At the very least ACR needs to amend or remove this:

https://www.americascardroom.eu/onli...-online-poker/

When you consider legal US online poker you should make sure you don't just keep your considerations solely to American sites that operate within the few states that allow internet poker because if you live outside of those states then you won't be able to play in the other state's site. You should be looking for a foreign/offshore website that adheres to the same standards as legal US online poker and that encourages responsible gambling in all respects. If the site doesn't, you're best moving elsewhere that has a more responsible approach to internet poker and that will protect your interests as well as their own.

Just like legal US online poker guidelines state, a website should encourage their customers to play responsibly. This involves setting a stop limit. Everyone should have fun playing poker and wagering, but if you find it hard to control your betting impulses, it's best to set a limit to how much you can afford to lose. Good sites will encourage you to not chase your losses and to keep within your limits.

As with the legal US online poker responsible gaming recommendations, a reputable poker website should also offer the player a chance to impose self-exclusion. This means that you can ask to be excluded from playing on the site for a set period of time. This stops players from getting too addicted to the game and if you feel you need it, it's a good option to take.

Once you make the decision to set up a self-exclusion period it cannot be reversed.

Legal US online poker offers this option to their customers so you should come to expect this from any American-facing site that you play with. If you're not sure what facilities a card room operates in terms of responsible gaming then contact customer support and they'll be able to help you make the right decisions.



So by allowing the self exclusion to reversed they did in fact assume responsibility for any charges afterwards as I had an expectation for it to be enforced, this was why I asked for it the first place. To do anything other than that is a violation of integrity and in more serious cases taking advantage of problem players for profit while portraying themselves as responsible operators.

Im sure this is not the case as ACR has always acted very reputably; I'm assuming it was due to a lack of information/confusion on the part of CS and will be addressed appropriately.

I hope you get resolution with your personal issue. My wife has an aunt that went off the deep end with gambling and they almost lost their home because of it. It is a nasty and tough battle. For your own protection, maybe have a family member install one of the security programs that can block various sites and include poker/gambling, casino, etc... on the filter out list. It is usually used as a child protection software, but it can work just the same for anyone.

Seems like a long shot to get your money back, but wish you luck on even a compromise of sorts. It probably should be something that is clearly defined and better attended to from the network side.

Thanks dewd

I hope you didn't take my post as abrasive, as I didn't intend for it to be. I agree something needs to be changed and they shouldn't be advertising one thing and doing the other, but it's a quasi legal offshore online poker company, they aren't giving you back the money.

I've been in your shoes before, as have most people who have gambled, but you need to spend your energy on your problem, not their lack of integrity. (it's very scummy of them)

I hope you learned a $1700 lesson and can move on with your life.

Thanks Bongfellow, I guess I assume they will act with a bit more integrity than that considering their stated commitment to responsible gaming.

Its not a huge amount of money for them and maybe it'll get them to at least make a decision one way or another as to what their actual policy is; and also be a warning to other potential players who may need to take a break that they need to consider ACR's actions here and plan accordingly. As it is it is misleading and a dangerous situation for people who think they can take a self exclusion when necessary, particularly those with larger amounts of available money.

I tried to do the right thing and get the self exclusion, I don't feel like I did anything wrong here and do have an expectation that ACR should come to some kind of arrangement with me considering everything.

Im surprise nobody from WPN has written anything in this thread seems like a pretty important issue to ignore.

I'm not sure what's going on Winning_TD said he'd forward it to the CS manager, haven't heard anything yet but it hasn't been a terribly long time yet.

Sent a pm to WPN rep and haven't received any response yet concerning their actual self exclusion policy or how they're going to address my issue.

I assume they'll want to respond at some point.

We went backwards and forwards yesterday in PM so not sure what you mean.

If you want my very personal opinion and this doesnt mean i am not going to try and find a resolution. I agree it was completely 10000% wrong that we re opened your account after reading TOC.

