Making Complaints, online casino ombudsman.
Online casino ombudsman
Most online casinos that are reputable will attempt to handle any player complaint and rectify the situation.
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Making complaints
Learn about your options when online casinos misbehave. UK players have several options when it comes to lodging complaints against online casinos.
Making a complaint
While the majority of players will claim to have good experiences with online casinos, there is always the chance that an online casino will misbehave. If this does happen, players need to know how they can safely and effectively file a complaint about any online casino and have the issues addressed and hopefully resolved.
Complaining to licensing government
If players feel they have a legitimate complaint about an online casino, they will have to learn where the casino is licensed. The complaint can be directed to the governing body. Each online casino will usually have a link at the bottom of the page connecting players to the appropriate government website. Players will then submit complaint forms. In addition to the information required on the form, players should include any other relevant information as well as dates and times of incidents. Some governments will take immediate action and begin investigating the complaint. It may take weeks or even months to hear a response. If the claim is supported, the government will notify players on how to proceed.
Complaints to ecogra
Most online casinos that are reputable will attempt to handle any player complaint and rectify the situation. If the casino does not respond to multiple complaints and it is an ecogra casino, complaints can be directed to ecogra. This organisation will help players resolve casino disputes and will take any action against the casino as necessary. Since ecogra casinos must meet strict standards, player complaints are taken very seriously. Before filing with ecogra, players should always try to contact the casino directly and make sure that the complaint is legitimate and supported.
Use websites for complaints
When players have an issue with any online casino, they can make use of some websites to file complaints. While these are not formal complaints that are being filed, they will inform other players of the issue at hand. These websites are often referenced by new players looking for reliable and reputable online casinos and this information can be very helpful when making a decision. Players should direct their complaints to trusted sites, including casino meister and ask gamblers. These sites have a great reputation for reviewing and suggesting only the most reputable casinos available online.
How to make a complaint against a bookmaker
Should you not be able to resolve a complaint then you can approach the independent betting adjudication service (IBAS) or in some cases the advertising standards agency and the gambling commission.
IBAS is an impartial adjudicator for disputes between punters and gambling operators. This article gives information on how to use IBAS and other services as well as examples of common complaints and their likely outcomes.
Bookmaker / betting site complaint information
The contact details listed in this table are for the UK. If you would like an overseas or alternative phone number, additional email addresses or customer services postal addresses see our betting site reviews contact section.
| Betting site | contact email | contact phone | review | visit |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| this email address is being protected from spambots. You need javascript enabled to view it. | 0800 047 0965 | review | visit | |
| this email address is being protected from spambots. You need javascript enabled to view it. | 0203 478 0670 | review | visit | |
| this email address is being protected from spambots. You need javascript enabled to view it. | 0800 7810 365 | review | visit | |
| this email address is being protected from spambots. You need javascript enabled to view it. | 0344 871 0000 | review | visit | |
| this email address is being protected from spambots. You need javascript enabled to view it. | 0800 028 7747 | review | visit | |
| this email address is being protected from spambots. You need javascript enabled to view it. | 0808 238 0028 | review | visit | |
| this email address is being protected from spambots. You need javascript enabled to view it. | Call back service | review | visit | |
| this email address is being protected from spambots. You need javascript enabled to view it. | 0800 22 00 66 | review | visit | |
| this email address is being protected from spambots. You need javascript enabled to view it. | 0800 44 00 11 | review | visit | |
| this email address is being protected from spambots. You need javascript enabled to view it. | 0800 731 6191 | review | visit | |
| this email address is being protected from spambots. You need javascript enabled to view it. | 020 3608 6024 | review | visit | |
| discontinued | 0800 056 5275 | review | visit | |
| this email address is being protected from spambots. You need javascript enabled to view it. | 0808 238 0022 | review | visit | |
| this email address is being protected from spambots. You need javascript enabled to view it. | No phone | review | visit | |
| this email address is being protected from spambots. You need javascript enabled to view it. | No phone | review | visit | |
| this email address is being protected from spambots. You need javascript enabled to view it. | +44 2037 690147 | review | visit | |
| this email address is being protected from spambots. You need javascript enabled to view it. | 0800 329 393 | review | visit | |
| this email address is being protected from spambots. You need javascript enabled to view it. | 0800 085 6296 | review | visit |
How to make A complaint to a UK bookmaker
All terms and conditions relating to betting and funding must be listed and easily accessible from the home page or help centre. Familiarise yourself with the relevant sections before you email. Remember if you have contravened the terms but you feel the conditions are unclear or inaccessible you may still have a complaint.
Contact the bookmaker and put forward your case, see the example below. Try to be factual and use neutral language. If your complaint is eventually escalated to IBAS then these exchanges may be scrutinised so don't shoot yourself in the foot before you start. Maybe stay off social media in the first instance too.
