I am a recovering problem gambler and recently had a relapse after 1 year of not gambling due to some stressful news. I opened up an account at Roxy palace casino in haste and deposited around £1k. After gambling for sometime I had won just over £5k and old memories of similar situations kicked in of times before when I had been in this situation and lost everything.
I knew that if I did not self exclude I would most likely loose everything and more. I then forced myself to call their support team and expressed my need to self exclude due to my gambling issues as I felt all them old feelings. I was clearly distressed and once I was told that I could not self exclude immediately started to panic. I begged the operator to restrict my account in anyway possible as I would not be able to restrain myself and after sometime he then stated that I would need to state this in an email. I asked him what I would need to write in the email and he confirmed this to me. Becaue I could feel the urges I pleaded with him to wait on the line until he had recived my email and for him to confirm this was everything I needed to do to self exclude. He confirmed this and told me that he would get this sorted for me. He then sent a confirmation email stating that this request could take up to 72hrs to process.
I then went to sleep and woke up with the same urges and to my supprise I could still access my account and reverse my withdrawal's. What I had already predicted would happen did. I went on to gamble away the whole amount and more.
Feeling very distressed and frustrated I called back the casino operator to express my disbelief that this had happened and wanted to understand why it takes so long as I already told them my discomfort's. To my surprise the operator told me that it should have been locked immediately and she fully understood my situation. She kindly agreed to escalate this to management.
After waiting 3 days for a conclusion I was contacted stating that they had already sent an email to me providing a link to some information on self exclusion from their site and that "in principle we have recognised the situation and provided you with the means to take more preventative actions on your account.". (After reviewing this email which was missed by me as it was sent at 6am, the link provided takes you to a page that states I need to email or call in to self exclude and I had already done both of these).
I am so angry at this situation so have researched this further to find that they have breached their licence according to their social responsibility. You can clearly see in the gambling commissions website that they should have closed this immediately. when I first called in with the request.
http://www.gamblingcommission.gov.uk/FAQs/Problem-gambling/Wait-24hrs-before-self-exclusion.aspx
I do not know what else I could have done to self exclude but am going to persue this further officially. This is an example of how Roxy palace preys on the vunerable.
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