Responsible Play

Corked Vault sells a chance at a bottle. That is a form of gambling, and we would rather say so plainly than dress it up. This page explains what the product actually is, how to read the odds we publish, how to watch your own spending, how to stop or take a break, and where to get free and confidential help. It is written to be read before you have a problem, not only after.

What this product is

Opening a pack is a paid chance at an outcome. Every pack publishes its full odds table before you open it, and over enough opens the house keeps a margin. That margin is how the pricing works, and it is stated rather than hidden. Most opens return less than the pack cost. A pack is entertainment spending, in the same category as a ticket to something — not an investment, not a savings plan, and not a cheap way to acquire bottles.

If your reason for opening is that you expect to come out ahead, the arithmetic is against you, and no amount of skill, timing or pack selection changes that. There is no strategy that makes a negative expectation positive. Anyone who tells you otherwise — on social media, in a stream, in a group chat — is either mistaken or selling something.

How to read the odds

Each pack lists every possible bottle and the probability of drawing it. Those numbers are the whole truth of the pack. A few things follow from them that are worth stating explicitly, because they are the points people most often get wrong.

Every open is independent

A pack does not remember what it just did. Ten bad opens in a row do not make the eleventh more likely to hit, and a big hit does not make the next one colder. No pack is ever “due”. Sequences that feel meaningful — a run of near-misses, a hot streak, a bottle that keeps appearing — are what randomness looks like from the inside, not a signal about what comes next.

A near-miss is a miss

The reel stopping one position away from a grail is exactly as much of a loss as stopping ten positions away. It is designed to be watchable, and watchable is not the same as close. Do not let it read as evidence that you were nearly there.

Chasing makes losses larger, not smaller

Opening more packs to recover what you have already spent is the single most reliable way to spend more. The money already spent is gone whatever you do next; the only thing the next open changes is how much more you spend. If you notice yourself calculating what it would take to get back to even, that is the moment to stop for the day.

Provably fair is not the same as profitable

Every open is verifiable. The server seed is committed as a hash before you open, combined with your client seed and an incrementing nonce, and the whole record is shown on the verify panel and in your account history — you can rotate your client seed at any time. That means we cannot decide what you draw after the fact.

It does not mean the odds are in your favour. A verifiably fair draw against a published odds table with a house margin is still a draw with a house margin. Fairness is a promise about honesty, not about your return.

Money that should not be here

Only ever open packs with money you can lose entirely without it changing anything about your month. In particular, do not fund an account with:

• rent, mortgage, utilities, groceries, childcare or medical money;
• credit cards, overdrafts, payday loans, buy-now-pay-later or crypto borrowed against;
• money borrowed from family or friends, or money you would have to hide from them;
• money you are counting on to cover a bill that has not yet cleared;
• winnings you have already told yourself are for something else.

A useful test: decide the amount before you open, in advance, as a fixed number for the week or the month. If the number has to move upward for you to keep playing, the answer is not a bigger number.

Knowing where you stand

We show you your own figures rather than making you reconstruct them from memory. Your account page carries:

• lifetime total wagered and lifetime total won, side by side;
• a full history of every pack you have opened, with its seed record;
• every deposit, withdrawal and balance movement, with status;
• your cellar and what it is currently worth.

Look at the first line regularly. Total wagered is the number that tells you what this has actually cost you, and it is the one people are most surprised by. Bear in mind, too, that a bottle sold back to us returns less than its listed value, so a cellar total is not the same as cash.

Warning signs

Any of the following is worth taking seriously, and several together are worth acting on today:

• opening for longer, or for more, than you meant to, repeatedly;
• opening to get back to even, or to fix a bad session;
• opening to change how you feel — after a bad day, when bored, when anxious;
• hiding the spending, or being vague about it, when someone asks;
• lying about how much you have deposited, including to yourself;
• thinking about the next open while doing something else;
• selling bottles back below value to fund more opens;
• funding an account from credit, or from money earmarked for something else;
• relief rather than enjoyment when a pack hits;
• a partner, friend or family member telling you it has become a problem.

Two questions used as a short screen: have you ever felt the need to bet more and more money, and have you ever had to lie to people important to you about how much you gamble? A yes to either is a reason to talk to someone on the list further down this page.

Taking a break: self-exclusion

An account can be self-excluded for a period you choose. While the exclusion is active, opening packs is blocked — and it is blocked where it matters, at the moment a pack is opened on our side, not merely hidden in the interface. The exclusion shows on your account page with the date it runs to.

