Disconnected mid-game: every operator applies its own rule

The round starts, the screen freezes. You reload the page, you log back in, and the balance has changed. Something happened in between that you never saw.

The question looks simple: have you lost your stake? Yet there is no single answer. I read the terms and conditions of the seven operators I have audited, and found six different regimes. What you get back depends on the site you were playing on, not on any Belgian rule.

Here is what each one provides, what none of them provides, and what to do straight away if it happens to you. It all comes from the public documents of the operators among the Belgian casinos I have audited, with the article numbers at the end.

Disconnected mid-game: what happens to your stake

One thing is common to all seven. The stake leaves your balance when the round starts, not when it ends. PlayOne says so plainly: every stake is debited from the player account immediately. So the question is never whether you paid, but who finishes the round.

From there the paths diverge. At some sites the round carries on without you. At one it is closed and the stake comes back. At three operators nothing at all is written.

That silence matters as much as the rest. On a site with no clause covering it, everything depends on what customer service agrees to do. It is one of the points I look at when checking a casino’s licence and security: a licence guarantees the legal framework, not the clarity of the terms.

At BeCasino, a computer finishes the round for you

The most unexpected clause comes from BeCasino. Its terms require your device to stay connected to the game server for the whole round. If the connection drops, the round does not stop.

A computer with, as the text puts it, average player skills, finishes the round on your behalf. You can still come back into the game in progress. If the round is won, by the machine or by you, the win is credited to you. If not, it is lost.

The rule makes sense for games where decisions count: a card to draw, a bet to confirm. On a slot spin there is nothing to play in your place, since the outcome is already set. The document draws no such distinction.

Connection lost: refund, investigate, or provide nothing

Madison is the only one to promise a refund. It announces reasonable measures to let you resume once reconnected, without guaranteeing it. If that proves impossible, the game is closed and the stake returns to the account. The same applies when the interruption stems from a technical error on its side.

PlayOne reasons differently, by looking at the cause. A round you interrupt yourself costs you the chance of a win. A round stopped by a technical fault obliges you to contact customer service immediately, and an investigation opens. Ladbrokes relies on the balance recorded on its server: after a drop, the last round counts only if it was properly validated before the disconnection and its outcome is known.

That leaves Fortuna, Oria and Golden Palace, whose terms are identical on this point. They rule out any claim tied to an internet fault, and reserve the right to interrupt a game at any moment, without notice, without justification and without compensation. On the fate of a stake already placed, not one line. On a site licensed elsewhere, the question does not even arise, as what a Belgian casino licence covers makes clear.

When a game crashes, who holds the proof?

This is the hardest point, and it is the same everywhere: the proof belongs to the operator.

PlayOne draws up a technical report within a minimum of 72 hours. That report is, under its terms, the only proof used to work out the loss or the win, and it is open to no discussion. The file closes within 30 days. At Madison the technical report is final and decisive. At Ladbrokes the server balance prevails, at any moment.

Against that, you hold one item: your game history. None of the terms I read says how long it stays available, and an account left alone after an incident raises another question, which I covered separately: what happens to a forgotten balance.

Winnings voided after a bug: what the terms allow

A dropped connection is only one case. The same articles deal with a game behaving oddly, and they go further.

PlayOne may correct the result of a faulty round without prior notice, and void both the bets and the winnings arising from a software error. Madison voids winnings from a game showing erratic behaviour and debits them from the account immediately. BeCasino corrects any faulty result retroactively, adding that no legal recourse is possible.

One detail is worth reading twice. At BeCasino, if the correction leaves the account in the red, the player has to credit the difference back. I describe these clauses as they are written. Whether they would all hold up before a judge calls for an opinion I do not have.

What to do in the hour after losing your connection

The useful reflex is not to relaunch the game, it is to keep a record. Write down the precise time, the game concerned and the amount staked, photograph the screen, then open your history before other rounds stack up on top of it.

Then contact customer service without waiting. PlayOne requires it immediately. Madison wants the complaint within seven days and replies within thirty working days. Those deadlines run from the incident, not from the moment you notice it. You may also be asked to confirm your identity before the file is looked at: I have set out how long account verification takes.

And for next time, it pays to know in advance what you are playing on: I read these clauses site by site, and my detailed review of each casino goes through them one by one.

Losing your connection at a casino: your questions

Sources and limits

• Ladbrokes terms and conditions, article 18 on computer failures
• BeCasino terms and conditions, articles 4.4.9 to 4.4.12
• Madison terms and conditions, articles 8.2 and 9
• PlayOne terms and conditions, article 11.2
• Fortuna, Oria and Golden Palace terms and conditions, article 6
• Gaming Commission, to lodge a complaint

Three limits: I have not tested these rules in practice, having no account with these operators; the Ladbrokes FAQ does not display without JavaScript, so I have only its terms; and several clauses rule out any challenge in advance, which I describe as written without taking a view on their validity.

This article describes public contractual documents, consulted on the date given. It is not legal advice. An operator can change its terms without notice: in a dispute, the version in force at the time of the events is the one that counts.

A round that goes wrong can weigh in other ways too: my page on responsible gambling gathers the limits, the breaks and the support services.