Honestly sad writing this review, as I used to love coming to this place. I work out of town, but would bring my dad in to play blackjack whenever I was in Vancouver. Both of us would generally end up donating a lot to charity (lol), but it was super fun all the same, and we always had a good time despite being unlucky. Always enjoyed seeing the other regular players, and the dealers are some of the best around.
However. Something happened this weekend that really soured both of us on this place. Believe it or not, this was that for the first time in forever, both of us actually WON. Which was a really nice change, except that when we went to go cash in our chips, they didn’t want to give us our money.
Okay, to be fair, part of the problem was that my dad gave me his chips to cash at first, and apparently you’re not supposed to do that. I didn’t know (not used to winning lol); now I do. So I gave my dad back the chips he had given me and he cashed them in. No issue. But then when I went to cash in my chips, they told me I hadn’t won that much? Which was absolutely a lie. I was at a loss over how to get the money for my chips, so I then gave the rest of them to my dad and he was able to cash them (if that doesn’t make a lot of sense to whoever is reading this, don’t worry, it didn’t to me either). We eventually got the money, but the whole thing took forever, and it really seemed like they didn’t want to pay us and would do whatever they could not to.
My dad was pretty offended by this point and didn’t want to come back, but I convinced him to give them another chance the following day. So we did, and amazingly enough, we won again! After a few hours we both had a good stack of chips, but then a lady came over and asked for our IDs. As we were sitting at the table, playing, like we had done something wrong. Never mind the fact that we had already showed our IDs at the door as per BCLC rules. At this point, winning was no longer fun, so we just cashed out our chips (THANKFULLY no issue this time) and left.
Honestly, the whole thing just ruined the experience of winning. It just felt like they were accusing us of cheating, despite the fact that we had been losing and losing and losing before finally winning the tiniest portion of it back. And because there is absolutely no way that either of us could have possibly been cheating, it almost seemed like they were using that as an excuse because they didn’t want to pay us?
Either way, we won’t be back. There is something really rotten in either this casino or in BCLC as a whole, and I don’t trust for one second that they will actually pay out anyone who legitimately wins a prize. I’m now also questioning whether my numerous losses even did go to charity, or if they simply went to line someone’s pockets.
On the bright side, I won’t be losing any more money to this casino. :) Thanks for reading.
TLDR: they have no problem taking your money when you lose, but on the rare occasion you win, they make it as hard as possible for you to get your money.
Learn more insights from Wanderboat AI