Remember, bookmakers and betting sites are private companies and while they have a duty to adhere to their licence conditions they can decide at any time to terminate an account. On the other hand bookmakers need to make money and so they will generally be fair with customers to ensure your on going business.
Below is an example of where I felt I had been mislead by a betting offer and how I dealt with it. The bookmaker decided to be rational and even though technically they were correct, to the letter of their T&cs, they realised it was a pretty underhand thing to do, and they would ultimately lose my custom:
I recently placed a bet in line with your horse racing promotion "bet £10 on race X and get a £10 free bet the next day". As you can see form the attached screen shot I placed the bet at 12:30pm. The free bet was awarded later that day at 16:30pm. Unfortunately I was unable to login to my account until the following evening only to find my free bet had expired. I did know that the free bet was only valid for one day but having scrutinised the offer terms I feel that the deal was misleading. The terms state:
"place a £10 win single bet on race 'X' and get a £10 free bet…….Free bets are awarded for the following days racing and expire after 24 hours"
My interpretation of these terms is the free token is valid for the following days racing. I logged onto my account at 17:16 to use my free bet in the 17:35 race at 'Y' only to find the token had expired. I think it is reasonable to assume from the terms that the free bet would be valid for the entire days racing on the following day even if this was technically more than 24 hours from you crediting my account. Racing on this day continued until 18:05 and I think it is only fair for the bonus to remain valid until this time.
Having been a customer of yours for 2 years I would hope that you could see this was a genuine mistake and credit my account. I would like to say out of principle I would be unlikely to remain a customer if this isn't considered. I would also consider approaching IBAS and the advertising standards agency
The bookmaker did decide to reissue the free bet and accepted the terms were misleading.
Always try this approach first. IBAS won't consider your complaint if you haven't tried to resolve your issues directly.
The independent betting adjudication service (IBAS)
Once the panel make a ruling this is now binding for all parties without detriment to any existing legal proceedings.
IBAS operate in the following sectors:
- Adult gaming centres
- Bet exchanges
- Betting shops
- Bingo clubs
- Casinos
- Charitable lotteries
- Gambling machines
- Lotteries
- Remote gambling
- Totalisator betting
All bookmakers listed on this site are registered with IBAS. We recommend you do not deal with operators not registered with the service. If you are dealing with an operator not listed you may need to consider legal action, or see some of other options further down.
For a more detailed guide on how to complain see our dedicated IBAS page.
Advertising standards agency
The ASA can, and will, often rule in favour of the customer, even if that customer has technically contravened the terms and conditions of the offer or company. Should the ASA judge the advert, or its terms, to be misleading they will generally come down in your favour.
Betting sites and casino sites are obliged to adhere to advertising standards. Also because this is the gambling industry there are additional restrictions on adverts. Betting ads and offers cannot be aimed in any way at children (under 18) or vulnerable age groups and they cannot use sexualisation in their ads. The agency will also take into account 'the spirit' of an advert and consider if the ad was designed to mislead even if it technically ticks complaints boxes.
Gambling commission
It is not the job of the gambling commission to mediate customer complaints about individual accounts or bets. If however you feel a bookmaker has contravened the terms of their licensing agreement, particularly in relation to the gambling act of 2005 and 2014, then you can report an operator to the GC. Read more about licensing and law requirements is our dedicated article, read more.
Issues concerning operators breaking the law (fraud and crime, failure to enforce safe gambling, not protecting vulnerable people, etc.) can all be referred to the gambling commission. If, for example, you asked to be self excluded, or have your account restricted in some way, and an operator failed to do this properly then this would be breaking the law. If a bookie allowed a child to gamble this would be breaking the law, etc.
If you are gambling with an unlicensed operator then you do so at your own risk. If they are not based in the UK (which they probably won't be) there is not a lot you can do, even through the courts. All sites listed at onlinebetting.Org.Uk are fully UK licensed.
The senet group
Coral, ladbrokes, william hill and paddy power are all well known members of the senet group. The group covers around 75% of retail betting shop and over 40% of online gambling. If you have a problem with member brands, particularly in relation to responsible gambling complaints, then contacting the senet groups is a viable option.
Association of british bookmakers
The ABB is an industry trade association that represents betting shop operators in the UK. Don't get me wrong, it is their job to represent the bookies interests, but on occasion, if the complaint is obviously right and the operator just isn't listening, they have been known to help. This is more of a last port of call however. At the very least you can use the ABB to read about codes of conduct and other industry news that you could use in your favour.
Social media, twitter and facebook
Most operators have separate (and usually friendlier) teams here and this can often give you a new outlook in your complaint. At the end of the day no one want to look bad in such an exposing area so use it to your advantage.
Be careful though don't jump straight to social media before using official channels as this can actually hurt your case.
