Howzit Casino - 플레이어 검증이 지연되고 있습니다.

I signed up at Howzit.com on March 4 and deposited 2000 NOK in Litecoin. Claimed the first welcome bonus, played, and ended up with around 50,000 NOK in winnings. Then verification started:

Passport and proof of address approved

Selfie approved

Proof of deposit approved

Source of funds – they asked where my money came from

I told them I won it in a private poker game. They asked for a PDF bank statement proving I withdrew from my bank to crypto. I sent a Revolut statement showing I withdrew 5 Litecoin, which they confirmed and approved.

I told them from the start money came from poker winnings.

Now they’re asking for proof that I won the money in that poker game. How am I supposed to prove that? It was a private game, not a casino tournament. 

Dear rekabt60,

Thank you very much for submitting your complaint.

I’m sorry to hear about the difficulties you’re facing with your withdrawal verification at Howzit. I’d like to gather some additional information to better understand the situation and determine how we can proceed.

• Did the casino specify what kind of proof they expect for your poker winnings?
• Have they given you a deadline to provide this proof, or have they simply kept requesting additional documents without a clear response on what would be acceptable?
• Have they stated that your withdrawal is officially on hold or denied, or are they still reviewing your documents?

Your cooperation is crucial for us to advocate for you effectively. The more details we have, the stronger our position will be when reaching out to the casino. If you have any emails or chat transcripts related to these requests, you can forward them to petronela.k@casino.guru so we can review them.

I hope we will be able to help you resolve this issue as soon as possible. Meanwhile, we appreciate your patience after you reply and we investigate the issue.

Thank you in advance for your reply and cooperation.

Best regards,

Petronela

Hi,

1 In order to verify your account please provide us with the proof of winning from that private poker game as we need to verify the source of where these funds came in order to comply with our policies. 

2 No deadline

3 We would like to inform you that your withdrawal has been canceled and funds have been refunded back to your player wallet.

This is because you have not completed our KYC request in 48hrs.

Please go to the My Account > Verification section of your gaming account and upload the required document.

If you have any questions, please contact us via live chat or check out our Help Center -> My Account & Verification.

Hello again,

I was able to get ahold of one of the players from the private poker game.

He and i wrote together a piece of paper to verify my poker winnings.

He also sent copy of hes ID.

Howzit did not approve this paper.

I feel like i have done more then enough, they said from the start they need bank-statement to show proof of me buying crypto and i have given them that and its approved.

This is just not realistic what they are asking.

Also keep in mind i have only deposited like 170euro

This make zero sens

Hi rekabt60,

Thank you for your reply and for providing the updates on your situation.

I understand how frustrating this process must be, especially after providing the requested documents. To help clarify things further, could you let us know whether the winnings from that private poker game were deposited directly into your bank account by yourself, or was the money transferred by someone else?

Your response will be helpful in understanding the situation better and how we can assist you going forward.

Looking forward to your reply.

By someone else

Thank you very much, rekabt60, for providing all the necessary information. I will now transfer your complaint to my colleague, Branislav (branislav.b@casino.guru), who will be at your assistance. I wish you the best of luck and hope your issue is resolved to your satisfaction in the near future.

Hello, rekabt60,

I am sorry to hear about your unpleasant experience and apologize for the delay. However, before I invite the casino representative to the thread, I would like to explain a few important things to you and ask you a few questions.

It is an industry standard for online casinos to conduct thorough Source of Funds (SOF) and Source of Wealth (SOW) checks in compliance with their regulatory obligations. In your case, the provided information indicates that your gambling activity was funded by winnings from a game of poker with your friends, which may be but may not be true, while I dare to claim that it is impossible to verify such a source of funds. There is basically nothing that you could provide to complete the KYC/verification and prove the source of funds in such a case, especially if those winnings (as you confirmed yourself) were deposited to your payment method by someone else. It is usual that some online casinos literally try to find such things in the players' bank statements and that the deposited funds originated from a 3rd party (someone else). Maybe if you deposited those funds yourself to your payment method, it could change the situation a bit. But unfortunately, under such circumstances, I would say that the only thing we can do here is to ask the casino if it is able and willing to refund at least your deposit back to your payment method. I cannot see any relevant way or option for how you could prove the source of funds.

As for some paper written down with your friend - I am really sorry, but it is really not an appropriate way to prove your winnings from a private poker game. I can find 10 colleagues now in my work who would be willing to confirm something like that for me. Like this, any player could make up such a story to withdraw their winnings without proving their source of the deposited funds, which would be completely against the industry standards and AML rules.

Alternatively, provided that the story about your source of funds is completely true, how do you please imagine further proceeding or proving the source of funds?

After the explanation above, is it please completely clear to you? Would you please agree with me contacting the casino only with the request for the refund of your deposit? Even if players play first with their real money and use bonus funds after it is spent, considering all the given circumstances, the casino could be able and willing to refund your deposit. If they have a justified reason to believe your source of funds cannot be sufficiently verified, they should not accept or take it.

Thank you. Looking forward to hearing from you.