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Caesars casino pays punters in online bingo error |
21/08/2011 |
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Rupert Neate |
Caesars website
let customers bet with bonus to amass thousands of pounds before glitch was
noticed
An elementary
mathematical error has forced one of the world's largest casinos to pay out
tens of thousands of pounds to British punters.
The error on Las Vegas
casino Caesars bingo website, CaesarsBingo.com, left one family more than
£3,000 better off before the casino discovered its mistake and corrected
the glitch.
Caesars offered its customers a "200% welcome bonus" of up
to £400, which meant "you could deposit £10 and get £30 to
play with!".
Promotions like this are commonplace on bingo websites,
but most are carefully constructed so that punters are likely to break even or
lose money.
Online bingo games are designed around computer programmes
which generally mean that on average customers win back 60-70p for every
£1 staked, although it is occasionally possible to win big jackpots.
To ensure they do not lose out from the special promotions, gambling
companies do not usually allow customers to make a withdrawal until they have
spent all of their bonus. This means customers cannot usually take out more
money than they have wagered.
However, until Thursday last week CaesarsBingo.com allowed customers
to wager the bonus money while keeping their initial deposit safe.
One
player said he had collected a total of £460 after staking just
£200. "We stumbled across it by chance, and couldn't believe how stupid
Caesars had been. We told all of our friends and family about it. In total, our
family has made more than £3,000 from this glitch and one friend paid for
his wedding with his winnings," said the 29-year-old doctor, who did not wish
to be named.
Caesars changed the terms and conditions of the game on
Thursday. CaesarsBingo.com, which was launched in the UK last year, is operated
by Gamesys, a British online gaming company which also operates the Sun's bingo
game and takes bets worth more than £2bn a year.
Caesars said:
"If they are taking advantage of something that is our error they will get to
keep the advantage. If there's fraud then there's an issue."
He said
some players' accounts had been suspended pending an investigation.
Last week it was revealed that an American woman with a PhD in
statistics from Stanford University had amassed £12m after discovering a
way to beat the odds on multi-million scratchcards four times.
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