Hello,

I requested a permanent ban from Global Poker in August while disclosing that I have a gambling problem.

Several weeks later tournament tickets were deposited in my banned account and I once again had access. Since then, they have accepted $46,000 worth of deposits into the banned account.

I filed a complaint with the Malta Gaming Association and they dismissed my claim as they said I requested that the permanently banned account be reopened. It was my understanding that a permanent ban request was irrevocable.

Anyway, I was wondering what resources were possibly available to me? I know askgamblers.com has advocates that go to bat for problem gamblers when they have been wronged. Is there anything similar to askgamblers for online poker complaints?

I have proof of the permanent ban request and the subsequent deposits.

Thank you!

When you request a permanent ban, it stays in affect until you request it to be lifted.
Upon you requesting it to be lifted, there is a 7day cool down period where you should be unable to access your account.

Email them again saying you have a major gambling problem and cannot afford to lose the amount you have, from this point forward you request a permanent and unrecoverable permanent ban. You cannot control your gambling problem and you never want to or will be financially able to gamble with your site again. There's no guarantee they'll follow the request, but there less likely to let you re-open your account with such things being said via email.

Unfortunately it sounds like you have a severe gambling problem, and although the site should follow your request, nothing is really permanent these days, and you have to accept some responsibility for requesting your account be re-opened.

I'm not clued up on the legal side of things but this statement is ridiculous. How can the word permanent be used when it's not permanent?

Two years ago I would have likewise asked this question with relative confidence that others involved in the gambling industry would agree that overturning lifetime self-exclusions is misguided policy.

However, the practice is becoming more and more common in the gambling realm, both online and live.

Here's a video watch-along 'timestamps' article I posted a couple of years ago, when the Pennsylvania Gaming Control Board overturned a lifetime self-exclusion. It isolates the decision and includes background information, testimony from parties involved, plus the procedural act that the Board took to overrule the ban despite formal recommendations (by its own in-house experts) not to do so. It also cites a couple of related 2+2 threads.

https://www.parttimepoker.com/pennsy...rse-casino-ban (Oct 7, 2018)

Here's the separate timestamps article from that September 2018 PGCB meeting for those who would like a more thorough review of what occurs in PA casino regulatory meetings.

https://www.parttimepoker.com/pa-gam...eeting-09-2018 (Sep 13, 2018)

The PGCB overturned two more self-exclusions in the following months (not lifetime, but time-based that had yet to expire... to be fair one involved some apparent mix-ups with another statewide jurisdiction), so I stopped keeping up with the reversals since they were no longer a rarity.

This is just strictly my unqualified opinion, but to me it becomes obvious upon reading this thread (and others that have been posted in the past here on 2+2) precisely why it's not a good idea to overturn lifetime self-exclusions -- or those that have yet to expire. Even if the customer adamantly requests it. It creates potential (and unnecessary) liability.

-David

I'm not going to get into whether it should or should not be able to be overturned, however I believe that as OP did not request this then the fault must lay with the poker site. I'm pretty sure bookies in the UK have been fined for much less when it comes to RG.

Good points and thank you for responding.

When I polled Twitter followers in 2018 (probably a couple dozen or so have influence/involvement in casino regulatory affairs), only 10-20 people responded IIRC. Something like 10 people were FOR potentially overturning lifetime self-exclusions on a case-by-case basis and only 2 or 3 were for upholding such a self-ban 100% of the time, zero exceptions never.

It's frustrating to me as a writer who's covered related topics... that so much infrastructure is going into the licensed/regulated casino "responsible gaming" sector (far more than $46,000).

Yet somehow these (alleged) lapses in oversight are still occurring.

It's even worse that in this specific case the OP is involved in. The customer didn't even request or solicit that the self-ban be lifted, but rather the account was reopened by the operator as part of a promotional offer.

If something like this were to take place in a regulated market such as Las Vegas, Nevada... perhaps the complaint could be brought forth before someone like Judge Cheryl Moss. She presides over the one-and-only "gambling treatment diversion court" within the United States. In this case I'm unsure which resources OP should seek out, whether it's best to work something out directly with the operator, how/if that should be done, who should be reached out to, etc.

Actually, reading back the OP, he says that the Malta Gaming Authority claim he asked for the account to be reopened. If this is true, it is easy to see why they would lazily side with the operator. My opinion though is that the whole point of a self-exclusion is to prevent problem gamblers being able to do things like OP has done with devastating damage to themselves and given his request was only several weeks after the self-exclusion then it's ridiculous they even entertain the idea.

I have "permanently" closed accounts in the past out of frustration with either a heavy loss or what I perceived to be poor loyalty/support from the sites and I know that I have regretted it at a later date. That being said, I would imagine a gambling addict could quite conceivably fool the body that assesses the appeals.

Thanks for the info on the topic.