. But as long as there are players to deposit, online gambling will continue to flourish.

 

[vinylweatherman]

Just to add my worthless two cents...

Casinos have been FORCED into to writing these mega-paged, mind-boggling, need-to-be-a-lawyer-to-understand T&Cs because human nature has created players who have created every possible scenerio from playing honestly to plying every trick imaginable. (Now how's that for a run-on sentence???) There was a member here just a few months ago who posted about hacking one of the casinos/softwares/games (?) to place bets that shouldn't have been allowed. It's players' like this that T&Cs are molded after. Or the player who "accidently" makes 170 spins@ $110, or the player who has multiple accounts at a casino but "geesh" I forgot I already took the SUB and opened another new account, etc.,etc.,etc...

If casinos weren't faced daily, with scammers/trickster/cheats, but who only had HONEST players, then the need for T&Cs would be obsolete. But this will never happen. The only way to insure YOURSELF from being free of entrapment from T&Cs, is to play bonusfree or to not play at all.

No, they had a choice.

They could instead have taken the software design route, and enforced many things like bet and game restrictions this way. This would have left most things covered by the software, and much less that needed to be covered in the terms and conditions, which as a result would not have been so bad, and a player would have to REALLY try in order to break them, such as by coding their own client in order to bypass the restrictions.

You often accidentally hit max bet instead of spin, but you do not "accidentally" code your own client and launch it instead of the official one.

 

[ChopleyIOM]

No, they had a choice.

They could instead have taken the software design route, and enforced many things like bet and game restrictions this way. This would have left most things covered by the software, and much less that needed to be covered in the terms and conditions, which as a result would not have been so bad, and a player would have to REALLY try in order to break them, such as by coding their own client in order to bypass the restrictions.

You often accidentally hit max bet instead of spin, but you do not "accidentally" code your own client and launch it instead of the official one.

Absolutely.

There is pretty much NOTHING in the T&Cs that couldn't be implemented at a software level.

From the client simply restricting bet size, to an 'are you sure' dialogue if you try to play a 'banned' game, to anything else. The truth of the matter is that the casinos would much rather take the money first, and refuse to pay later.

 

[MJackson]

On first reading this post I assumed it was an attempt at satire or amusement, so arrogant and bigoted is its tone. Now I'm not so sure, but I do know that such a condescending attitude and abusive characterisation of other gamblers is unlikely to resonate well with many members here.

However. I agree with the proposition that we are all responsible for our own actions; we all have freedom of choice; and it is necesary to research before approaching a casino, and then ensure we are familiar with it's rules before playing.

Maximum arrogance and bigotry - high trolling.

You can't have it both ways. Either it's recreation or it's not. If your demands are inconsistent with recreation then recreation is not what you provide.

 

[jetset]

Crying "troll" after your earlier post is pretty rich in my opinion.

 

[maxd]

Crying "troll" after your earlier post is pretty rich in my opinion.

I'm surprised you were able to make even that much sense out of it. I find those posts incomprehensible though they certainly seem to intend to be insulting.

@MJackson: until further notice you are in the "Moderated" group, meaning one of the Casinomeister staff or moderators will have to approve your posts before they appear on the forums.

 

[MJackson]

Crying "troll" after your earlier post is pretty rich in my opinion.

OK apparently no one got any of that. I was calling myself a troll. If you read the post I was responding to it was ostensibly a webmaster using the word stupid to descibe recreational gamblers who did not read the insanely complex T&C's of the casinos they were downloading. I was attempting to advocate for the devil and do too good a job of it, taking that logical path to it's extreme end. The point is that expecting people who are doing an activity for recreational purposes to be interested in or even capable of reading and fully understanding terms and conditions that are often intentionally arcane, counter intuitive and flat out convoluted is a bit inconsistent. It's either one or it's the other. Either you want to encourage recreational gambling or you don't. This fits right in with what the OP was saying, which I actually do agree with 100%, it's anti-player. It's also self destructive to the gambling business. How many players that would have been or could have been long term depositors have been completely put off from online gambling by having their cashout stolen after a casino invokes an fu clause? How many players who only intended to gamble have gone to cash out only to find that the games they played didn't qualify, they played an excluded game, they won with bonus money so now their entire balance is a bonus, the casino deems their play abusive etc and so now they can't cash out. Land casinos don't work that way. You don't have to worry about weather or not you can quit when you want and take your winnings or cut your losses. If I was a recreational gambler I would want no part of a system like that.

