Standard practice for online Casinos going under - how are cash outs handled?

[danherbias07]

I remember when Yolodice closed their shop too, Ethan did the same thing by announcing here in Bitcointalk about closing the business and letting the gamblers and investors withdraw their funds in a certain amount of time. Deposits are closed, if I remember it right. You can only do withdrawals when you enter their page and nothing else can be done.
I have no idea about international news but I guess as long as the gambling site has proof that they cannot continue the business anymore due to bankruptcy or other means, then there's no need for other legalities.
However, I am also curious if the same thing will happen if popular gambling sites will suddenly close too. I bet there will be a lot of questions that will be raised and legalities to happen since millions of dollars are coming in and out every day.

[ethereumhunter]

If my casino announces a closure, I think they will lets their members to withdraw all of their money to their personal wallet or other wallets. They will gives a time to their members to do that before they shutdown their site so no one will complaint about that. Casino will prepares their balance for their member's withdrawal and they will add money to cover the refunds if the money in the site is not much because that will be their responsibility to their members.

I don't know about the standard practices but I think the casino will gives time to their members to withdraw their money. If they want to have a good name for their business, they will do many things to helps their members to withdraw all of their money from the site. They will not gives difficulty requirements to their members because they must responsible with everything they do with their business.

[AbuBhakar]

However, I am also curious if the same thing will happen if popular gambling sites will suddenly close too. I bet there will be a lot of questions that will be raised and legalities to happen since millions of dollars are coming in and out every day.

I think this will be the standard pattern for online casino closure that wants to exit properly. Mavericks.game use the same method of notifying members for closure with 1 month duration date for withdrawing their funds before the website closed for withdrawal.

But there’s always a case like Betnomi that just disappear without any advance notification to all players. This is the worst case scenario that’s why players should use casino like exchange which you shouldn’t leave your funds.

Remember not your keys not your coins always.

[Moreno233]

I don't think there is a global law governing casino operation, each country should have their laws governing gambling which every casino registered in such jurisdiction have to abide by. We have a national lottery commission which govern such operations, so any company operating here will have to get their license.

However, I am also curious if the same thing will happen if popular gambling sites will suddenly close too. I bet there will be a lot of questions that will be raised and legalities to happen since millions of dollars are coming in and out every day.

I think this will be the standard pattern for online casino closure that wants to exit properly.
Mavericks.game use the same method of notifying members for closure with 1 month duration date for withdrawing their funds before the website closed for withdrawal.

But there’s always a case like Betnomi that just disappear without any advance notification to all players. This is the worst case scenario that’s why players should use casino like exchange which you shouldn’t leave your funds.

Remember not your keys not your coins always.

You have a good point here and even though there is no writing document to this effect, it is a fair way of winding down a casino business because the impact is minimal as everyone will have enough time to withdraw their funds. There might actually be few others who might miss the announcement but those will be in the minority. They can also add the option of returning all balances to the last withdrawal address should the customer fail to withdraw within the closing window.

[KTChampions]

However, I am also curious if the same thing will happen if popular gambling sites will suddenly close too. I bet there will be a lot of questions that will be raised and legalities to happen since millions of dollars are coming in and out every day.

I think this will be the standard pattern for online casino closure that wants to exit properly. Mavericks.game use the same method of notifying members for closure with 1 month duration date for withdrawing their funds before the website closed for withdrawal.

But there’s always a case like Betnomi that just disappear without any advance notification to all players. This is the worst case scenario that’s why players should use casino like exchange which you shouldn’t leave your funds.

Remember not your keys not your coins always.

It seems to me that when only one month is given to "close all cases", this is also very close to a scam. I don't think that most players, if they are on vacation or busy with other things, constantly monitor news from different casinos where they are registered. In my opinion, the minimum period for full settlement with clients should be no less than 6 months.

[Findingnemo]

If I am not wrong casinos decides how and what amount is eligible for withdrawal and there is no legal body can question them since they mentioned about this in their terms under fine prints so my suggestion will be never keep too much money on casino wallets especially if you are taking a break from gambling same as what we do with exchanges.

Reputed casinos will give enough time to withdraw the remaining balance along with proper notification to the end user via email.

