THE BOTTOM LINE
- Player Deception Is a Strong Defense: A Curaçao court has ruled that when a player actively deceives an online platform by using a VPN and providing false documentation to bypass geo-restrictions, it significantly undermines their claim that the operator breached its duty of care.
- “Responsible Gambling” Tools Matter: The court found the casino fulfilled its general duty of care by providing tools like self-exclusion, even before specific legislation mandated it. Documenting the availability of these tools is a crucial risk mitigation strategy for operators.
- Knowledge is Key to Liability: An operator’s duty to act is triggered by actual knowledge of a player’s gambling problem. The casino was not held liable for failing to proactively identify addiction from betting patterns alone, especially when the player only disclosed their issue after the losses were incurred.
THE DETAILS
A player has failed in a bid to recover significant cryptocurrency losses from the Curaçao-licensed online casino, Stake.com. The player argued that the casino operator, Medium Rare N.V., acted unlawfully by exploiting his gambling addiction and ignoring “red flags” in his high-stakes betting patterns. This case tested the boundaries of an online operator’s responsibility for problem gamblers, particularly in a cross-border context where the user actively conceals their identity and location.
The court’s decision hinged on the player’s own deceptive actions. The individual, a resident of the United Kingdom—a restricted territory for the casino—used a VPN and provided an Indian passport and bank details to open and maintain his account. The court determined that the operator was entitled to rely on the information the user provided and could not be faulted for failing to detect the circumvention. This finding places a significant portion of the onus for compliance on users who deliberately engage in deception to access services.
Crucially, the court addressed the operator’s duty of care. While acknowledging that a general duty to protect vulnerable players from gambling harm exists even without specific legislation, the court concluded that the casino had met this standard. The platform made responsible gambling tools, such as self-exclusion, available to the player. Furthermore, the operator had no actual knowledge of the player’s addiction until he sent an email explicitly stating it, at which point his account was promptly closed. The court rejected the argument that the casino should have diagnosed the addiction from betting patterns alone, reinforcing the principle that an operator’s liability is not absolute.
SOURCE
Source: Court of First Instance of Curaçao