I'm guessing the type of people who are going to read through a legal document that is often as difficult to understand as a contract to buy a house, and who are going to make sure they understand every word of it, are not going to be the same people who go spew off chips on american roulette for fun. That is an inconsistency that I see people who should recognize it as such either ignoring, denying or even encouraging.

 

[TheLastCylon]

No offence but you are anything but a "dispassionate third-party". You've obviously got a strongly felt position on this and you are voicing it with some vigor. Good on ya but you've not been "dispassionate" nor an uninvolved third-party, not by a long stretch. You are proposing people should be "anti-casino": hardly an uninvolved, "third party" stance. You've gone to some lengths to imagine and support your vision of a world without bonuses and T&Cs and so forth, and not at all dispassionately.

I do not take offense to this, but I feel that I should rephrase what I mean so as to avoid confusion. I am dispassionate. I have never been wronged by a casino. Dispassionate means that I am not invested for personal reasons, which is true. I am invested because I have looked out over a landscape in which I am interested and see problems, problems that may affect me in the future and problems that I think need to be discussed.

I keep using car examples, so I may as well continue the trend; just because I have never had a car explode or otherwise fail me, doesn't mean that I don't get self-righteous and all activist-y when I see problems. I railed about the American car companies and how they deserved to fail. I've never even owned an American car.

You've argued that people should weasel their way around the T&Cs because ... because they are there? Whatever, not "disspassionate" and not "third party".

Not because they are there, but because that is what happens with legal documents. I'm not going to blame someone who tries to play the legal game with legal words. The application of T&C's opens the door to that game and it's the casinos fault that they set down the game board.

You said it three times, and I don't know what you mean by not "third party." I'm a player who's never had a problem. I don't run any websites or own a casino. I'm the very definition of a third party.

Let's be clear, I'm not faulting you for taking these particular positions, I'm just saying that (a) I disagree with your picture of the industry and your prescriptions for it and (b) I think you've misinterpreted the data available to you, largely because you're reading things into it that aren't there and/or making sweeping assumptions that undermine your entire argument,

I'm totally fine with anyone here disagreeing with me. If anything, that's why I'm here. What I want to know is where am I specifically misinterpreting data and how are my prescriptions misguided?

and (c) you're not exactly what you are claiming to be. Or perhaps you're not really who you think you are. Either way, a "dispassionate third party" you are not.

I don't know how to interpret this, but judging from your previous jab, saying that I am not third-party, I will simply take it at face value: you think that I am lying, either explicitly to you or, disregarding good advice from Shakespeare, to myself. What I am lying about is...?

The only thing about which I could have lied is my claim of being dispassionate. The other things that I have said aren't lies; they might be incorrect, but that's because I'm incorrect, not because I'm willfully trying to dissimulate or anything. I am absolutely dispassionate, because dispassionate does not mean uninterested. A judge can be dispassionate while still caring about the underlying concept of justice. What I see is an industry that is tricking thousands of people every year. I think that it's entirely reasonable to be taken aback by this.

I've said that the industry will have T&Cs as long as there are lawyers on hire by casinos who believe they need to protect themselves from those who would take advantage of them. You can argue until the cows fly home that "it is not necessary" or whatever but it is a fact of life in this business and to me it seems that pretending it's not is like debating the shape of virtual clouds. Thanks but no thanks, I'll pass on that.

I appreciate your sentiment, and what I'm saying is that a good system cannot be taken advantage of. They need the T&C's and the lawyers because of their own lack of vision. There is no reason why a casino should need them. They only need T&C's because of the current structure of their bonus system. Abandon that system for a new one, and the need for both the lawyers and the T&C's disappears.