[Woodie]

I don't think there is a standard to follow especially for crypto based services, but from what I have experienced & seen from the recent closure of Maverick Games , or our old timer Directbet and other casino's/sportsbook it all starts with conveying the message to all your clients through the website, emails and social media channels...and btw closure can be immediate but withdraw of funds is usually given a window of 2weeks to a couple of months and after this open window closes all funds that aren't withdrawn remain the property of the casino/Book and I believe to avoid any legal liability this is most likely to be written in their terms of service which many of us agree to without reading  

So withdraw window is most likely to be guided by the T&C's of the service..

[Ultegra134]

I don't think there's any standard procedure when it comes to these things; I believe it's up to the casinos if they're willing to let their users cash out or not. Certainly, they might end up with lawsuits, but it's not guaranteed that they'll come up with an effective solution to compensate their users; it'll also be a lengthy process, as seen with Mt. Gox.

Fortunately, in the case the OP presented, their users were allowed to withdraw their balances until a specific date. Is it 100% fair? Certainly not, as some were left behind, but I believe we've seen plenty of scam examples that prove that this incident wasn't as bad as it might sound.

[Lida93]

Other things want to mention, which idiot who are storing funds in some casino? casino is not exchange/wallet (most people should deposit and withdraw) immediately after they finish the section gambling. These case only can be face, for some guy who are storing their money in casino.

Storing money in casino should be a crime, and people who do these need to go jail

There are a bunch of situations where gamblers can easily forget their gambling money for quite a while and let it sit in their account. In my case, I had a bunch of winnings together with my deposit sitting around in my account back then for a few weeks because of my luck from winning a promotion or raffle. People can quickly become busy so we can't blame them if they still have money sitting at their gambling accounts.

For a gambler to be too busy not to find not more than 20mins for days forgetting to making withdrawal of a bunch of winnings (not single win) in their gambling account, such scenario only explains one thing for me, which is that, the gambler has so much to his name already and that bunch in the account is some money they already can afford to lose.

I have also find out that many forum members are quite more comfortable leaving their money stay as long as possible in their gambling account than they will do with CEX but they are forgetting one thing that these companies are both centralized and they share same risk nature. I take pride in withdrawing my winnings to my wallet immediately I stop my gambling sessions.

If I could make time to gambling that long I should also make time for withdrawal, right?

[Charles-Tim]

I don't think there's any standard procedure when it comes to these things; I believe it's up to the casinos if they're willing to let their users cash out or not. Certainly, they might end up with lawsuits, but it's not guaranteed that they'll come up with an effective solution to compensate their users; it'll also be a lengthy process, as seen with Mt. Gox.

I do not think there would be a lawsuit about this. I have not heard of any yet. Mt. Gox is different because the money was stolen after the hacker was able to hack the exchange. But about what OP is asking, not that anything bad happened to the gambling site but the site just want to close down. We have seen many exchanges that does this and gave their users specific date to withdraw their coins. Agoradesk and Localmonero did something like that recently when they are closing down. If any user do not withdraw their coins, they may lose the coins  unless the amount is so huge that someone filed a lawsuit against the site. And I think the lawsuit may only be considered for the person and not the general masses. But this would depend on what the lawsuit is about.

[Ultegra134]

I do not think there would be a lawsuit about this. I have not heard of any yet. Mt. Gox is different because the money was stolen after the hacker was able to hack the exchange. But about what OP is asking, not that anything bad happened to the gambling site but the site just want to close down. We have seen many exchanges that does this and gave their users specific date to withdraw their coins. Agoradesk and Localmonero did something like that recently when they are closing down. If any user do not withdraw their coins, they may lose the coins  unless the amount is so huge that someone filed a lawsuit against the site. And I think the lawsuit may only be considered for the person and not the general masses. But this would depend on what the lawsuit is about.

You're right; perhaps my example wasn't exactly on point; they're two completely different cases. I was just referring to the fact that the compensation of the Mt. Gox victims took years of negotiations and lawsuits till a verdict was reached; perhaps something similar could occur if it were for a casino to abruptly close without providing the ability to withdraw their funds. The casino the OP mentioned simply shut down; maybe it wasn't as profitable as they initially hoped or they didn't want to bother maintaining it anymore. If you ask me, the timeframe they allowed their users to withdraw was very limited, as someone might have missed reading the announcements.

