"The online casino industry is horse of a different color."
(This might be a bit cryptic sorry.)
That simply means the casino industry is different, that the same rules don't always apply and that an astute person knows to look at things differently.
I've been thinking about this a little more. It's certainly not the entire casino industry and it's not like it's unintentional either. It's also completely avoidable.
Sorry, I for one am not clear on what you mean here. Can you explain?
... people don't get to defend themselves because the casino wants to maximise profits.
Are you suggesting that we are working in the casino's interests? That their agenda determines our procedures? If you are you are quite wrong, but I'm sure you knew that's what I'd say.
The simple truth is that fraud detection costs casinos a lot of time and effort. They are not inclined to give away their secrets on how they go about their business. That's just a fact and IMO perfectly understandable.
So what happens when we, for instance, take them a case and ask to see the proof backing their decision? If they know or suspect that we are going to hand the proof over to the player they simply won't give it to us. Full stop.
If however we give our word that the evidence remains confidential -- as we have for many years and continue to do so -- then maybe, MAYBE, the casino will trust us and shown us what they've got. I don't imagine that we get to see it all but the point is that they share enough that
we can see the grounds on which they are making their decision. If the evidence is good and solid then we support their decision. If the evidence is not satisfactory we ask for more. If they comply then we can proceed with the investigation. If they do not then we tell them so and, in the worst case, we have to flag the casino as non-cooperative on player complaints.
So, the bottom line is yes, you can look at the non-sharing of case evidence as serving the casino's interests. That implies that we are in on that, effectively working to support and protect the casinos, and I'm sorry that you feel that way because it simply isn't true. Casinomeister has almost two decades of evidence to show that isn't true and I've been doing the PABs for almost half of that time. Believe me, if we were in the casinos pockets on this the whistle would have been blown on us a long time ago.
What it comes down to is that we ask the casino and the players to trust us to do a fair and unbiased job on the PABs. The evidence is there to prove our trustworthiness but in the end some do, and some don't. C'est la vie. You can't please everyone but we do try to offer a service that is reasonable and fair to both sides. "Fair play for all" as Bryan says and I believe that's the highest standard we can hope to offer.