How to file a case in the Tribunal

A Tribunal submission is screened privately and may be declined. A 96-hour exchange applies only after acceptance and publication. A non-response finding requires a verified operator contact channel and evidence that the operator was reachable. Publication and recovery are not guaranteed; BetJury had no published real-operator cases at this review date.

For a British account, use the operator's formal complaint procedure. You can take an unresolved dispute to its approved ADR provider after eight weeks, or earlier if the operator gives a final response or deadlock letter. ADR is free to the consumer; check the provider's scope and rules. BetJury cannot enforce payment, and court remedies are separate. UKGC guidance.

Most disputes with a licensed casino are not fraud. They are a term applied more strictly than you expected, a verification request that stalled, or a bonus voided by a bet you did not know was capped. A clear chronology and the applicable terms make a complaint easier to assess. BetJury has no established real-case recovery rate, and an outcome cannot be promised.

This is what the Tribunal does, what it cannot do, and how to file a documented submission.

Before you file: the step almost everyone skips

Go to the operator first, in writing, through their formal complaints procedure. Not live chat alone.

That sounds like bureaucracy protecting the casino. It is the opposite. A written complaint through the formal route does three things live chat cannot: it creates a record with a timestamp, it starts a clock the operator is obliged to answer within, and it produces the document every later step depends on.

For a British account, an unresolved complaint can move to approved ADR after eight weeks, or sooner following a final response or deadlock letter. Keep the first complaint date and the reply. A Tribunal submission does not replace this process or guarantee a quicker payment.

So: complain to the operator, in writing, and wait for their answer. If they refuse, stall, or give you a final response you disagree with, you now have a case worth filing, and the paperwork to support it.

What counts as "in writing"

An email to their support address, or a ticket through their complaints form. If the only channel they offer is live chat, ask for a transcript to be emailed to you, and export it yourself before you close the window. Chat logs disappear. Say plainly, in the message, that you are making a formal complaint and want a final response — that phrasing matters, because it is the language their own procedure runs on.

The evidence to keep, from day one

Cases fail on missing evidence far more often than on the merits. The time to collect it is before there is a dispute, because most of it disappears once there is one.

• Screenshots of the offer terms as they appeared when you accepted them. Not as they read now. Operators change promotional terms, and "the terms say X" is much weaker than "the terms said Y on the day I opted in, and here is the screenshot".
• Transaction IDs and timestamps for every deposit and withdrawal request. Both sides of the ledger — the deposits establish what you put in, the withdrawal request establishes when you asked for it back.
• The full support conversation, exported rather than screenshotted where the site allows it. A complete transcript is evidence. Three cropped screenshots are an argument.
• Every email, including the automated ones. The "your withdrawal is being processed" auto-reply establishes that the request existed on a date, which is exactly the fact that tends to be disputed later.
• Your account verification status — when you uploaded documents, and what the operator confirmed. The dates help establish who was waiting for which information; no ranking of delay causes is asserted here.

Use only the operator's verified secure document channel and supply what is requested. In Great Britain, age and identity must be checked before gambling. Later checks can be necessary, but documents reasonably obtainable earlier must not be withheld until withdrawal. Keep the dates rather than assuming a ten-minute or one-week timetable.

Filing a case

On the operator's page, choose File a case. You will be asked to confirm you contacted the casino first, choose a category, state the disputed amount, and describe what happened in at least 300 characters.

The 300-character floor is not padding. A case that says "they won't pay me" cannot be screened, cannot be answered, and gives the operator nothing to respond to. A case that says what you deposited, when you requested a withdrawal, what the operator told you and what you want is one that can move.

Write it like a timeline, not a complaint

The most effective filings read like a statement of facts in date order. Something close to this:

That is worth more than a page of frustration, and takes less time to write. Name what you want, too — the withdrawal released, the bonus reinstated, the account unblocked. A case with a clear ask is a case that can be settled.