Moreover, I am not pretending like it's not a fact of life. I'm saying that the fact doesn't need to be there. T&C's exist because bonuses can be manipulated to the guaranteed detriment of the casino. Either get rid of the T&C's and act like, I dunno', a casino, or design the games and casino to prevent violations. The former is what I'm arguing should be done, but the latter at least makes sense.

As to the benefit of the doubt I'd have to say this: after well more than a decade in this business I don't think anyone "deserves" the benefit of the doubt. Regardless of who they are -- punter or industry professional -- they pretty much have to demonstrate that they are worthy of it, IMHO. This business is so riddled with fraud, scheming, scamming and various and sundry weaselings from all sides that I believe people are worthy of the benefit of the doubt when the evidence indicates they have earned it. It's like the man from Missouri said, "show me". I'm neither pro-player nor pro-casino but I am very much anti-bullshit regardless of who is doing the shovelling.

I can't disagree with that. As I've said, I don't entirely begrudge people their sentiment vis-a-vis the industry since they, you included, have been dealing with it for so long. My reasons for believing that the benefit of the doubt are warranted are that the PAB data that you've posted, and the seemingly limitless number of casinos out there, many of which have never been the subject of CM scrutiny, means that the casino side of the industry is much more unseemly than the player side.

I want to make sure that it's understood that this does not mean that any specific casino is bad. That obviously doesn't make sense. But since the barrel has so many rotten apples, without extant data, I will assume any new apple pulled from the barrel to be rotten.

If a player comes forward with a complaint about a widely respected casino, like say 3Dice, NordicBet, or Virgin, I'll give everyone involved the benefit of the doubt. But with smaller casinos, my reflex reaction is always to lean in favor of the player until further evidence comes out.

And what does that have to do with your point? I'd say that your argument that the T&Cs are uncalled-for is based on some theoretical idea of this industry which I have never seen the merest hint of since I got involved back in '97-98.

It is not theory, and just because it has never been seen doesn't mean that it isn't desirable. Casinos are casinos. I do not have to sign a sheet of terms, conditions, and regulations when I walk into a physical casino. Everyone knows the rules of the games. There is no layer of meta-rules operating above the game rules. Online casinos can operate the exact same way. This just seems plainly obvious to me.

But until then I live in a different world than that and not to put too fine a point on it but your imagined world is not of particular interest to me, nor I dare say a lot of other folks who ply these waters on a day-to-day basis.

Shouldn't the point of this message board be not simply discussing the crap that is flying around, but the dreams of a world without flying crap? People don't go to car message boards to just talk about tires; they also talk about the future of cars which is, ideally, better than the present.

T&Cs do exist and will for the foreseeable future -- which looks a lot like forever to me -- as do bonuses, player scams, casino scams and so forth ad nauseum. T&Cs are a tool for the real world and you're likely to find them in use and rather pervasive for some time to come. If you wish to argue that that makes the casinos the bad guys and that everyone should be against them then that's your position and you're welcome to it. I think there are more even-handed approaches to the whole business but there you go.

My attacks do not involve actual scams on the part of the player. That is fraud and is something that any casino should be careful to guard against. A big example that springs to mind is chip dumping. The last thing a casino wants to be is part of a money laundering operation. Ya' know... unless they want to be part of a money laundering operation.

That is something that will definitely be a part of the gambling world. Scammers will scam, hackers will hack. But that doesn't require T&C's. These are things that people understand simply because of the nature of laws around the world. Criminals trying to launder money through a poker table do not require T&C's to understand why what they're doing is wrong. Likewise, T&C's provide absolutely no extra protection against these criminals for the casino.

I am not saying that T&C's necessarily make casinos the bad guys. I'm arguing that T&C's necessarily make casinos idiots. And the fact that a player can even violate the T&C's when the terms should be built into the casino's and games' architecture also makes them bad designers.

Anyway, as I've pretty much said, you have your axe to grind and that's great, rock on! More power to you! But let's skip the "I'm only a dispassionate nobody" stuff shall we? It's bunk and I seriously doubt I'm the only one who thinks so.

