INTERCASINO ANNOUNCEMENT REGARDING PLAYERS IN THE USA

[ryan_hartley]

Due to the imminent passing of the Federal Unlawful Gambling Enforcement Act on September 30th 2006, InterCasino are no longer accepting wagers from residents in the United States. We regret to inform you that from 11am EST on 3rd October, 2006, we will be closing all US gaming accounts.

However, please rest assured that we will give back the remaining balance to all our US players, minus any uncleared bonuses. This will be done by check in the next 3 to 4 weeks.

As the world’s oldest and most respected online casino, we very much hope in the months to come that the USA will see fit to license and regulate online gaming so that we can once again service our US clients. In the mean time, we look forward to continue providing a great service to all our current and future Non-US customers.

As the world’s oldest and most respected online casino, we will be celebrating InterCasino’s 10th birthday on the 23rd November 2006 with our loyal International player base and we have a great birthday surprise in-store for next month.

We apologize for any inconvenience and express our sincere thanks for your continued support.

Yours truly,



Ryan Hartley
Casino Manager

[thelawnet]

It's generally considered courteous to announce things before you actually do them....

We regret to inform you that from 11am EST on 3rd October, 2006, we will be closing all US gaming accounts.

That date already happened.

You'd think they'd give people at least say 24 hours notice to play off their bonuses.

I wonder who lost the most.

[chucho]

Originally Posted by thelawnet

I wonder who lost the most.

I think intercasino lost the most. I agree that is unfair that they would not allow people to finish their bonuses. And what about comps? Ryan, are you going to treat the pending comps as a cash balance which is what they are and send the US players checks based on their unclaimed comps?

[trips to win]

I am saddened and feel the loss already. Yes- it would have been kind to have given at least a 24 hour notice so USA players could have gone in and blew their gambling wad.

[thelawnet]

Originally Posted by chucho

I think intercasino lost the most.

However they are a business and chose to enter the market in the face of regulatory risk. Wagerworks, and others, did not.

It is not correct to compare a consumer with a business operating in the face of known risks.

[ryan_hartley]

Originally Posted by thelawnet

It's generally considered courteous to announce things before you actually do them....



That date already happened.

You'd think they'd give people at least say 24 hours notice to play off their bonuses.

I wonder who lost the most.

Under any other circumstance, absolutely we would endavour to give as much notice as possible and we apologise to all our US players for the short notice. However, this decision was made in the light of the ban and we are refunding all our US players the remainder of their balance.

I would also like to explain why we stopped US players from receiving their bonuses on Sunday afternoon. We felt strongly that it would be unfair for US players to obtain a bonus only to be told they could not play two days later; therefore not being able to meet the wagering requirements in time. It is for this reason that we felt it was the right thing to do, to stop bonus payments to players in the US and most importantly to tell all our players immediately.

We had messaged our players and as a courtesy, also posted the announcement on the forum so that we could reach as many of our players, as quickly as possible, given the short time frame. The ban has many implications for us all and we sincerely apologise to all our US players for any inconvenience caused

[Casinomeister]

Thanks Ryan,



It's a real shame to see stellar operations like Intercasino, VIP Casino, the Sands, etc. wave goodbye to the US player. I hope this is merely a temporary policy, and that sometime in the near future you'll be able to welcome these players back.

[vinylweatherman]

Originally Posted by ryan_hartley

Under any other circumstance, absolutely we would endavour to give as much notice as possible and we apologise to all our US players for the short notice. However, this decision was made in the light of the ban and we are refunding all our US players the remainder of their balance.

I would also like to explain why we stopped US players from receiving their bonuses on Sunday afternoon. We felt strongly that it would be unfair for US players to obtain a bonus only to be told they could not play two days later; therefore not being able to meet the wagering requirements in time. It is for this reason that we felt it was the right thing to do, to stop bonus payments to players in the US and most importantly to tell all our players immediately.

We had messaged our players and as a courtesy, also posted the announcement on the forum so that we could reach as many of our players, as quickly as possible, given the short time frame. The ban has many implications for us all and we sincerely apologise to all our US players for any inconvenience caused

I am sure at least one US player thinks this stinks.
They posted the fact of the bonus ban, and when they queried this they were told by CS that they "were not at liberty to explain". This allowed the player to fall into a misapprehention that it might be a problem to do with bonus abuse, and that playing without bonuses this month would not be a problem. They then find today that the funds have been trapped for 3 to 4 weeks, whereas if they had been allowed to know that it was very likely that Intercasino would stop accepting wagers from US players they could have withdrawn their cleared funds immediately while their accounts were still open. In many cases, this would have meant 1 to 2 DAYS to receive the funds.
Because of this move, other operators should not be surprised if their US players withdraw en-masse at the slightest hint of a ban on accepting US players, such as additional rules or less bonuses. This will hurt those who want to still accept the wagers, but just need to reposition themselves in the market to make this possible.
Further, if players had been told in advance, they would have had 24 hours to play out the bonus.
The reason given by Ryan for blocking bonuses was that the decision to cease accepting wagers had already been made at that point, so the ban on CS telling players about this until it was too late for them to take action stinks far more than the decision itself, which is understandable.

[ryan_hartley]

Originally Posted by vinylweatherman

I am sure at least one US player thinks this stinks.
They posted the fact of the bonus ban, and when they queried this they were told by CS that they "were not at liberty to explain". This allowed the player to fall into a misapprehention that it might be a problem to do with bonus abuse, and that playing without bonuses this month would not be a problem. They then find today that the funds have been trapped for 3 to 4 weeks, whereas if they had been allowed to know that it was very likely that Intercasino would stop accepting wagers from US players they could have withdrawn their cleared funds immediately while their accounts were still open. In many cases, this would have meant 1 to 2 DAYS to receive the funds.
Because of this move, other operators should not be surprised if their US players withdraw en-masse at the slightest hint of a ban on accepting US players, such as additional rules or less bonuses. This will hurt those who want to still accept the wagers, but just need to reposition themselves in the market to make this possible.
Further, if players had been told in advance, they would have had 24 hours to play out the bonus.
The reason given by Ryan for blocking bonuses was that the decision to cease accepting wagers had already been made at that point, so the ban on CS telling players about this until it was too late for them to take action stinks far more than the decision itself, which is understandable.

The new bonus code system that has been in place at InterCasino before the ban, states that before depositing any money, no bonuses would be given.

Due to the imminent passing of the Federal Unlawful Gambling Enforcement Act on the September 30th 2006, it is strictly forbidden to take wages from any US player which his why we have take this decision.

Of course I am truly upset that InterCasino are no longer able to serve our US players but we hope the the USA see fit to change this legislation so that we are once again able to provide a great customer experience that players have come to expect from us.

Regards
Ryan Hartley

[freezer]

It's not often I have praise for Party Poker but at least they are treating their US customers right: The 2+2 Forums: PartyPoker.com Info

It is really unfortunate that Crypto/Ecash have decided to do things the way they have but I'm not surprised given their track record.

Interpoker was my favorite Crypto skin to play on. Too bad they couldn't use their influence to do things right.