Choosing the category honestly

Categories exist so patterns can be seen across operators, not to grade your case. Filing a bonus dispute as a payment dispute does not strengthen it; it just makes the record less useful for the next player. If a withdrawal is delayed because of a bonus term, it is a bonus dispute with a payment consequence, and saying so plainly is the accurate framing.

Screening: what happens before anything is public

Every case is reviewed privately before it is published. Our team checks that the account belongs to you, that the operator is one we list, and that the complaint is specific enough for the operator to answer.

Screening is deliberately not adjudication. We are not deciding who is right — we are checking the case is real, attributable and answerable. A screened case is still an allegation, and it is published as one.

This protects both sides. Nothing accusatory about a named company goes public before a human has looked at it, and good faith does not remove the need for accurate, supported allegations. No response-time service level is verified for this update. A submission remains private unless accepted for publication.

Why a case might be returned

• The operator is not on our register, so there is no verified party to notify.
• The account cannot be tied to the person filing.
• The complaint is too vague to answer — no amount, no dates, no specific decision being challenged.
• It is not a dispute. Losing money playing a fair game is not a complaint we can mediate, however painful. The house edge is not a fault.

A returned case is not a rejection of you. It usually comes back with what is missing, and a case refiled with dates and figures attached is a different case.

Publication and the right of reply

The intended published exchange gives a reachable operator 96 hours per turn. BetJury must establish a verified contact channel and record that the operator could respond before attributing non-response to it; a database notification alone does not prove delivery.

Any operator we list can hold a verified Defendant Representative account. What they submit is published beside your complaint, unedited. You can then respond in turn, and the exchange continues turn by turn — 96 hours per side, each turn.

Each side may request at most two extensions, and an extension is one more 96-hour window rather than an open-ended pause. That cap exists because an unlimited extension is just a slower way of ignoring you.

The thread is the evidence. We do not summarise it into a verdict, and we do not editorialise inside it. A reader can see what you said, what the operator said, and who stopped replying.

What the operator sees

Your complaint and the evidence you chose to attach to it. Not your account balance, not your play history, not anything you uploaded privately. Attachments default to private, and material that supports a claim without needing to be public — bank statements, identity documents — stays that way unless you decide otherwise.

How a case ends

Resolved. The operator engaged and the matter reached an outcome — a withdrawal released, a term applied correctly, an account reinstated. Resolved does not mean you won every point, and it does not mean the complaint was baseless. It means the process worked and both sides could see it end.

Unresolved. The deadline ran out. Either the operator never replied, or what they filed did not address the complaint and nothing further came. This is the outcome that costs an operator most, and deliberately so: a company cannot control whether a player has a bad night, but it can always control whether it answers.

A case that closed can be reopened twice — if the operator's promise was not kept, or new evidence appears. After that it stays closed, because a case that can be reopened indefinitely is not a record, it is a running argument.

What it does to the operator's score

Complaint handling feeds the TrustAudit Index, but only through the parts an operator controls: whether they answered, how fast, and whether the case closed with an outcome. A case filed against an operator is not itself a penalty. Letting the deadline pass is, and it is the only part of our scoring an operator can change on the same day.

That distinction matters if you are worried about filing against a company you otherwise like. You are not damaging them by raising a dispute. You are giving them a public opportunity to handle it well.

The five disputes we see most, and what resolves them

Most cases fall into a handful of shapes. Knowing which one you are in tells you what evidence matters.

The bonus was voided after a win. Almost always a maximum-bet breach — a single spin above the cap while wagering, often placed without realising the cap applied. What decides it is whether the limit was clearly stated in the terms you accepted and whether the operator warned you at the point of the bet. Screenshots of the terms as they read that day are the whole case.

The withdrawal is stuck in verification. Identity checks are legitimate; anti-money-laundering rules make source-of-funds questions legitimate too. What is not legitimate is an open-ended review with no timeframe and no list of what is outstanding. The useful evidence is the dates: when you uploaded, what was acknowledged, what was asked for afterwards. A case that shows documents supplied on day one and silence for three weeks answers itself.

