When evaluating things its always good practice to look at its origins, so I took a little gander at the way back machine and here are my findings....
2005 till February 23, 2007 (no older site history)
1. The Player is at least 18 years of age or has reached the legal age of maturity in his/her jurisdiction, whichever is greater.
March 9, 2007 - Oct 11 2007 (CWC has blocked the WBM from its pages in October 2007 and changed its terms to ban students under 21)
1. The Player is at least 18 years of age or has reached the legal age of maturity in his/her jurisdiction, whichever is greater. Full-time Students
aged 21 years old and under that are enrolled in a College or University are not permitted to play in the Casino.
Present day - CWC has since cast a wider net and removed the
21 years of age and under portion of the clause.
Link Removed ( Old/Invalid)
1. The Player is at least 18 years of age or has reached the legal age of maturity in his/her jurisdiction, whichever is greater. Full-time Students who are enrolled in a College or University are not permitted to play in the Casino
So I AM curious. How OLD is DanL?
From this, it seems the intent was to ban UNDERGRADUATE students on their FIRST degree level or equivalent course. They dropped the "21 or under" because most students turn 21 BEFORE taking their final exams. I took a 3 year degree course, very much the norm, but reached 21 in March, yet only graduated in June. Clearly CWC did NOT intend to allow students to play in the same period that they were supposed to be concentrating on their final exams. Some courses are longer though, and this is another loophole with the "under 21" restriction, with those on 4 year courses being able to study during their last year.
Removing this "under 21" seems to be the natural evolution of the term to remove these loopholes, and have ALL undergraduates banned.
It seems that this term was NEVER intended to hit "adult students", but only students progressing through to the end of their first degree course, where they would be dependent on others to fund their living and study expenses.
The DanL case seems to have broken with this idea, and indicates that the term really does mean ALL students, whatever their age. DanL had graduated from the usual degree course, so must be at least 21, an adult in EVERY jurisdiction. You can legally be a parent with school age children at 21, having conceived (or fertilised) a 16 year old mother of that child. They are deemed fit to be in charge of a small child unless evidence to the contrary arises.
The other problem is the very narrow definition of the students they are banning, which is not ALL students, but ONLY those who are "
Full-time Students who are enrolled in a College or University"
Although DanL was a student in the wider sense, he was NOT "enrolled in a College or University" between graduation, and the end of the following September, so as written, the term DID allow him to play, albeit only for about 3 months. He was also not "full time" during those three months, probably spending around zero hours attending classes until the end of September.
Focusing....
The question is, what did CWC want to accomplish with this rule and
What was the purpose of this rule?
That is a need to know question before any true discussion can be done.
A little more info would help in making suggestions on the wording if it will not be removed.
.
This is the problem, they haven't said what their aim is in adding this term other than to say it is to keep students who still depend on their parents from playing as a means to protect them from the perils of gambling away their study funds.
However, their implementation has strayed outside of these aims, and now it is not at all clear what classes of student they are trying to keep out.
It is also going to be next to impossible to enforce this rule fairly. A student is something you do in your "B & M life", which to many is separate from their online life.
The ONLY way they are going to catch a student is to get them to ADMIT they are one. The problem is that students are ADULTS, they have ALL the relevant records, rights, and responsibilities as any other adult in any other occupation.
The ONLY way to enforce this rule is to ROUTINELY require a declaration of occupation (with documentary proof) from players, in order to prove that they simply don't have the TIME to be "enrolled full time in a College or University".
DanL had everything he needed to avoid getting caught. He had a drivers license, was more than old enough to gamble, and as an adult over 18 would have been on the electoral roll, something that can be checked independently, and IS usually checked when validating ID documents provided by players.
CWC probably have MANY players who would qualify as "full time students" according to the CWC definition, and if they were determined to play, they would simply use their "regular" credentials during verification. They would NOT send in a student ID, nor would they play on campus, or give their campus address to the casino. ALL students have a "home", even if this is with their parents.
The ONLY thing they will be able to come up with by "digging" is that the player lives with their parents, and does not work (or cannot prove it). Such players are NOT banned though, so being unemployed and living with your parents is NOT against the terms. The only option for CWC then would be to say "prove you are not a student". Well, you can't really do this, but you can prove you ARE a student, and it would be up to CW to do this to refute any evidence produced by the player that they were merely unemployed and looking for work.
Even when they get this term as close as possible to the intent behind it, it is going to be hard work enforcing it against students who KNOW they are banned, but are determined to play anyway, without indisriminately confiscating winnings and banning players that "might be students" because of some "gut feeling" belief. This kind of enforcement would have a negative effect on reputation, and would make players fear that confiscation of winnings was done "on a whim", which would then scare them away.
CWC need to ensure they can ENFORCE such a term against ALL the students they want to exclude, and this would mean having some INDEPENDENT means of checking whether someone was a student that was ACCURATE to the same degree as the other verification checks.
The ONLY way this could be done would be to check players' details against the records of all the institutions concerned. If this is how they are doing it, we should be asking whether this is being done LEGALLY, since such details are covered by the data protection act, and are NOT made available for "commercial purposes", but only to authorised bodies.
Students should perhaps ask their college whether it is indeed possible for "just anybody" to check with these records to determine whether or not they are students. If it is, THIS would be one way CWC would seem to "just know" despite this not being revealed by the player, with the player then being challenged to show that these official records are wrong, rather than that their "gut instinct" got it wrong.
IF CWC can enforce the term as above, they must also have a term informing players that they are accessing and using their information in this manner, since this use is NOT anything to do with "verification of identity", so CANNOT be covered by the term that allows use of third party information for ID verification.
The nearest I can think of is
Students who have ever started a full time course at <full description of covered institutions> may not play until such time as they have completed all their planned courses, and have become available for full time employment, and may be asked to provide proof of this. Students who have completed one course, but are due to start another at a later date, are still deemed ineligible to play regardless of their current employment status
Just bustin ya!