I also would like to know what would of happened if you had won from that $1700?

I self banned myself from 888 accidentally (true story) i was talking to live chat and joked about casino, they insta banned me even though i am a degen. I forget how long it was for and as i hadnt played there i didnt really care. I got back in touch with live chat prob a monther or 6 weeks later telling them it was a joke and they re opened my account. I went on to lose a couple of deposits. I took full responsibility for my actions and didnt think twice that they were wrong to allow me back in until i read your post. If i had won alot i would of been over the moon.

I dont know their toc on reversing it but i would imagine its more than 6 weeks.

Again when the right person is here i will speak to them and discuss, also with the CEO. I just wanted to put into perspective that we are not the only ones who reverse self exclusion and i dont want you to get your hopes up but this is definitely something we need to be clearer and stronger about yes.

If i came across in anyway rude it really isnt my intention in this case

so far WPN is the only network that let you reverse the self exclusion. When you get banne on 888 did you set an amount of time?

No i was joking about if they could block the casino then they just said sorry your banned.
I even told them at the time it was a joke but they went ahead and did it.

maybe that is why they let you undo the ban, because you did not set a period of time for self exclusion, i bet that if you contact 88 and ask you to ban you for 2 months they are not going to let you play for 2 months.

That is the problem with WPN, hopefully you guys can fix it

Thanks Winning, no I never thought your rude, and I do apologize if I gave this impression. I did notice after the intial pm a shift in tone which made me despair a bit of getting anything done on this. But you always are helpful and reasonable.

"I also would like to know what would of happened if you had won from that $1700?"

I can't speak to hypothetical situations I think it just clouds to pertinent issues, however cause you are helping me I will give you my opinion on your question.

I guess the idea is that somehow If I had won it would be Ok --- maybe in my situation "if" that was case but what about the next person? And the fact is this is not what happened; a contributing factor being I was not in a good state to play (wanting to gain back loses quickly) and I knew this at the time which is why I asked for the ban.

The 888 case is completely different in my opinion; you never really intended to get banned and said so. Also you didn't mention anything about a time factor, did you joke that you wanted to be banned for 3 months? 6 weeks? If not then they could lift the ban anytime at their discretion. This is different from a clearly defined self exclusion in my opinion, two different things here a ban and timed exclusion. A ban is operators choice, a self exclusion being a players, shifting responsibility imo.

I thank you again for your help (and to ACR staff for looking into this, CEO really? tell him I like his room just feel this issue needs to be resolved), and hope this answers your questions


Edit, personal note: maybe Im a degen, maybe not.. this is the first time ive lost this amount of money and I could see it coming, which is why I asked for the exclusion. I had a lot going on in my life then which may have contributed and took some bad beats, bad bankroll management etc. Im hoping I learned my lesson and can adjust my play (stick to tournies, 50nl) if not then I may to consider quitting. But I feel like if I had the time i asked for, perhaps this could have been prevented.

If he had won from the $1700 then he should return the money. That's what the terms and ToC is for. There is no what ifs. If he came here to the forums complaining about it then we would all get on him because he self banned himself and he shouldn't be able to collect any profit. I also have never heard of a site reversing a self banned time ban.

Yes, this is why having consistent policy is so important. I'll just add I was advised to this course of action by another person when I told them what happened. It so happens ACR is not a regulated poker room, if they were there would be no question in this case as to my situation.

If I had won it, and then it was found I had asked for an exclusion I would guess the money won would be removed and any deposits made during that period would be refunded (and whoever did it reprimanded/retrained).

And lets reverse the situation and come up with another hypothetical here: suppose I had won a huge tourney (say $150k) what's to stop ACR from turning around and saying I had asked for a self exclusion and have no right to the money, return my deposits, and then enforce the exclusion citing CS error(and T&C)? It seems picking and choosing when and how to interpret policy on this matter is a dangerous situation. The end result is that ACR has all the benefit from the ambiguity of the situation depending on how they how want to proceed in any particular situation.