It's not bunk and I don't appreciate being directly called a liar, here, and having it been insinuated twice previously. And frankly, if others don't believe me, then that is their issue, not mine. That's why ad hominem attacks are seen as an argumentative fallacy. Moreover, I never said that I was "nobody." I'm not nobody. I'm a damn fine somebody. What I meant is that I'm someone who, up until about a year ago, had little experience with the online gaming world. And since then, perhaps because I was seeing through the eyes of an outsider, I saw many elements of this world that are just plainly ridiculous.

That's why I came here initially. That's why I joined Casinomeister. Because this place was one of the few areas where this ridiculous stuff is held to the fire.

I have no axe and I seek no grindstone. I have NEVER been screwed by an online casino. I am assaulting an industry that is, to an alarming degree, oriented to the detriment of the consumers that it services and, I think, even to itself. To simply call out as crap what is obviously crap does not mean that I have some secret vendetta.

 

[maxd]

Dispassionate means that I am not invested for personal reasons....

FTR:

dis·pas·sion·ate  [dis-pash-uh-nit]
adjective
free from or unaffected by passion; devoid of personal feeling or bias; impartial; calm: "a dispassionate critic".

I'd say "devoid of personal feeling or bias" is exactly what you have not been, nor have you shown yourself to be "impartial" in any way. So I'd say it's fair to say that "dispassionate" is not a claim you can reasonably make. That is what I meant when said you were misrepresenting yourself. At no time did I call you a liar.

 

[vinylweatherman]

FTR:


I'd say "devoid of personal feeling or bias" is exactly what you have not been, nor have you shown yourself to be "impartial" in any way. So I'd say it's fair to say that "dispassionate" is not a claim you can reasonably make. That is what I meant when said you were misrepresenting yourself. At no time did I call you a liar.

I'd say he is an advocate for change, nothing wrong with that, but this is not "dispassionate". It is also unlikely to be "unbiased".

There is pressure for change, but there is no central body to regulate the industry, and NO body at all in some cases.

Casinos brought this on themselves by coming up with the aggressive bonusing approach. As things have changed, casinos have clung on to a model that used to work well, but that is now in intensive care, being kept alive by aggressive interventions from marketing teams and lawyers. These interventions are all short term fixes, and the "disease" of fraudulent players, and what the industry calls "bonus abusers", evolves to get around each new intervention.

What is needed is a long term "back to basics" approach, where they get rid of the idea that they must use better deposit bonuses than their competitors to attract players. They should begin by making all "meta rules" enforcable through the software. This will leave only the usual "legalese" about hacking, infringement of copyrights, etc for the terms and conditions.

Casinos then need to accept that players who play to win are part of the scene, and are not about to go away. They must ensure therefore that the underlying maths is robust before launching any new scheme, such as a promotion, tournament, or cashback reward for wagering.

The hard part is weaning players off the idea that a casino without a decent welcome bonus isn't even worth a look. This means changing the mentality of affiliates, many of whom rank casinos according to the quality of their welcome bonus, rather than what they offer long term players.

 

[ChopleyIOM]

In all fairness to Cylon, on the main CM 'Philosophy and Mission Statement' page, Bryan states this:

https://sussexmskpartnershipeast.com/about-us/philosophy/

Trust is what holds this industry together. If you don't have trust, you don't have anything worth dealing with. Since the online casino industry is still unregulated for the most part, players will remain cautious, cynical, pessimistic and accusatory. It is up to the casino to do battle against this negativity. The way to do this is to be upfront, honest, humble, and when you make a mistake - admit it. Admitting our mistakes humanizes us, and people relate to people this way. This is a people business.

My feeling is that any reasonable person would not find the massive list of T&Cs attached to even the smallest bonus to be 'upfront and honest', and Bryan states in black and white that a player's default position is likely to be 'cynical, pessimistic and accusatory'. To expect players to wade through these T&Cs to be able to enjoy a recreational activity in safety is a nonsense.

