If you are a company offering an online poker service, it might be a good idea, you know, just saying, to make sure your computer systems are setup properly. Caesars Interactive Entertainment recently learned this lesson the hard way, getting hit with a $10,000 fine by the New Jersey Division of Gaming Enforcement (DGE) for blasting out e-mail promotions to players who had already put themselves on the self-exclusion list.
Caesars Interactive Entertainment operates the online poker room WSOP.com in New Jersey (as well as in Nevada) and gives its players the opportunity to self-ban themselves from the games. This is an option required by the New Jersey regulations to help combat problem gambling, though many responsible gaming companies make this option available even if they operate in areas without such rules. WSOP.com’s self-exclusion period can last one, two, three, or five months, selected by the player, during which the customer cannot play any game on the site whatsoever. There is also no way for the player to end the temp-ban; he must wait it out if he wants to play again. Players can also put themselves on a permanent self-exclusion list, but they need to be aware that this is the scorched earth option – there is no turning back from it and it also excludes a ban from Caesars’ brick-and-mortar properties.
As described on WSOP.com:
During the “cooling-off” period a player’s WSOP.com account will be suspended and WSOP.com will take all reasonable measures to make sure the player does not receive promotional offers. This suspension is irrevocable during the “cooling-off” period. The player’s WSOP.com account will automatically re-open at the end of the selected “cooling-off” period. A player may withdraw their remaining bankroll during this period.
So any money a player has on the site is not locked up during the self-exclusion period; he can still login to cashout. Gambling, though, is out of the question. Those temporarily (or permanently) barred from WSOP.com could still play on the Party Borgata Network in New Jersey, but chances are that if somebody voluntarily put themselves on the self-exclusion list, they may have done the same at Party Borgata or at least have the self-awareness to not just hop over to another site to start gambling.
The WSOP.com site states that all “reasonable measures” will be taken to prevent the delivery of promotional materials to players on the self-exclusion list, but from February 16th to May 28th, the company sent over 250 self-excluded players promotional e-mails. The complaint against Caesars was filed in early October.
Caesars Interactive Entertainment’s Vice President of Corporate Communications Seth Palansky told the Press of Atlantic City that, while unfortunate, it was just a simple mistake and no harm was intended. “The issue that caused our system to inadvertently target these patrons has been fixed and we have had no incidents since,” he said. “We can assure the public that this lapse on our part was not an intentional targeting of these patrons, but simply a back-end software issue that failed to properly scrub our database before certain mailings.”