[ryzaadit]

For a gambler to be too busy not to find not more than 20mins for days forgetting to making withdrawal of a bunch of winnings (not single win) in their gambling account, such scenario only explains one thing for me, which is that, the gambler has so much to his name already and that bunch in the account is some money they already can afford to lose.

Still not buying these

I have also find out that many forum members are quite more comfortable leaving their money stay as long as possible in their gambling account than they will do with CEX but they are forgetting one thing that these companies are both centralized and they share same risk nature.

From where did you get those claim?

The no such proof, people in the forum have more comfortable storing their money in casino. Even there has some things called vault, there always have 2 scenario. You withdraw the money you win or losing all of your deposit money.

Gambler, I believe 99% never leave money in casino. Even they're not withdraw the crypto they have, at least they will withdraw to personal wallet and just do (deposit-witdhraw-deposit withdraw) rather than leaving the money in casino.

[coin-investor]

It got me wondering , what is standard practice for closing an online casino and what laws (if any) must be followed when doing so? Is there a such thing as “international casino laws” ?  (Probably a ridiculous question but had to ask anyhow)

You cannot find guidelines and procedures on any casino's terms. Even the government will not monitor or interfere; it is really at the discretion of the casino how they will proceed with withdrawals when they are closing out. So, it always goes down on the reputation of the casino. Some casinos will just close shop and scam their players. You are good if they allow you to withdraw your funds if there are left.

With luckybit, it was a shady exit. What’s crazy is the casino closure was announced on Jan 19th & users had until just Jan 31st to withdraw balances (even worse some balances were ineligible for withdraw , such as a .001btc balance and below ..and apparently even if you tried to make a deposit to top off your balance to qualify for a full withdrawal, it was seemingly not allowed).

It really is shady, so in case they want to make a comeback, people will not support them, but it's their rule and their terms. How they proceed with the withdrawal is tantamount to selective scamming.

So what happens today if your Casino announces a closure? Do some casinos have some sort of “deposit offloading” where funds can sit and wait to be redeemed for an extended period of time? Are there any current “standard practices” to abide by?  
This casino deep dive had me thinking all the above out loud and wanted to discuss ..

The right rule and accepted one is letting all players withdraw their funds without any requirement but if they want to still make a profit while they are closing down, they will set up rules for the majority of players to make them fail to withdraw their funds.

[Slow death]

So what happens today if your Casino announces a closure? Do some casinos have some sort of “deposit offloading” where funds can sit and wait to be redeemed for an extended period of time? Are there any current “standard practices” to abide by?

From what I've seen, what happens is that the casino issues a statement and sends it by email so that all customers can withdraw all the money they have in the casino. In the statement that the casino issues and sends by email, they give a deadline for all customers to withdraw their money. For example, the casino can send an email warning people that they have 30 days to withdraw all their money and that after 30 days the casino will no longer be online. In this case, people who let 30 days go by without withdrawing money and then come and complain will not be right. Even if they complain in all the courts, they will not win the case.

This is a procedure that even physical casinos have used. When a physical casino is closing its doors, they put a notice in the newspapers and on TV so that people are aware and those who have some money to complain about can run to the casino and resolve the problem. Online casinos do not follow labor laws in any country, so it is easier for them to simply announce that they are closing and give people a deadline to withdraw money from their accounts, they have no bureaucracy

[ralle14]

I have also find out that many forum members are quite more comfortable leaving their money stay as long as possible in their gambling account than they will do with CEX but they are forgetting one thing that these companies are both centralized and they share same risk nature. I take pride in withdrawing my winnings to my wallet immediately I stop my gambling sessions.

I've seen others do the same on a couple of gambling sites, but i'm not sure if some of them are forum members. I used to do the same because it was the best solution back then when I still mainly used a bitcoin balance to gamble. You can't always move your money out after ending your session because the fees can quickly pile up with certain casinos as they don't follow the recommended fee and charge way higher than their competitors.

If I could make time to gambling that long I should also make time for withdrawal, right?