I think Cylon is entirely right, the online casino industry is hurting itself as much as its players with its behaviour. Certainly I know quite a few folks who like a gamble on all the various games at the B&M casino we have here on the Isle of Man, they enjoy playing the slots in the amusement arcades, they'll play the AWPs in the pub and so on - but quite frankly I wouldn't dare to recommend to them that they try online gambling, there aren't enough hours in the day to 'pre-warn' them about how to deal with bonus offers and not breaking the rules and otherwise screwing themselves over so they have no chance of getting any money back.

Stories such as this say it all IMO - https://sussexmskpartnershipeast.com/forum...d-due-to-violation-of-30-bet-size-rule.47764/

 

[P.V.]

In all fairness to Cylon, on the main CM 'Philosophy and Mission Statement' page, Bryan states this:

https://sussexmskpartnershipeast.com/about-us/philosophy/



My feeling is that any reasonable person would not find the massive list of T&Cs attached to even the smallest bonus to be 'upfront and honest', and Bryan states in black and white that a player's default position is likely to be 'cynical, pessimistic and accusatory'. To expect players to wade through these T&Cs to be able to enjoy a recreational activity in safety is a nonsense.

I think Cylon is entirely right, the online casino industry is hurting itself as much as its players with its behaviour. Certainly I know quite a few folks who like a gamble on all the various games at the B&M casino we have here on the Isle of Man, they enjoy playing the slots in the amusement arcades, they'll play the AWPs in the pub and so on - but quite frankly I wouldn't dare to recommend to them that they try online gambling, there aren't enough hours in the day to 'pre-warn' them about how to deal with bonus offers and not breaking the rules and otherwise screwing themselves over so they have no chance of getting any money back.

Stories such as this say it all IMO - https://sussexmskpartnershipeast.com/forum...d-due-to-violation-of-30-bet-size-rule.47764/

The pressure for change must come from the players, the ones depositing their hard earned money.

The 10 quote reply towards Max is ambiguous.

Anyone thinking that online is the same as land based, well might be offline them self.

I can assure you as the US moves forward with IGaming, T & C's will exist, unlike walking into a land based casino.

 

[Seventh777]

In all fairness to Cylon, on the main CM 'Philosophy and Mission Statement' page, Bryan states this:

https://sussexmskpartnershipeast.com/about-us/philosophy/



My feeling is that any reasonable person would not find the massive list of T&Cs attached to even the smallest bonus to be 'upfront and honest', and Bryan states in black and white that a player's default position is likely to be 'cynical, pessimistic and accusatory'. To expect players to wade through these T&Cs to be able to enjoy a recreational activity in safety is a nonsense.

I think Cylon is entirely right, the online casino industry is hurting itself as much as its players with its behaviour. Certainly I know quite a few folks who like a gamble on all the various games at the B&M casino we have here on the Isle of Man, they enjoy playing the slots in the amusement arcades, they'll play the AWPs in the pub and so on - but quite frankly I wouldn't dare to recommend to them that they try online gambling, there aren't enough hours in the day to 'pre-warn' them about how to deal with bonus offers and not breaking the rules and otherwise screwing themselves over so they have no chance of getting any money back.

Stories such as this say it all IMO - https://sussexmskpartnershipeast.com/forum...d-due-to-violation-of-30-bet-size-rule.47764/

I remember that thread, everyone felt for that guy including the stickler to rules Mr Nifty, an absolutely appalling decision by the casino in question - especially at that time of year.

The past year or so I have really cut back on the number of casinos I regularly play at, I still cannot and never will get my head around those casinos blatantly flagging gambleaware etc seals, expressing their integrity when it comes to those whom succumb to temptation and the darker sides of gambling, the very same casinos that will not flush reverse withdrawals and in some cases leave the customers cash hanging tempt-ably like the proverbial carrot on a stick for upto 72+ hours, until they finally succumb and reverse their withdrawal.

The sheer hypocrisy of this aspect sickens me a whole heap more than bucketful's of T&C`s ever will, how would casino`s fare if we had the same option with deposits and left them in limbo for 2-3 days and then decided not to deposit, have reverse withdrawals by all means, but, it should be entirely down to the player whether or not they are used, after-all it is our money, is it not?.

