So, lessons were NOT learned from the Purple Lounge incident, and yet another Microgaming casino has been allowed to simply vanish without offering any kind of explanation. We are left guessing that they have gone bust because they have no staff on duty, no website, no working server, and have lost their license.
It also seems that shortly before they vanished, players inquiring about their withdrawals were being fed bullshit, and this meant that players continued to deposit. Surely this is a criminal deception, so called "trading whilst (knowingly) insolvent", which can lead to directors doing jail time here in the UK.
If no lessons are being learned, then ALL casinos present a risk to players if they go bust. The main lesson that should have been learned from the PL fiasco is that players' funds should be separated from operating funds, and ringfenced so that players' money was safe even if the operator went bust.
The TUSK incident was an earlier opportunity to learn the same lesson, yet it was ignored back then, and then happened TWICE more to players of Microgaming casinos.
Should we assume that there is no intention on the part of regulators to address this issue and ensure that players' funds are always shielded from operator failure.
Whilst the industry hates chargebacks, they are taking advantage of the reluctance of honest players to pursue this redress by failing to properly protect players' balances. Perhaps a harder line taken by players over this will force the banks (who are ultimately going to foot the bill for refunding purchases from bust companies) to take a harder line when it comes to allowing online casino companies to accept deposits from methods that create this legal joint liability of both bank and merchant.
In turn, this should put pressure on currently solvent operators to themselves put pressure on the relevant regulators to ensure that when any operator goes bust it cannot take players' funds with them. This pressure would take the form of finding card issuing banks less willing to allow gambling transactions, and this will reduce the ability of players to spend and lose money, something that some anti-gambling groups would see as positive progress.
One thing players can do is NEVER leave their money in the casino, but to always cash out at the end of a session, even though this means redepositing only a day or two later. It will cost the operators more, but will lessen the risk to players' funds as they won't be sat there overnight, which seems to be the most common time for a struggling operator to be switched off. Long pending periods also place customers' funds at risk. The shorter the pending period, the quicker the withdrawal gets to a safe haven between operator and customers' bank where it will be safe even if the operator goes under that night.