Most gamblers should be able to avoid that scenario, but there are rare cases between a few gamblers.

[bering]

Talking about luckybit i just remember that i have been experience to playing at this site and before decide to shutdown their site the owner has been send email to the players that no more deposits at certain time and all players are encouraged to withdraw their balance immediately and the players shouldn't be worried about their funds because luckybit owner has been ensure that all of btc from the players are safe and since i was received this email they give me a time 3 weeks to withdraw all of my btc before this site is really shutdown and cannot be access
I think from this condition i made the conclusion that they have been done their standard procedure with very well about the players funds because 3 weeks is enough time to the players to withdraw their money from that site and i am sure all of the players can withdraw their money from this site before deadline date

[ChiBitCTy]

As sunderland already said, there weren't many active gamblers on the site near the end when the owners decided to shutdown. Giving 2 weeks was plenty for the few to wd what was left on their balance.

I was working with the site at the end managing the mods and nothing felt shady to me or I would have disagreed with the time period they gave. If the platform was super active and had hundreds of players, i'm positive that more time would have been given. I'm sure if someone had a bunch on the site( quite sure noone did) and missed the deadline, they could have gotten in touch with LB support or me and gotten a payment handled. The owners in no way were out to fuck anyone.

It seems a few forum buddies who I respect a great deal/trust had some sort of dealings with them (like yourself Yahoo), but despite this, it doesn't connect you with the owners and the site extensively unless you knew the books in and out...right?  I wouldn't imagine you would have known these sort of details?  It's like w/Hhampuz, that's my brother who I trust a shit ton, and I know he does all he can to vet those he advertizes for, but if a company rugged and excited shadily, I wouldn't blame him.  How's he to know.  Just like I wouldn't put any of what I perceive as shady from LuckyBit on people like yourself.  You may have had a decent handle on active forum users, but what about those who weren't btalk members..how would you know how many of them existed and came in unknowingly to anyone, publicly.  I mean closing shop like, giving less than a 2 weeks notice..shady AF IMO.  Also if there were so few on the site, why would they not have reached out to everyone individually?  It seems DarkStar was wronged by them, and he's a trusted DT1 member here. Also, limited withdraws to a certain amount was fd up.  I get it if you're a huge casino (I GUESS), but not some small rinky dink deal like you mention.  Just pay a few satoshis in fees or take it out of the balance.  I dunno.  Doesn't seem that unshady to me, but..I hope that I'm mostly wrong here. ( on a positive note, football is near my friend  )

I appreciate everyone elses reponses.  Once I make sure I read everyone's through having to do with LuckyBit, will lock the thread.

Other things want to mention, which idiot who are storing funds in some casino? casino is not exchange/wallet (most people should deposit and withdraw) immediately after they finish the section gambling. These case only can be face, for some guy who are storing their money in casino.

Storing money in casino should be a crime, and people who do these need to go jail

There are a bunch of situations where gamblers can easily forget their gambling money for quite a while and let it sit in their account. In my case, I had a bunch of winnings together with my deposit sitting around in my account back then for a few weeks because of my luck from winning a promotion or raffle. People can quickly become busy so we can't blame them if they still have money sitting at their gambling accounts.

For a gambler to be too busy not to find not more than 20mins for days forgetting to making withdrawal of a bunch of winnings (not single win) in their gambling account, such scenario only explains one thing for me, which is that, the gambler has so much to his name already and that bunch in the account is some money they already can afford to lose.

I have also find out that many forum members are quite more comfortable leaving their money stay as long as possible in their gambling account than they will do with CEX but they are forgetting one thing that these companies are both centralized and they share same risk nature. I take pride in withdrawing my winnings to my wallet immediately I stop my gambling sessions.

If I could make time to gambling that long I should also make time for withdrawal, right?

This is utterly ridiculous to have a mindset like this. I leave sizable amounts of money on my casino balance for months at a time. I gamble a lot and I go through periods of not doing so and kind of "forgetting" about it.  I'm fuckin busy in life and "to not find more than 20mins for days"... lol  yeah "days' like that some huge amount of time.  People get busy, brotha.  I'm baffled by this logic of thinking.  Pride away with your withdraws but not everyone feels the need to take them out immediately, for several very legit reasons..I can't imagine not knowing what these reasons are but hey.