The account was closed and the balance withheld. The most serious category, and the one where the licence matters most. Operators may close accounts, but confiscating a balance needs a specific, stated reason — duplicate accounts, bonus abuse, a breach of terms. "We reserve the right" is not a reason. Ask, in writing, for the specific clause relied on and the evidence behind it. If none is given, that absence is the point.

The payout is slower than advertised. Usually the gap between "processed" and "arrived": card refunds move on the card networks, and bank transfers only clear on working days, so a Friday approval is a Tuesday arrival. Genuine only when the operator has not released the funds at all, which is why the timestamp on the approval matters more than the one on the transfer.

"Irregular play" or bonus abuse. Broad terms that let an operator void winnings for patterns they consider exploitative — low-risk betting to clear wagering, for example. Sometimes fair, sometimes a reason found after a win. What moves it is asking which specific behaviour, on which dates, breached which clause.

Questions we are asked most

Does filing a case cost anything? No. Filing is free, the Tribunal is free, and the alternative dispute resolution scheme your licence provides is free to you as well.

Will the operator know it was me? Yes — a dispute cannot be answered anonymously. Your public identity is your juror handle rather than your name, but the operator sees the account the complaint concerns, because they cannot investigate otherwise.

Can I file if I lost the money gambling? No. Losing a fair game is not a dispute, however bad it feels. If it is affecting you, the section below matters more than any complaint.

What if I already accepted a partial payment? File anyway, and say so. Accepting a payment on account is not the same as agreeing that the matter is settled, and the record should show what was paid and what remains.

What the Tribunal cannot do

We are a docket, not a court. We cannot compel an operator to pay you, freeze an account, or overturn a decision. Any site telling you otherwise is selling you something.

What we have is public pressure and a permanent record. It works more often than it should, because a visible unresolved case costs an operator more in lost sign-ups than most disputed balances are worth. But it is leverage, not enforcement, and you should not rely on it alone.

Formal complaint and ADR routes

File with us in parallel with your regulator's process, not instead of it.

Once you have the operator's final response, the licence they hold gives you a route that binds them:

• Great Britain. British licensees must provide access to an approved ADR provider for eligible unresolved disputes after eight weeks or earlier deadlock. The service is free to the consumer. Check the provider's scope and decision rules; court remedies are separate.
• Malta. The Malta Gaming Authority runs a Player Support Unit that will examine a complaint once the operator's internal process is exhausted.
• Gibraltar, the Isle of Man, Alderney. Small regulators with genuine supervision and a published complaints route.
• Lighter-touch regimes. A published complaints procedure exists, but practical leverage over an operator that has stopped replying is much thinner. This is the difference a licence actually makes, and it is why we record the authority and licence number on every review.

Running both routes at once costs you nothing. The regulator's scheme can order payment; our docket makes the conduct visible while that runs.

Time limits worth knowing

Dispute resolution schemes generally require you to bring a complaint within a set window of the operator's final response — often six months. Do not let a case sit because you are waiting to feel less annoyed about it. File, escalate, and let the clocks run in parallel.

If gambling has stopped being a choice

If you are reading this after a loss that hurt more than it should have, the dispute is not the most important thing on this page. Every licensed operator must offer deposit limits, time-outs and self-exclusion, and you can set them today. In Great Britain a single GAMSTOP registration excludes you from every licensed site at once.

GamCare's National Gambling Helpline (0808 8020 133) in the UK, and Gambling Therapy internationally, offer free confidential help and have nothing to sell you. Our player protection page lists the routes in full.

Gambling is entertainment with a price, not a way to make money and never a way to recover a loss. The Tribunal provides a route to submit evidence and seek a public reply — not to make the game winnable. 18+, and only where it is legal for you to play.