Latest Gambling Grumbles Report: Woo Casino: "Beware of Cyprus -- even in Curacao"by Steve Russo
November 2020We have warned our readers multiple times to be very careful about playing in Curacao-licensed casinos which are owned by companies in Cyprus. Johannes B of Germany is the latest player to have learned this lesson the hard way.
Johannes told us says that he deposited 200 Euros, received a 100 Euro bonus, and was playing through the required amount, had a balance of 427 Euros, but was not allowed to finish it and was told his account was closed "by administration decision". He received no money (even his deposit was not returned) and he insists that while there was a time limit on playing the bonus he had not yet reached it.
When we wrote to Woo Casino, we received an almost immediate reply:
"We'd like to inform you the decision regarding the customer's account is final and cannot be debated."
That was it. There was no further explanation. Frankly, we were not surprised -- we have had too many bad experiences with casinos that are licensed in Curacao or Costa Rica but are actually owned by Cypriot companies and, in small type on its main page, Woo Casino, which opened this year, says it "is owned and operated by Dama N.V., a company registered and established under the laws of Curacao...acting as an Agent on behalf of Dama N.V., registered in Cyprus ... Limassol, Cyprus,... All payments with Paysafe are made via Dama."
Why is a Cypriot casino licensed in Curacao? The answer is both simple and complicated. Years ago, Cyprus, which had been a home for many disreputable online casinos, banned them. Presumably, the nation's gambling authorities were fed up with all the complaints being sent in about the casinos. This is not to say that all Cypriot casinos were dishonest -- some were fine. Nor is it a condemnation of the Cypriot people, in fact, many of the worst casinos were not owned by Cypriots. Instead, the owners were foreigners from countries who wanted to take advantage of a Cypriot law which gave them (and all members of their families) Cypriot citizenship if they invested enough money in the country. The big advantage of that is that Cypriot citizenship automatically gives you EU citizenship, EU passports, and allows you to have dual citizenship. Apparently, Cyprus has not been thrilled by the activities of these new citizens as the law was suspended last week (1 November 2020).
Quite a few of the immigrants found an easy way to recoup their investments -- and make a nice profit in addition. They opened casinos in Curacao and Costa Rica, which have very law supervision of casinos, and then refused to pay winners -- sometimes by enforcing some very strange T&Cs and other times, like Woo Casino, not giving any reason at all.
As mentioned above, not all Curacao casinos, not even all owned by Cypriot companies, operate in this way. However, without doing very careful research about a casino there is no way for a player to know which will deal with him fairly and which are traps.
Needless to say, Woo Casino is not one which we would recommend.
Woo Casino is licensed in Curacao
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