 

[MJackson]

The hard part is weaning players off the idea that a casino without a decent welcome bonus isn't even worth a look.

How irrational do you think players are?

I think the OP has some great points. But otoh I've been around this business long enough that I have to recognize Maxd's replies, ad hom stuff notwithstanding, as being basically right.

Your problem, our problem, is that this business serves no real economic purpose. In that respect it is almost singular. You cannot get rid of the gimmicks. Ever. Online gambling is a gimmick.

 

[jetset]

I'd say he is an advocate for change, nothing wrong with that, but this is not "dispassionate". It is also unlikely to be "unbiased".

There is pressure for change, but there is no central body to regulate the industry, and NO body at all in some cases.

Casinos brought this on themselves by coming up with the aggressive bonusing approach. As things have changed, casinos have clung on to a model that used to work well, but that is now in intensive care, being kept alive by aggressive interventions from marketing teams and lawyers. These interventions are all short term fixes, and the "disease" of fraudulent players, and what the industry calls "bonus abusers", evolves to get around each new intervention.

What is needed is a long term "back to basics" approach, where they get rid of the idea that they must use better deposit bonuses than their competitors to attract players. They should begin by making all "meta rules" enforcable through the software. This will leave only the usual "legalese" about hacking, infringement of copyrights, etc for the terms and conditions.

Casinos then need to accept that players who play to win are part of the scene, and are not about to go away. They must ensure therefore that the underlying maths is robust before launching any new scheme, such as a promotion, tournament, or cashback reward for wagering.

The hard part is weaning players off the idea that a casino without a decent welcome bonus isn't even worth a look. This means changing the mentality of affiliates, many of whom rank casinos according to the quality of their welcome bonus, rather than what they offer long term players.

I find myself in broad agreement with much of what VWM says here, which makes more practical sense to me than the somewhat idealistic approach of Cylon.

I do believe that the increasingly lucrative yet onerous bonus culture that has evolved over the years has become counter-productive in almost every dimension, and that it has done little to improve the perhaps natural adversarial gap between players trying to win money and casinos trying to make money off players.

That has lead to the competitive evolution of T&Cs as one side tries to cancel out the others' advantage, but when it comes to hard cash it's difficult to envisage a system that does not have a set of rules by which everyone is supposed to play.

Regrettably, even with those rules laid out there are occasions when both sides play this cat and mouse game unfairly, and that's to the ultimate detriment of everyone and the industry itself imo.

The general tone of this thread has created a rather dark portrayal of an evil and thoroughly dishonest industry intentionally and continuously gouging the players, and I think that may militate against the balance that many members here prefer in discussions. There are days when I also become depressed, frustrated and angry reading a litany of wrongdoing here by either players or operators, and I acknowledge that it is easy to lose a sense of perspective.

Certainly there are enough individual examples of bad behaviour on all sides to create a negative vibe, but amongst all of this it should also be remembered that this is a global industry processing probably millions of transactions every day, and that the instances of questionable conduct are but a part of it...and a part that may in fact be relatively small although still regrettable.

I'm not sure that there is sufficient unbiased data available to indicate how big or how small the "evil element" might be, but the fact remains that online gambling continues to attract and retain enough player interest to make it a lucrative business in a commercial sense, and a source of profit and/or entertainment (depending on your personal viewpoint) for others.

It's not a bad thing to retain a sense of perspective no matter how strongly one feels on either side of the equation.

I would really like to see VWM's vision of a return to basics on bonusing, but I concur with his view that until players stop succumbing to these often ridiculous inducements, they are here to stay, along with the disputes and disruptions that so often attend them - like T&Cs and how these are interpreted.

I'm afraid I cannot subscribe to the idea that a recreational gambler should be entitled to be less attentive to T&Cs. These are a fact of life, influencing one's chances of reward, and when money is involved one should never take them for granted...any more than one should blindly put hard earned money into an online casino that one has not first checked out.

 

[Nifty29]

Well said jetset.