To set one up, email support@corkedvault.com from the address on your account and tell us how long you want. We will not ask you to justify it, we will not counter-offer, and nobody will try to talk you out of it. If you would also like your balance withdrawn or the account closed outright, say so in the same message and we will handle both together.

Treat the period you pick as final: an exclusion is meant to hold on the day you most want it lifted. Choose a length you would still endorse in a worse mood than the one you are in now.

Limits and cool-offs

We do not yet offer self-serve deposit limits, loss limits, short cool-off periods or session reminders in the product, and we would rather tell you that than imply a control exists that does not. Until those ship, the tools that genuinely work are the ones above and the ones below: an enforced self-exclusion, a block at your bank or card issuer, and blocking software on your own devices.

Many banks and card issuers can block gambling transactions at their end, usually from their app, and that block sits outside anything we control. Device-level blockers include BetBlocker (free), Gamban and GamBlock. Using more than one of these at once is not excessive; it is the point.

Closing an account permanently

You can close your account at any time by emailing support@corkedvault.com. A closure is not reversed on request a week later — if you want the option of coming back, ask for a fixed-period exclusion instead. What we keep after a closure, and for how long, is set out in the Privacy Policy; some records are retained because we are required to retain them. What happens to a balance on termination or suspension is set out in the Refund Policy, and it is worth reading before you ask us to close anything.

Who is allowed to play

The Terms and Conditions set the minimum age at eighteen, or higher where the law where you live requires it, and the service is not available at all in the Prohibited Territories listed there or anywhere outside the United States. We collect a date of birth at signup and we will ask for identity documents before a withdrawal.

Underage play is not a technicality to us. If a minor has access to a device where you are signed in, sign out, do not save the password in a shared browser profile, and use parental controls such as Qustodio or the screen-time controls built into your phone and computer. If you believe a minor has used an account, email support@corkedvault.com and we will lock it.

Alcohol, separately

The bottles are real alcohol, and shipping one is subject to legal drinking age wherever it is going — a delivery has to be signed for by an adult of legal drinking age, and we will not route around that. Nothing on this site should be used as a way to drink through a bad stretch. If drinking rather than spending is the part that has stopped feeling voluntary, the SAMHSA line further down is the right number, and selling bottles back rather than shipping them is always available to you.

What we do on our side

• We publish the full odds for every pack, before the open, on the pack itself.
• We make every draw verifiable, and we keep the seed record rather than quietly discarding it.
• We enforce self-exclusion at the point a pack is opened, so it cannot be bypassed by a stale page or a direct request.
• We do not run “come back” offers at an account that has excluded itself, and we do not treat an exclusion request as an objection to be handled.
• We may freeze or limit an account ourselves — without being asked — where the pattern of play, deposits or contact with support suggests real harm, or where we have reason to think the account holder is underage or in a Prohibited Territory. We would rather be wrong and reverse it than be right and have done nothing.

Where to get help

All of the following are free, confidential and independent of us. You do not need to be in crisis to use them, and you do not have to have lost a particular amount to qualify for help.

United States

• National Problem Gambling Helpline — call or text 1-800-522-4700, 24 hours a day, seven days a week. Chat at 1800gamblerchat.org. It routes you to services in your own state.
• Gamblers Anonymous — free peer meetings, in person and online, at gamblersanonymous.org.
• Gam-Anon — for family members and partners, who are affected too and often get overlooked: gam-anon.org.
• SAMHSA National Helpline — 1-800-662-4357, 24/7, for substance use and mental health, including alcohol.
• 988 Suicide & Crisis Lifeline — call or text 988 if things have gone further than money. Please use it.

Elsewhere

• United Kingdom — National Gambling Helpline, 0808 8020 133, 24/7, via GamCare.
• Australia — Gambling Help Online, 1800 858 858, 24/7.
• Anywhere — Gambling Therapy offers free online support in multiple languages.

Related policies

• Terms and Conditions — eligibility, the Prohibited Territories, and the rules of the service.
• Refund Policy — the finality of transactions, and balances on termination.
• Privacy Policy — what we hold, and what survives a closed account.

If any part of this page describes you, the message to send is one line to support@corkedvault.com asking us to lock the account. It is the easiest thing on this page to do, and it is the only one that has to happen today.