Hi weatherman
I appreciate your concern. Can I just say, we CHOSE to be licensed in the IOM. We wanted our player to be safe in the knowledge that anything may happen they'll still get their cash.
Bonuses and points and stuff are added value the operator attributes to the players - players are not owed it by right and an operator can do whatever they please with it. Our point of view is that they should no longer stand and e'll pay players the real money they are owed.
Our suppliers and affiliates will be dealt with accordingly to what we have and want to do. We started the business with the aim to be fair and better than others and we will be in touch with each supplier. I am not 100% sure if this forum is the right place for this sort of conversation and if you are a supplier of ours feel free to get in touch privately instead of here please. I will not discuss individual situations on this thread.
Thanks a lot
Mauro
Jack Gold Casino Manager
www.jackgold.com
You may find not too many players agreeing with this view. Things like comp points are EARNED through being a loyal customer. They are advertised as being a part of what has been purchased. Bonuses already granted for a purchase already belong to the player, and thus have some monetary value. They may have been a key factor in the decision to purchase, and some real money may already have been spent on the process of redeeming the bonus funds.
One key fact here is the deliberate intent of giving players zero notice so that they could not go and complete WR or redeem comps into their main accounts. This was not "playing fair" at all, this was designed to minimise the potential liability to creditors prior to making the formal announcement.
As for suppliers, a simple statement such as "affiliates will be paid all their earned commissions up to the date of closure by the 10th October" will suffice.
Affiliates are not all "big corporations". Many are small time self employed, and losing the commissions from one of their promoted venues could put them out of business.
If the casino went bust with insufficient monies to pay all it's debts, then even the IOM hasn't offered the kind of protection many thought it would. The aim of strict regulation is to spot this kind of thing BEFORE it happens, and force an orderly winding up of a casino that isn't seen as viable, so that at least everyone gets what they are owed.
As players, how can we trust even IOM casinos in respect of rewards that build up over time, rather than get awarded instantly.
Contrast this with an ORDERLY exit, or partial exit. GoWild have decided to close at short notice to UK players. Now, not only are players' cash balances being protected and migrated to a buyer (in this case, 32Red), but existing bonuses and earned comp points are also being migrated so that UK players can carry on from where they left off, completing WR and redeeming their comps. These two casinos are licenced in Malta and Gibraltar respectively, jurisdictions less trusted than the IOM.
Every time players get shafted, even lightly, by such an event damages the whole industry. Players are forever trying to spot the signs that a casino with their money in it is about to go bust, pull out of their country etc, and all with zero notice. The problem is that this leads to "false positives". The next casino may GENUINELY have had a server meltdown that takes their site offline for over 2 days, and prevents support staff from communicating any reassuring information to players. Unfortunately, players may play safe and assume they are about to lose their cash, and will do their best to fight for it before it's too late.
We are STILL told that players will get their money "by the 10th October". What is less clear is whether all players who request their money will have to wait that long, or whether funds will be paid per request within a couple of days (no need for a pending period for potential reversal now is there).