Keep A cool head
Aussieonline.Com
All of the online casinos that we have reviewed & recommended for you right here on this website are fully licensed by trusted authorities in well-known online gambling licensing jurisdictions, plus they are also monitored by independent third party organisations. Most of our featured online casinos are licensed either by the malta gaming authority, by the UK gambling commission, by the gibraltar regulatory authority or by the curacao internet gaming association / CIGA.
If you do have a genuine complaint about any of these casinos you can start by lodging a direct complaint with the actual casino. 99.9% of all complaints will be resolved in no time at all through the casino’s own complaints department. However, if your questions are going unanswered or if you think that the casino is not doing enough to resolve your issue, the next step would be to try and get hold of the authority that issued the casino a license, but only as a last resort.
When you lodge a complaint, it would be a good idea to provide as much evidence as possible and this means that you should try and support your complaint with as many screenshots as possible and any other evidence that you feel will be useful. It shouldn’t take any longer than 48 hours to receive some kind of response from the complaints department, but in most cases you should receive an instant automated response, or you may even receive some other kind of direct response from an actual person within just a few hours.
If you sign up to an UNLICENSED online casino you wouldn’t have this safety net available and this is why we only recommended playing in a fully licensed online casino. You will only receive the proper legal backing that you are entitled to as a player when signing up to a fully licensed online casino.
Before you go ahead and lodge a complaint, just make sure that you have read thoroughly through the casino’s policies, terms & conditions. For example, players often fail to read through the bonus T’s & C’s when claiming a bonus and don’t realise that they have to complete the wagering requirements before they can withdraw their winnings. Wagering requirements also generally need to be completed within one week or within one month of accepting the bonus, or they can end up losing their bonus cash which often leaves players feeling cheated by the casino.
To contact the casino directly you can head straight to the ‘contact us’ section or to the ‘support’ section and this will give you a list of appropriate email addresses or telephone numbers. If you can’t seem to find this information anywhere you may just need to launch the live chat and then ask them for further assistance. You may have to wait in a queue for a few minutes, but the live chat response time at most of our featured australian online casinos is usually just a matter of seconds and there’s generally never any waiting around.
You will also find that all of our microgaming powered casinos are ecogra certified. Ecommerce online gaming regulation and assurance is an internationally accredited online casino testing agency which has been keeping players safe and dealing with player’s complaints since 2002. You can contact ecogra directly should you have an unresolved complaint about any of our top-rated microgaming casinos.
This is a london-based, non-profit organisation and wherever you see the ecogra ‘safe & fair’ seal of approval at an online casino, you can pretty much guarantee that you won’t run in to any problems at the casino and you can always count on ecogra being able to resolve most issues for you.
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WELCOME
The independent betting adjudication service (IBAS) is an alternative dispute resolution (ADR) service, approved by the gambling commission to provide informed and impartial adjudications on disputes that arise between licensed gambling operators and their customers, after the customer has completed the operator's own internal dispute procedures and where a deadlock still exists.
Visitors can use this website to find out more about the service that we offer and the approach that our adjudication panel takes when considering different types of disputes. If you consider that you have a valid claim for payment or increased payment against a gambling operator, you can create an account and complete an adjudication form. The IBAS service is free of charge to all consumers.
The members of the IBAS adjudication panel apply their specialist knowledge to the facts and adjudicate mainly by reference to the operator's own terms and conditions. IBAS also check that operators have complied with the standards set by the gambling commission and with the IBAS terms and conditions of registration.
IBAS rulings are legally non-binding on consumers, who are free to pursue any case through the court system after using IBAS. Rulings are binding on registered operators up to the value of £10,000. Above that threshold, operators may demand that the dispute is also heard by a court.
DO I HAVE A CLAIM?
Use our claims wizard to see whether IBAS may be able to help resolve your dispute.
For consumers
Whether this is your first dispute about a gambling transaction, or you have used our service before, our general consumer advice section offers some helpful suggestions for you to consider before completing an adjudication form.
FOR OPERATORS
We appreciate that mistakes happen and that some circumstances cannot be foreseen, but our dispute avoidance advice may help to reduce the number of customer complaints and adjudication forms received.
HOW ARE WE DOING?
LATEST NEWS
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- Wednesday, july 15, 2020 chairman's view: parliamentary reports IBAS chairman andrew fraser reflects on the recent publication of a series of parliamentary reports .
- Monday, may 18, 2020 SETTLEMENT OF ANTEPOST FOOTBALL BETS IBAS encourages consumers who believe their season-long football bets have been treated unfairly to .
- Tuesday, march 17, 2020 EFFECTS OF CORONAVIRUS OUTBREAK ON THE IBAS SERVICE IBAS is aiming to maintain as full and effective a dispute resolution service as possible, despite t.
