Caesars Online Casino and its retail partner Harrah’s Philadelphia Casino are both the subject of a new lawsuit filed by the Public Health Advocacy Institute (PHAI) in Pennsylvania.
The purpose of the suit centres around the operator’s deposit match promotion that the PHAI has argued is enticing customers with a “false and misleading promise”.
The offer provides a deposit match of up to $2,500 (£1,868), though PHAI has alleged small-print terms note that a player is required to wager $375,000 in the first week before any chance of a payout.
The play through requirements, the PHAI claim, represent a bonus that is “unattainable and therefore impossible to win”.
The PHAI’s suit accuses both Caesars and its partners of rewriting the laws outlined in the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, with customers forced on what the health organisation has described as a “wild chase of action”.
Mark Gottlieb, PHAI executive director, has also taken aim at trade bodies, including the American Gaming Association (AGA), for its part to play in the wider saga surrounding online casino legalisation.
“We know the gambling industry, with the assistance of the AGA and the National Council of Legislators from Gaming States (NCLGS), is aggressively attempting to push the legalisation of online casino gambling across the US,” Gottlieb explained.
“Thus far, the seven states with online casino gambling seem ill-prepared or unwilling to regulate the wild tactics of the industry. This promotion, engineered by Caesars, is among the most egregious we have seen to date.”
Dr. Harry Levant, PHAI director of gambling policy, added: “It is unconscionable for a gambling company to knowingly require people to gamble excessively and put their mental health at risk as a condition to cash out their winnings.
“More importantly, nothing in Pennsylvania’s gambling rules or laws permits a casino to refuse payment unless and until customers begin gambling to excess. This is dangerous to Caesar’s customers, immoral and just plain wrong.”
Both Gottlieb and Levant broke down the numbers behind the bonus, detailing how a blackjack player wagering $10 per hand at a pace of two hands per minute playing non-stop would take 312.5 hours, just shy of two weeks, to meet the $375,000 requirement.
Gottlieb noted: “The maths alone demonstrates the predatory design of Caesars’ conduct and if the Pennsylvania Gaming Control Board, which has allowed this to go on for years, is incapable of applying the law and protecting the public from Caesars, we at PHAI must turn to the courts to put a stop to this injurious malfeasance.”
This is not the first time that the PHAI has taken action against a prominent US operator. In 2023, it filed a class action lawsuit against DraftKings in Massachusetts over a “deceptive” bonus offer.
Nearly a year later, it also started legal proceedings against the Massachusetts Gaming Commission, in a bid to get the regulator to submit the data compiled by casinos to track player behaviours to the court.
EGR has contacted Caesars, the AGA, the NCLGS and the Pennsylvania Gaming Control Board for comment.
The post Caesars Online Casino hit with lawsuit over “misleading” promotional offer first appeared on EGR Intel.
Operator, along with retail partner Harrah’s Philadelphia Casino, has promoted a bonus that requires players to wager $375,000 in seven days before achieving the threshold for a “deposit match”
The post Caesars Online Casino hit with lawsuit over “misleading” promotional offer first appeared on EGR Intel.