Low Complaint Rate from eCOGRA Casinos Online

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eCOGRA is one of the most reputed online casino accreditation organizations. It applies the same rigorous standards to its operations that it expects from its online casinos. Twice a year it releases dispute resolution statistics, so that the Internet gambling industry is aware of the status of disputes at online casinos approved by it.

The 2011 half-year dispute report has just been released by eCOGRA Fair Gaming Advocate Tex Rees. The gist of the report is that once again eCOGRA-accredited operators have maintained a remarkably low complaint ratio of under 0.5% per site on average each month over the first six months of 2011. The more amazing feat is that the majority of valid complaints received by were resolved by eCOGRA within 72 hours. Rees said, "Operators have responded in a fast and cooperative manner to those cases where I have requested information and explanations, and have been quick to respect my findings in each case." This has helped in speedy resolution of matters. On the player front Rees pointed out that a small percentage of players still try to circumvent terms and conditions governing play and payouts. These players are becoming more creative in their tactics, and the operators have had to develop correspondingly improved methods to identify and then lock them out.

eCOGRA has over 145 tier one online gambling sites on board, which are owned by some of the biggest and most established operators on the Internet. It offers free dispute resolution services to players wagering at the online casinos that have been awarded eCOGRA's "Safe and Fair" seal. During the first six months of 2011 a total of 475 complaints were received by eCOGRA. Since 57 of these were from players wagering at online casinos not approved by eCOGRA, these complaints were not considered. 60 complaints were considered invalid because the player could not provide the required information or contained irrelevant enquiries.

That left 358 valid and legitimate complaints accepted by the Fair Gaming Advocate. Of these complaints 41% featured cash-in problems, 23% featured bonus issues and 21% featured locked accounts as the main disputes. The average complaint rate was 13 per week across all 145 accredited operators. During this period the number of valid disputes resolved in favour of the player dropped to 40%, which was a decrease of 3% percent on the 2010 figures. Rees indicated that the reason for this decrease is that a number of gambling syndicates were uncovered by operators. These syndicates were breaking the terms and conditions agreed to. Increasingly sophisticated tracking techniques had to be used to detect them. The main violation was the use of multiple accounts on the basis of fraudulent documents in order to claim the one time sign up benefits.

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