News

Monday, 18 July 2011 03:00

Many devout online gamblers were faced with the unpleasant shock of a closure notice when they visited their favourite English Harbour Group online casino website yesterday.

For many years, the popular and much frequented online casinos run by the English Harbour group held a trusted place in the online gambling world. These were places where customers were treated to a great casino experience. They could enjoy the security and satisfaction of being able to play their favourite games in a casino run by a respectable, stable and long established operator. The Vegas Technology software that drove the casinos was always highly regarded as among the best in the business. So when players opened the websites of the popular casinos and were greeted by a closure notice, a tinge of concern may have crossed their faces.

Existing members of the several casinos operated by the group need not worry unduly as their money is safe and available for playing or withdrawal up until the 1st August this year. After that date, according to the closure notice, the sites and casinos will be down.

So what has gone so wrong that a leading operator in an industry that turns over billions of dollars every day has felt the need to close up shop and retire the business?

The first cracks began to appear back in May and may be linked, albeit indirectly with the US Black Friday episode of mid April. English Harbour's marketing affiliates were apparently issued with an advisory to the effect that no new player registrations would be accepted from 16th May 2011. Existing players could continue to use the casinos as normal. All regular promotions and tournaments continued to be offered throughout June and July, which gave players and the industry cause to believe things were settling down and would be back to normal soon enough.

However, this was not the case as the group were experiencing problems with US facing casinos with regard to finding suitable ways to provide workable player deposit options. In other words, their US revenues took a dive when the full force of the UIGEA came into effect and banks stopped processing online gambling transactions.

The notice that faced visitors to the websites informs them that member accounts are still open and funds are not being blocked. It went on to say players should play out their balances or put in a request for payout before 1st August.

Among the casinos affected are English Harbour Casino, Millionaire Casino, Silver Dollar, Caribbean Gold and VIP Slots. UK versions of the sites appear to be unaffected and the .co.uk sites should be considered as a usable alternative to the .com sites.