First off, I wanted to add the obligatory this is not all betonline's fault and certainly I am a grown person who makes my own decisions. That said, I am very disappointed in their customer service and can't help but that think they took advantage of a negative situation that worked out to their advantage.
The quick cliff notes and timeline are:
11/18: Open account and receive phone call from customer service. On this call I requested that they disable the online casino from my account, that I just wanted to use their services for Poker and Sports Betting. She told me that unfortunately that is not an option that they offer (spoiler alert: this is not true).
11/18 - 11/25: I deposited roughly $1000 via BTC and credit card spread across 4 deposits. By 11/25, my account balance was over $10k.
11/25: Knowing that there was going to be a week's time I had to wait before I could cashout due to their credit card wait period rules, I called once again and requested that the casino be disabled from my account since I had an online gambling problem when it came to casino games and didn't trust myself with that much balance. I was told that they would submit my request and follow up when it was disabled.
Late night 11/25: After being out celebrating with some friends, I came back and played poker and hit a couple bad beats and lost somewhere around $500. I placed $2000 worth of sportsbets and then took this as an opportunity to try and quickly win back what I had just lost on blackjack. This did not go well and I played until my account balance was down to $0 (lost over $8k in the span of about 10 minutes).
11/26: Later that night, the casino was still active (after first being told this wasn't an option, then being told it would be taken care of). I started a live chat and told the person what had happened and explained why I wanted the casino to be disabled. She took down the information and said that it would be sent in and the casino would be disabled.
11/27: Early in the afternoon I received an email saying that my request was received to close the casino account and was being escalated (not sure if this was from the phone request or the live chat request). Later this afternoon, I won $2500 back in sports bets I had previously placed. I wanted to check if the casino was active still at this point after receiving that email, and as you can probably guess - I lost the remaining $2500+ on blackjack.
Other points that I would like to add:
-While I lost well over $10,000 late night 11/25 and 11/27, prior to that I had won some money in the casino so the net loss in the casino was lower than this when you look over the course of the week.
-However, the full $10k+ was lost AFTER multiple requests to disable the casino where I explicitly said I was requesting this because I had a gambling problem when it came to online casinos
-In my eyes, I had a $10k+ balance on a relatively small amount of deposits and I armed them with the information that I didn't trust myself with that kind of balance and access to the online casino
-Since disabling the casino really amounts to clicking a button on their end, in my opinion this led to them dragging their feet and taking advantage of the situation with the intent of winning the money back
What I am looking for:
I guess I don't really know what to expect from this. Certainly there is a lot of blame to go around and a lot of that falls on me. However, I do think that people should hear that this happened with a reputable Sportsbook like BetOnline that I feel acted very unprofessionally when it comes to this. I'm sure they record the phone calls and can easily verify that I was lied to about the ability to opt-out of the casino options AND that nearly 10 days later the casino is still available in my account.
I'm open to feedback and what others think a fair solution would be. I am well aware that in reality that fair solution might be that I am SOL, but I'd also argue that I did very well over the last couple of weeks with poker and the sportsbook and they took advantage of a weakness I shared with them thinking that they would help.
The quick cliff notes and timeline are:
11/18: Open account and receive phone call from customer service. On this call I requested that they disable the online casino from my account, that I just wanted to use their services for Poker and Sports Betting. She told me that unfortunately that is not an option that they offer (spoiler alert: this is not true).
11/18 - 11/25: I deposited roughly $1000 via BTC and credit card spread across 4 deposits. By 11/25, my account balance was over $10k.
11/25: Knowing that there was going to be a week's time I had to wait before I could cashout due to their credit card wait period rules, I called once again and requested that the casino be disabled from my account since I had an online gambling problem when it came to casino games and didn't trust myself with that much balance. I was told that they would submit my request and follow up when it was disabled.
Late night 11/25: After being out celebrating with some friends, I came back and played poker and hit a couple bad beats and lost somewhere around $500. I placed $2000 worth of sportsbets and then took this as an opportunity to try and quickly win back what I had just lost on blackjack. This did not go well and I played until my account balance was down to $0 (lost over $8k in the span of about 10 minutes).
11/26: Later that night, the casino was still active (after first being told this wasn't an option, then being told it would be taken care of). I started a live chat and told the person what had happened and explained why I wanted the casino to be disabled. She took down the information and said that it would be sent in and the casino would be disabled.
11/27: Early in the afternoon I received an email saying that my request was received to close the casino account and was being escalated (not sure if this was from the phone request or the live chat request). Later this afternoon, I won $2500 back in sports bets I had previously placed. I wanted to check if the casino was active still at this point after receiving that email, and as you can probably guess - I lost the remaining $2500+ on blackjack.
Other points that I would like to add:
-While I lost well over $10,000 late night 11/25 and 11/27, prior to that I had won some money in the casino so the net loss in the casino was lower than this when you look over the course of the week.
-However, the full $10k+ was lost AFTER multiple requests to disable the casino where I explicitly said I was requesting this because I had a gambling problem when it came to online casinos
-In my eyes, I had a $10k+ balance on a relatively small amount of deposits and I armed them with the information that I didn't trust myself with that kind of balance and access to the online casino
-Since disabling the casino really amounts to clicking a button on their end, in my opinion this led to them dragging their feet and taking advantage of the situation with the intent of winning the money back
What I am looking for:
I guess I don't really know what to expect from this. Certainly there is a lot of blame to go around and a lot of that falls on me. However, I do think that people should hear that this happened with a reputable Sportsbook like BetOnline that I feel acted very unprofessionally when it comes to this. I'm sure they record the phone calls and can easily verify that I was lied to about the ability to opt-out of the casino options AND that nearly 10 days later the casino is still available in my account.
I'm open to feedback and what others think a fair solution would be. I am well aware that in reality that fair solution might be that I am SOL, but I'd also argue that I did very well over the last couple of weeks with poker and the sportsbook and they took advantage of a weakness I shared with them thinking that they would help.