While most of us would think that winning three large jackpots in a game of video poker in only three weeks is definitely a sign of good luck, the jackpot winner who actually won the jackpots wasn’t so sure. Forced to wait for months for the Starluck casino to pay out the money, which amounted to a total of $736,000, the winner suffered through months of stress and anxiety until Starluck finally met its obligation and paid.
The player, who won the money after receiving three Royal Straight Flushes, requested payment in full but initially received only $26,000 from Starluck instead of the total amount won, which came to a total of $736,407. Starluck, a well-established casino owned by Partypoker, a London-listed online gambling group operating the world’s largest poker card room, did not withhold payment because of a lack of cash. Rather, payments were stalled because Starluck initiated no less than three separate and unique investigations into the player and then claimed that it had not received the player's documents, even though those documents were sent three times without trouble.
The player was only able to collect the prize money after a mediator agreed to take on the case some weeks later. The player contacted the mediator, who found the casino extraordinarily reticent about the whole affair, through gaming message boards. The mediator also commented that Starluck had lost an opportunity to generate some great publicity on the whole event.
The mediator, who is also an experienced gambler, said: "I've never heard of anything even close to it happening before in my eight years of internet gaming."
The lucky gambler began with a wire transfer deposit of $5 000.00 and specifically decided to forgo any bonuses in order to avoid giving the casino any excuses for delays and disputes if he won. After hitting the first Royal the player’s account balance totaled a quarter of a million dollars. At that point, he had the financial power to continue at the $500 a hand level and subsequently hit two more Royals.
While Starluck finally paid out months later, the whole affair left a bitter taste in the mouths of many players who had been following the case on the Internet. Obviously, the casino squandered away an excellent opportunity to generate some positive PR.
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Posted on: April 24, 2006
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