The evidence you need before you complain

The most consequential mistake in a gambling dispute is made before the dispute starts. Players raise a complaint, the account is restricted or closed, and the statements, transcripts, terms and transaction history that would have supported the claim are no longer reachable. What follows is a complaint asserted from memory against a company holding the entire documentary record.

Capture the evidence first. Then complain. The order is not a refinement; it decides what is possible afterwards.

Why access is lost

Account restriction following a dispute is common and often has a legitimate basis — a verification review, a security hold, a decision to close the relationship. Whatever the reason, the effect is identical: transaction history, promotional terms you accepted, live chat archives and the site's own terms and conditions are all served from the operator's systems. Losing access loses all of it at once.

Terms also change. A clause relied on against you may not be the clause you agreed to, and unless you captured the version in force at the time, that is unprovable.

The checklist

Account and transaction records

• Full account statement covering the whole relationship, not just the disputed period. Export it if the platform allows; screenshot it page by page if not.
• Every deposit: date, exact time with time zone, amount, currency, method, the operator's transaction reference, and the descriptor on your bank or wallet statement.
• Every withdrawal request: date and time submitted, amount, method, destination, reference, and every status change with its date.
• Balance at the point of dispute, and the balance history around it.
• Bet or game history where relevant, including round or session identifiers.

The terms as they appeared

• The general terms and conditions at the date of the events, saved in full.
• The bonus terms for any promotion you accepted, captured at acceptance — wagering requirement, maximum bet, maximum win, expiry, excluded games.
• The payment page, including stated processing times and limits.
• The footer licence statement, and the licence register entry it points to. See How to read a licence register entry.

Save these as full-page captures showing the date and the address, not cropped fragments.

Correspondence

• Live chat transcripts, requested by email at the end of each session. Many systems offer a transcript on request; ask every time, because on-site archives disappear with the account.
• All emails, including headers, kept in the original mailbox rather than forwarded.
• Every document request and exactly what was submitted in response, with dates.
• Notices and pop-ups shown in the account, captured when displayed.

Verification correspondence

• What was requested, when, in what form, and by whom.
• What you sent, when and through what channel.
• Every rejection and the reason given.
• Any statement about what would satisfy the requirement.

Verification loops are a frequent stall point, described in Anatomy of a withdrawal, and where it stalls. A dated record of the loop is what turns "they keep asking for documents" into a demonstrable sequence.

Identity of the counterparty

• The company named in the terms as your counterparty, with its registration number and address.
• The licence number and issuing authority.
• The domain used, and any redirect you passed through — see Domain, host and brand.

How to capture

1. Full-page screenshots showing the address bar, the date and the account identifier. Partial crops are weak evidence.
2. Export where possible. A downloadable statement carries more weight than an image of one.
3. Preserve originals. Keep emails in place; keep files with their original names and timestamps.
4. Keep a contemporaneous log. A simple dated list of what happened, written as it happens, is more persuasive than a reconstruction.
5. Store off-platform. Somewhere you control and will still control in six months.
6. Do not alter anything. Redact for privacy if you must share, but keep an unredacted original.

Assume that the day you complain is the last day you can see your own account. Everything you would want on that day must already be saved.

What good evidence establishes

A complete record lets an assessor answer four questions without relying on either party's account: what were the terms; what did each party actually do, and when; what was said; and where did the money go. A dispute that answers all four is capable of being resolved on the documents. One that answers none is two assertions.

The standards GambleLABS applies when assessing submitted evidence are published in the methodology. Once your record is complete, the ladder in How to escalate: from operator to regulator to ADR sets out the sequence, and documented cases can be submitted through the report route.

This is a description of practice, not legal advice.