i had a horrible experience this weekend.
There was a 3300 turkish lira entry 300000 guaranteed tournament in les ambassadeurs casino in girne cyprus organized by casino manager Ali Naci.
i went and played day 1b started with 25000 finished the day like 69700.
i went for final day 2 and the tournament manager announced that they did not get as many players as expected so they were gonna give only 150000 tl prize anybody not happy with it could get his buyin back and leave the tournament.
i asked why i would take my money back after almost tripling my chips, would i get my money back if i busted, they said there is nothing we can do.
also at this point of the tournament the board showed like 64 enties and 8 reentries which multiplied by 3300 makes 230000 tl and more. I asked you collect 230k and more why do you give back 150k. They answered most people entered the tournament from the satellites we made. I asked is it my fault that you lose money on satellites? they said we are the tournament director, our word is final and prizepool is 150k. there were like 28 player left only i and a greek player protested. we played the rest of tournament. despite the small prize pool there were many reeentries, i asked the people reentering why they did this, they said we have tickets from sats. they did not even register the reentries at the tournament board, the number stayed the same, i asked them why they did not register, they said they are coming from satellites. I asked them dont you give them 25K chips that they may play and beat us. No answer. I played the tournament, i finished fourth, got 15000 TL instead of like 27000 tl (30k minus tax). But i feel like ****.
Please warn your friends and dont ever visit this casino.

Wow that's ridiculous. Hopefully there is some sort of gambling commission you can report this to and that you have photos showing entries and showing the "prizepool". If so it seems an open and shut case.

This is outrageous. Get on the phone to whatever gambling regulatory body you can and report this ASAP.

if this happened in a civilized western country of course i would try gambling commission or find an attorney and move from there but in turkish cyprus probably not worth my time and money. i really dont hope having my money back i just want people and casinos like that stop scamming us and stop making money of poker players.
i dont have any documentation because while all these stuff were happening i was playing tournament, but you can ask your greek and turkish friends about the authenticity of the story. This is first time something like that happened to me. I emailed the story to a few emails at les ambassadeurs casinos website complaining.

Try and find some documentation stating that they GTD 300k, then contact all the instagram media accounts and get them to spread word.

Like you, i'm fed up of Casinos and Gambling Operators taking the p***.

North cyprus.. Might as well go play a tournament in Crimea or Nagorno-Karabakh

loctus,
this is first time i had something like that in cyprus.
merit for example makes successful tournaments you can trust.

Tbh I'm impressed you played on and made a profit. If it were me I'd have flipped each tournament table one by one until security stopped me. Couldn't care less if I get banned from a dodgy club.

The casino is in the Turkish-occupied part of Cyprus. You don’t want to get arrested there.

@OP: sucks to hear that, your best option might be threatening to trash the casino & hotel on social media.

Yeah that tournament would be in danger of going to 0 tables very quickly if it were in a civilized country.

And yes I realize the hypocrisy in this.

Disgusting.
Would be SOOOO mad
Prob would key the TDs car at the minimum.

That's always a risk when playing in a ****hole like that.

It's just terrible...

why didnt they just do what the gardens casino in los angeles did and keep adding day 1s and move back days 2 and 3 until they make the prize pool? the gaming commission allows them to do this because the size 2 font at the bottom of the structure sheet that says "they can alter or cancel the event for any reason"

screw all of these casinos

If this is the same place that usually hosts the WPT as well , it is not the first time.
Heard from a friend about how they refused to pay out winnings and I believe lawyers were involved at the end.

zebest
wpt was hosted in merit and as far as i know winners got paid their prizes. heard merit did not pay wpt his licensing fee or stuff like that but dont know the details. That is probably why they did not make anymore wpt tournaments.

i think even if there were more people they would not pay correct prize because they lost money on satellites. like i said they did not even give the collected money. also it was an interesting experience to play in a tournament where prizes are announced and fixed and still some people are entering the tournament, losing their chips busting and reentering.

This is really disgusting , the guy you mention as TD is in the sector for such a long time.

The only way to stop these people scamming players is to protest their events and not register at all. This way, probably, he will produce more scandals as he will have less players like you making the direct buy-in.

Gambling commission - surely they have to pay out at least the entries even if not honor the 'guarantee' unless the gambling commission that regulates them is worthless

Like all casinos in N. Cyprus, they evaluate each patron or group of patrons on the thought "will stiffing this person hurt my business in the future?". My thought is that it's a competitive market, the tournament director was probably told by management that under no circumstance can this tournament take a loss for the house. Terrible situation for the players, but there are no shortage of dishonorable casinos in that area. Anyone who thinks you have any recourse short of discussion with management has no idea how N. Cyprus works. I would attempt to get in touch with the casino manager and explain the situation, and see if he would be willing to split the difference or pay as the 230kTL prize pool.

As far as i know Ali Naci who organizes the tournament is the actual director of casino. Really!

Again, we’re talking about North Cyprus here. Not about the Cyprus that’s a member of the EU.
The hotel has a pretty good reputation, that should be the target if you decide to trash them.

It takes exactly one e-mail or phone call and that's that. If your voice is not heard then nothing will change.

Who is the tournament director?

Ali Naci is the tournament director and casino director.