@Gil 184813 wrote:
You got me on that, but send me your American traffic and i promise to show you the financial meaning of that word.
Gil–I applaud your enthusiasm to promote your brand, however, it does feel a bit like ambulance chasing to step on this thread, as you have.
As to the substance of this thread, I believe processing nightmares (with HUGE financial losses), coupled with the legal headaches in the US, has driven these decisions.
It is not that processing fees are higher (although they are, and substantially)–it is actual LOSSES with processing. What is happening is that a casino will send a chunk of money to a processor–we’ll say $250,000 to pay players. The processor receives the funds and before they are able to process payments, the banks shut them down and the money is no longer. The casino then has to source out another processor, only to have to pay another $250,000 to get the payments out. The casino will use the new processor until it gets shut down–this can be a matter of weeks or in some cases only days. Add to this that there are rogue ‘processors’ out there that have no intention of processing payments–they simply take the casino’s cash and are never to be heard from again. While all this continues, players are frustrated…the casinos do their best to assure the players that they will receive their winnings, issuing comps in the hopes of calming the player. These comps add up and become a drain on royalty payments, not to mention the potential for additional player wins. I’m not even including into this the added costs of having to re-issue cheques, paying bad cheque fees (when a processor is shut down) to the players, wire fees (for those players waiting months to receive payments). At the end of the day, the original $250,000 in payments can cost a casino well over a half million. Simple math tells you that is not sustainable for any great length of time.
And if that isn’t enough, imagine the cost of constant legal counselling due to the unending US attacks on online gaming. It’s a huge drain on any casino operator.
If you can understand all that is behind this, I believe you’ll find that it’s not so surprising that these groups are bowing out. I believe it is more surprising that they’ve hung in as long as they have.
This is an incredibly frustrating and sad situation for everyone–the casinos, affiliates and players. Hopefully in the months to come, the US will realign priorities and we can get back to business as usual.