In the past I had six casinos that went out of business while I was playing there:
Gammonitis (a known British company) - went bankrupt around 2008) - they used to pay in 48 hours, requested a payout for all my funds but never got a penny, after two weeks the website was deleted
TrueMoneyGames (known as TMG - went bankrupt overnight in 2011) - although a very serious website, most players have not received their funds (I had only a couple of bucks there and played till I lost it all)
VIP(dot)com (and English Harbour*) (both declared insolvency in 2011) - as far as I know all players got their money in reasonable time
*There have been solid proofs showing that today's
Liberty Slots is either run by the same people that ran English Harbour, either they copied its software (they deny both variants)
RaginBet (an obscure new casino/book that attracted me with excellent BIG tournaments - made profits there but always a hassle to pocket the money) - just disappeared one day morning (2011), with all the player's money (without giving signs that would go bankrupt)
And the last one I remember was Play65 (the biggest and most popular backgammon website all time) - claimed "legal problems with its licensor Alderney Gambling Comission" (they were still allowing US citizens to play at the time) - August 2012 declared no longer accepting real money games but promised will continue to offer all the games (including Chess and Pool) to all its registered members.
Franky I think Play65 went bankrupt but did not wanted to admit it and made up stuff about its AGC license. This is because it claimed it will pay all players real money funds less VIP points and will not payout balances under $50 (with over 40,000 real money players I believe these small balances added up a good chunk). At the time my account had $10 real money funds for which I asked to exchange with 2,000,000 fun play chips. Guess what, they only "sold" me $1,000,000 fun money chips for those $10 real bucks and said "it's enough" lol.
Anyways, the real issue which I believe led it to bankruptcy was its VIP points system implemented withing the last year of activity. Those VIP points could be redeemed for real cash which could be played and withdrawn (a too good to be true idea from my mathematical point of view). This VIP points scheme made me around $400 mid-rolling daily tourneys so I suppose high roller cash games VIP points was what really killed the game. Too bad, as I loved the site I continued to play for fun a game or two every weekend, until November (or December) it was no longer possible to access the software (same for chess and pool). - Its website is still up, really hope one day will be revived...
Anyways, back to our question. Yes, it really makes me to ask a general question about what happens with players funds if a BIG known casino / sportbook goes bankrupt or declare insolvency? - This is because few days ago when I pressed "DEPOSIT" button
Matchbook informed me via a pop-up that if it goes into insolvency I can expect to say bye-bye to my funds held online with it. Sounds dangerous!
Edited by user Thursday, March 26, 2015 9:44:43 PM(UTC)
| Reason: corrected typing error