You know, there really are just a few basic rules to follow if one is going to take a bonus:

1. Always check restricted games.

2. Check maximum bet restrictions.

3. Check wagering requirements.

4. Check casinomeister forums for any reviews.

I've probably left an obvious one out, so feel free to add.

My point is, if you always do the things above you'll never run into trouble. It's not really that difficult at all.

Almost every issue is a result of NOT doing the things above, and they're mostly common sense, and I don't have an ounce of sympathy for them. It is these players that blow in like a force 10 gale, typing in caps, throwing accusations around.....all because they're angry...and they should be.....at themselves. However, instead of suffering the consequences of not making themselves aware of the terms they agreed to in the first place, it is far easier to drum up some support from the usual suspects in the forums and make oneself into a victim. Actually, they are a victim....of their own carelessness.

If 50%, or even 5%, of players had issues with confiscation of winnings due to breach of terms, then i would consider that bonus terms are a bad thing and join the crusade....but 99% of players don't have an issue with taking time to read terms and clarify what they don't understand, so I'll stay in the "you make your bed, you lie in it" camp.

 

[jetset]

5. Check withdrawal restrictions

 

[ChopleyIOM]

6) And hope that your play isn't determined to be 'not be in the spirit of the bonus' - except they won't define what the 'spirit' of the bonus actually is, or what the rules are, or how they'll apply them.

 

[Nifty29]

6) And hope that your play isn't determined to be 'not be in the spirit of the bonus' - except they won't define what the 'spirit' of the bonus actually is, or what the rules are, or how they'll apply them.

Anyone who plays at a casino where a rule like this applies with no specifics regarding what constitutes bonus abuse should be avoided.

Again, its down to reading the terms and clarifying anything that is not clear. It is part of #4 checking casinomeister. Casinos that pull these stunts usually get bad PR here, so you should never really end up at one if you're smart.

I have no sympathy for anyone who plays at these casinos and gets shafted.....its not playing smart, and if you're not smart, you shouldn't gamble....or should at least educate yourself.

It should be noted that in 15 years I have never had winnings confiscated.

 

[ChopleyIOM]

I have no sympathy for anyone who plays at these casinos and gets shafted.....its not playing smart, and if you're not smart, you shouldn't gamble....or should at least educate yourself.

It should be noted that in 15 years I have never had winnings confiscated.

TBH Nifty think it's going to be hard for you to look at this objectively 'through the eyes of a novice player' as it were, if you've been playing online for 15 years.

Certainly when I started playing online over four years ago I got burned in more ways than one, and I'm not an imbecile.

1) I played high variance games at big stakes relative to my bankroll, before I even knew what variance was. (That was an expensive evening, with multiple deposits and a call from my bank's fraud detection team the next day.....)

2) I took SUBs without understanding the implication of WRs, and had to ask multiple times in Live Chat how close I was to meeting them, as this was before MG software gave you any indication in the software.

3) Then I learned how onerous WRs can be, to understand the difference between just bonus or bonus+deposit, which games contribute what, that sort of thing. And watched bankrolls disappear as I got ground out by bad WRs.

4) More by luck than judgement I managed to avoid rogue casinos, but this was more down to the fact that I liked the MG games and software, and their casinos tend to be the better run ones.

Now from these early experiences I read around, I found the CM site, I clued myself up and since then my playing online has been a lot more enjoyable - but I've not been playing online for so long as to have forgotten just what a big, bad, scary, unwelcoming world online gaming can be to a new player who just assumes everything will be nice and clear and there won't be a requirement to read twenty pages of T&Cs to understand what's going on at any given casino.

With all due respect Nifty, being fifteen years down the line, I think you have forgotten that.

 

[Tirilej]

Not to forget all of us having to translate all the rules first.
When you are new that is more difficult than you can imagine, and no googletranslation will help either.

 

[ChopleyIOM]

Not to forget all of us having to translate all the rules first.
When you are new that is more difficult than you can imagine, and no googletranslation will help either.

I didn't think about that, English is my first language and I sometimes have to read sections of T&Cs two or three times to work out what they actually mean