With luckybit, it was a shady exit. What’s crazy is the casino closure was announced on Jan 19th & users had until just Jan 31st to withdraw balances (even worse some balances were ineligible for withdraw , such as a .001btc balance and below ..and apparently even if you tried to make a deposit to top off your balance to qualify for a full withdrawal, it was seemingly not allowed).

As one of the regulars who were active on LuckyBit from the end of 2013 to 2021, I can confirm that the platform closed their service because the owners were very busy with their real life job, also one of the founders was even very well known in the XMR community and became Monero core Dev.
At that time/2021 there weren't many players actively playing on LB because there were only 2 games Plinko and Dice (original), from a business perspective it would certainly not be good for them.
So if you say it was a shady exit - I totally disagree.

Regarding withdrawal issues, the price of BTC at that time was $30k ish and transaction fees between $17 to $25, so that's one of the reasons why there was a minimum withdrawal of 0.002 BTC.
If players (perhaps only less than 5 players affected by this) were allowed to make deposits, it would actually be in vain because the fees were quite expensive at that time, for example:
Player A has 0.001 BTC, if he wants to withdraw 0.002 BTC then he has to deposit 0.001 BTC + fees around 0.0007 BTC = that is very ineffective.

Good lord I'm amazed at the bullshit people will put up with.  They are busy IRL with their jobs? Good for them, so the fuck am I and many others. This is also total horseshit as if this were the case, why were they offering bonuses on deposits up TO THE DAY they announced closing, and WHY set such a harsh and fast deadline date?  You are insane to defend this shit the way you have.  Yahoo's reply I get, yours, ridiculous logic.

btw transaction fees can bet set at what you want, and even one person stated that they'd like to deposit enough in their account to then fully withdraw EVERYTHING, and as far as I can see, publicly, they were ignored (waiting on if this remained the case).

[AmoreJaz]

From what I've seen, what happens is that the casino issues a statement and sends it by email so that all customers can withdraw all the money they have in the casino. In the statement that the casino issues and sends by email, they give a deadline for all customers to withdraw their money. For example, the casino can send an email warning people that they have 30 days to withdraw all their money and that after 30 days the casino will no longer be online. In this case, people who let 30 days go by without withdrawing money and then come and complain will not be right. Even if they complain in all the courts, they will not win the case.

This is a procedure that even physical casinos have used. When a physical casino is closing its doors, they put a notice in the newspapers and on TV so that people are aware and those who have some money to complain about can run to the casino and resolve the problem. Online casinos do not follow labor laws in any country, so it is easier for them to simply announce that they are closing and give people a deadline to withdraw money from their accounts, they have no bureaucracy

If the casino has their morale, they will announce their shut down of operations officially Can be thru email or via their website itself. But for some which already has internal problems specially with financial aspect, they will abandon the site without a warning. You will understood if they are having problems if they you can't get out your funds anymore.

[AliMan]

You shouldn't trust online casino's platform, you might put your money in danger or loss all of it if you don't keep in mind that the vulnerability of being scammed is always a huge potential.
Even how prominent are they, your negative chances is always their to exist that's why it's good to anticipate certain situations rather than ignoring it. Many complains raging against online transactions, how much more with unlicensed gambling or illegal platforms? We're more prone of their attacks and traps that will consume our hard earned money.

[traderethereum]

If the casino has their morale, they will announce their shut down of operations officially Can be thru email or via their website itself. But for some which already has internal problems specially with financial aspect, they will abandon the site without a warning. You will understood if they are having problems if they you can't get out your funds anymore.

That is right because they will let all of their member know about the decision they make and with the email they send to their members, they hope their members will aware. Casino hopes their member will withdraw all of their assets so they will not face any problem with their decision to shut down the site.
But not many casino site doing that because casino with bad reputation will just shut down their casino and leave their members even their members will not let to withdraw their money. That will gives a problem to their members because the money left in the casino but they can not complain as the site is close their services.
Usually, casino will give some term to withdraw their member's money so their members should use that time to withdraw their money.