According to the Courts of Curacao, a residential Curacao man won over €495,000 from a gaming site known as SmokAce, which is owned by gambling operator Altacore NV, which was legalized as online gambling in the Netherlands in 2020.
Under the gaming rules of SmokAce, the gambling limits for winnings from the establishment were limited to a maximum amount
of € 550 due to smoke being included in the limits of the offers from Altacore.
However, a judge of the Courts of Curacao decided that this limit of winnings was unfair to this man, thereby ruling that he was entitled to his winnings from SmokAce, along with his winnings from Altacore.
Upon receipt of the email, the player started to play the bonus money he had received. He finished the bonus money and made three $1,000 withdrawal requests on April 19, 2024. He continued to win and his total balance eventually became €495,454.98; as confirmed by the account from CasinoNieuws.nl.
The player received an email from SmokAce stating that his account and the money in the account had been frozen. SmokAce indicated that the player was allowed to win a maximum of five times the amount of the bonus money with the bonus received from the VIP Manager. SmokAce states the terms for bonuses were in the terms and conditions; however, the player contended that he was unaware of the existence of this condition.
Dispute Over Bonus Terms and Multiple Accounts
The terms and conditions stated to the player by SmokAce were allegedly set in October 2022. According to the player, the Wayback machine showed an ongoing change to the terms and conditions. Also, as the terms & conditions could not be downloaded it is impossible for the player to prove what the terms and conditions were when he opened an account.
Besides, the man claimed that he won the money from a slot machine – Gates of Olympus, which is a type of game that cannot be played with bonus money. That is, he was playing with real money when he got the massive prizes. The man argued that the gambling website therefore would be legally obliged to pay the over 495,000.
The gambling company on the other hand maintains that the man broke the rules. They say if the man wanted to use the bonus, he must have been restricted in his winnings to a maximum of 550 and then the bonus would have ended. But if he still wanted to play after that, he would have had to deposit again, they said.
Moreover, SmokAce highlighted that man must have indeed broken the rules by registering multiple accounts at the gambling company, but the gambler denies it. Still, he did have accounts at other online casinos that were owned by the same parent company. The judge said that there was no violation of these rules.
The judge found the concept of the gambler first paying and then depositing again as a totally unreasonable argument and therefore decided the case in the gambler’s favor. The court ordered Altacore to pay the entire amount of $495,454.98.
Concerns Over Altacore’s Transfer to Fortuna Games NV
Whether the man will really receive the money is a different matter. One week after the plaintiff was given judgment on February 23, 2026 his lawyer, Roelof Bijkerk, made a statement that the Altacore’s online gambling casinos were being handed over to another gambling company.
Some of the online casinos which were previously managed by Altacore would now be operating under the name of Fortuna Games NV. Fortuna Games also have a Curacao gambling license. In an email, Bijkerk requested the Gaming Control Board officials to investigate both Altacore and Fortuna Games.
He thinks that the idea of Altacore is to evade the payment of the money owed by just transferring the gambling sites to another company. Both Altacore and Fortuna Games are represented by Curacao trust office SMES.