- Tuesday, may 7, 2019 AGE AND IDENTITY VERIFICATION RULES - UPDATE the gambling commission has introduced new requirements for online gambling businesses which take ef.
- Tuesday, november 6, 2018 2017-18 ANNUAL REPORT MARKS 20TH ANNIVERSARY IBAS has published its 2017-18 annual report, 20 years after the leading dispute resolution service .
- Monday, october 1, 2018 IBAS WELCOMES PUBLICATION OF ADR STANDARDS AND GUIDANCE IBAS welcomes the publication of new standards and guidance for alternative dispute resolution in th.
- Monday, june 11, 2018 WORLD CUP 2018 - PITFALLS AND PREDICTIONS with the biggest sports betting event of 2018 on the horizon, jim cremin reflects on the most likely.
- Wednesday, may 9, 2018 BETTING COMMUNITY - BEN KEITH during the early stages of the 2018 star sports english greyhound derby at towcester, ben keith, own.
- Tuesday, april 10, 2018 40TH NATIONAL BECKONS FOR CHAMPION SHOP MANAGER 2018 betting shop manager of the year, ron hearn, spoke to jim cremin ahead of opening up the charlt.
- Thursday, february 8, 2018 REGULATORY VIEW - GAMBLING COMMISSION'S TIM MILLER gambling commission executive director tim miller, launching the responsible gambling zone within th.
- Wednesday, january 24, 2018 BETTING COMMUNITY - SIMON ROWLANDS & MATT BISOGNO simon rowlands and matt bisogno, current and future chairmen of the horserace bettors forum (HBF) sp.
- Wednesday, january 24, 2018 APPOINTMENTS TO IBAS BOARD OF DIRECTORS andrew fraser has been appointed as the chairman of IBAS with effect from january 2018, while elaine.
- Friday, december 29, 2017 CRYSTAL PALACE v ARSENAL DISPUTES IBAS reminds consumers that it exists to consider and adjudicate on disputes only after every reason.
- Wednesday, december 13, 2017 BETTING COMMUNITY - ANDY BENNETT before jenningsbet's ron hearn's recent crowning as 2017 betting shop manager of the year, the last .
- Tuesday, november 21, 2017 view from the office: guide stats for the blind IBAS's richard hayler questions what a bettor can reasonably be expected to do to research informati.
- Tuesday, november 21, 2017 BETTING COMMUNITY - TANYA STEVENSON jim cremin speaks to betting industry all-rounder and broadcaster tanya stevenson, before taking her.
- Tuesday, november 21, 2017 IBAS LAUNCHES NEW WEBSITE gambling-specialist alternative dispute resolution (ADR) service IBAS today launched an updated and .
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Swedish ombudsman bans maria casino’s “misleading” spot
Sweden‘s advertising ombudsman reklamombudsmannen (RO) has banned the kindred’s mario casino ad from being broadcast as deceptive as being “sweden’s most popular gaming site”.
The 20-second television spot was featured on kanal 9. In sweden and includes a discussion related to the rate of return payable to the player at maria casino, which would have increased from 96% to 98%.
To close, the ad features a voiceover and a large text appears on the screen reading that maria casino is “sweden’s most popular gaming site”. The controversial commercial announcement generated the complaint of the ombudsman who alleged the absence of evidence on this claim, after requesting it from the operator’s customer service department. All that came up was a review of the gaming site.
Article 5 of the advertising code and marketing communication practices of the international chamber of commerce establishes that all advertising must be valid and not misleading. It points out that messages addressed to the market should not include content that, directly or indirectly, tries to deceive the consumer through exaggeration. Furthermore, article 6 states that any claim must be supported by real evidence.
On this point, spooniker, the kindred subsidiary company, under whose responsibility is maria casino, said that the claim was based on concrete evidence.
It indicated the existence of a survey applied between january 1 and march 30 of this year, in which the client research firm nepa AB interviewed 1,660 clients about their preferences for gaming options in the market. The question asked was, “if you were to play online casino games and / or slot machines today, which company would you play with?”
According to spooniker, the result credited maria casino as the most popular operator with 12.4% of affirmative responses on the site. Followed by green with 6.3% and in third place casinostugan of comeon group with 3.4%.
But the RO continued with its lawsuit and determined that the study did not demonstrate that maria casino was the most popular gaming site in the country.
In a statement, he stated that:
“reklamombudsmanen believes that the advertiser has not presented any evidence to demonstrate that the customer survey has been conducted in such a way that the result can be considered reliable.”
And it added:
“furthermore, RO states that the question asked in the customer survey is limited to online casinos, while the claim is broader than that.”
so, let's see, what we have: learn about your options when online casinos misbehave. UK players have several options when it comes to lodging complaints against online casinos. At online casino ombudsman
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