Since ACR is not regulated though I guess its up to ACR how they want to act in this situation, though I trust ACR would want to act in the most professional way possible; regardless of not having some regulatory agency needing to tell them this obviously shouldn't have been done and is contradictory to their own advertised statements.

Ok i will close this matter.

After alot of discussions this is what we decided.

You did write an email asking for a self exclusion yes, however, you didnt say it was because you have a gambling problem or what not, if you had said that your ban would of been forever with no way of re opening the account.

For all we know it could of been you were traveling and for a security reason just wanted this to be sure no one could log in whilst you were going away etc. (does happen)

As you werent really telling us you had a problem and you confirmed your details that you wanted it re opened we allowed that.

However it may not be much but i will offer you a 109 tournament ticket to be used when you want and we will be re looking at the wording of the T&C's.

PM me your username and i will sort that out

lmao. This is such a cut and dry case. WPN did not follow their own T&C. No where in the T&C does it mention that the exclusion needs to be for "a gambling problem or what not". A 90 day exclusion was requested and granted. 3 days later it was reversed, against the T&C.

I agree with doczensoosed: if he had won a big tournament WPN could have used their T&C to not pay the winnings. Obviously it's not right that WPN will only follow their T&C when it benefits them. Not surprising though.

I've threatened to fly to Costa Rica and personally fight Phil Nagy. Had my account banned and said outrageous remarks , just to have it lifted with a simple email.

They don't care. Which is why this network to me IMO is shady. The self exclusion policy is not a real thing.

The T & C's are actually for responsible gambling which is very different to a simple please exclude me email.

Again not sayings its right and to say we would of taken his winnings is just outrageous had he won.

@ carl trooper. I love the word Shady... Probably the most unshady site out there. The most outspoken and upfront. Self exclusion is a real thing, if there is a real case for it then it is.

If you dont like us you dont need to play but you also can leave my forum alone. There are enough players that just come here and criticise i dont need non players also.

Winning_TD so we only request self exclusion if we are out for travel and securuty? ..... if one month we lost a lot of money and want to take a little bit of time out and we accept because we have a little bit of gambling problem you will close the account forever? that does not make sense at all

If you tell us you have a problem yes we will close the account forever.

I dont make the rules sir.

So much wrong with this, honestly. I am not knocking you personally here, but your site needs professional expertise in this area, as well as some others. How ACR/WPN can think this is the right course of action is incredible.

Your site, states the following on this link: https://www.americascardroom.eu/onli...-online-poker/

(Bolding mine)

This entire paragraph is how it should be handled. Not what you guys have decided on – and you are changing your TOS/viewpoint now to being more wrong!

This player asked for a self-exclusion for 90 days. He stated "self exclusion" twice in the email to you, in the subject and in the body. He stated a time period. This is all that it should take, as with any other site that is in some way reputable. All the big sites do it this way (some have further features of being able to do it in the client itself, but by email is perfectly fine).

IMO, ACR should just take responsibility here, acknowledging that you messed up. The agent who actioned this should be (properly) retrained along with any other staff that need it. You guys should continue with what you are doing as stated in the paragraph above. Don’t try to dig further and do what you are quoted as saying here, please.

The account in question should be set to being self excluded for the next 80ish days (whatever it works out as). And it should not be reopened before this time is up.

Your reasoning of it potentially being security while the user is away is great. However the account should still have remained restricted for the requested time. I agree, it does happen on other sites too, but those sites keep the account restricted for the requested period of time.

There should be a set process in place for this type of request – that is determined by someone with vast experience in this area. I plead with you to reach out to me and I will help you guys with this. Please PM me and I will give you my contact details

I am going to close this thread as i have rectified with OP.

I did mention that it was bad that we re opened the account from a personal point of view.

However, its done. I wish we could turn back time, i would be very rich.
We cant so lets move forward the right way!