Moore Games

This is the story of Moore Games, a now offline gambling site will likely end with the full loss of player’s bankrolls.

Players Left in the Dark

Moore Games operated as sportsbook, a casino and a poker room. Each of these areas had their own concerns, and the bigger issue seemed to be that things were not coordinated between the three areas of the site, often leaving players in the dark.

The only real constants were shady tactics, angry players, and no action until a third party got involved. Let’s take a look at the sportsbook and the casino.

Sportsbook Bonus Disaster

On October 2 2012, a player created a thread on SportsBook Review (SBR) claiming Moore Games Sportsbook did not honor a bonus as stated.[1]

The bonus came with many strings attached, such as needing to wager € 2,000, across 10 different games, with no live betting, but also no bets above €100. Apparently the player did not meet these requirements in the allotted time, and the bonus expired. The punter tried to withdraw, and the request was denied and money confiscated from his account. It was discovered that the site actually changed its own terms and conditions AFTER the bonus was completed.

The support staff took a particularly rude and almost hostile tone with the customer and claimed that the site was paying much higher amounts out daily but for players who “respect the bonus rules.” What a joke.

The very next day, the player reports being emailed by support after they initially said the matter was closed. He was refunded and eventually cashed out. In the same thread, a poster wondered if the site management was actively checking sites such as SBR to keep complaints quiet by only giving attention to those who made their issues known publicly.

Later in the thread a poster claims he was owed 3 figures for over 2 weeks, and the site initially said they had a high amount of withdrawals and asked for patience. Then they stopped returning his emails. Just a few days later, the site magically paid up after pressure was applied. Rumors of the site being close to bankruptcy begin circulating.

Casino Bonus Bait N’ Switch

In April, 2013, user, Granti56 contacted the website ThePogg about a bait and switch that occurred regarding a bonus in his Moore Games casino account.[2]

He posted to the site that he deposited and cleared through the bonus requirements (and beyond) and had a balance of € 24,000. To his shock he logged in a few days later to find a balance of zero. He quickly contacted support. They informed him that he did not in fact complete the bonus requirements because some of his play occurred on four games that were invalid for that bonus.

ThePogg did some truly remarkable and deep investigative reporting on this matter. ThePogg used Google Cache data to determine that on April 13th all four so called invalid games were still allowed according to terms and conditions of the bonus. The player started play just four days later.

Not only that, but ThePogg also went much deeper and verified through an anonymous source that Moore Games essentially lied about the reason for removing the four games from their “allowed list.” The casino claimed to remove them because of their relatively low house edge compared to other games, but then there were many games with even lower edges still permitted after the change.

There were also a few more details that tilted in the favor of casino fraud. One, the casino ceased all contact with ThePogg and did not respond to their repeated requests to try and air their side of the story. Secondly, Google Cache data from the date in question (April 13) appeared to be removed, probably at the request of the casino.

Moore Games most likely lost the license because they did not pay their fees for an extended period of time.

In the end, all of the evidence was too much to ignore, and ThePogg concluded that Moore Games did change their allowed games in a deliberate manner to screw a player out of his rightful money.

Three Scams in One

Moore Games has a lot more complaints across the net. The sources linked have ample information and questions that remain unanswered. As stated in the intro, the poker room also had many issues similar to their hijinks

This example shows how a scam site truly starts from the top down. It is the responsibility of ownership and upper management to monitor issues such as payouts, customer service and support, and terms and conditions, and in this case they failed on all counts.

This was truly just a total scam from start to finish, from the poker room to the bookmaker to the casino. Not content with earning money via legitimate methods, like rake in the poker room, standard house edges in the sportsbook or casino, this site chose to simply close down and steal player funds.

There were warnings as early as 2012, but they may have been tough to spot for some players because not all casino players bet sports or play poker and vice versa.

Your best bet as always is not to fall for a juicy deposit bonus without doing your research first.. The old saying goes, “if it sounds too good to be true it usually is” and this case proves it.

Always search online for player feedback and independently verified reviews to make sure you are not being reeled into a potential scam.