Is blocking reversed withdrawal requests the best solution for players?

The reverse withdrawal system operates effectively as a middle wallet at the casino. Its normal players want to have some confirmation of a win or their balance at the end of a session.

For example, if a player wins £500, by selecting to withdraw he now has a record of the balance versus leaving it on the tables and hoping it’s there on next login.

It’s really no different to a land-based casino where you take your chips off the table only to re-use them later, when you resume play.

By removing this feature, casinos have lost the middle wallet resulting in a much higher withdrawal rate, a marginally higher deposit rate and a decreased net revenue number versus deposits, as it’s more difficult to redeposit than reverse the request.

Players have now lost the ability to store wins at the casino and re-use them. Instead they are forced to have multiple gaming transactions going through their banks, whereas before they may have had one or two per week. Now they are transacting at the start and end of each and every session which is less convenient and also offers less privacy.

The reversals system has been an important player feature and should remain something the player has control over. To turn it off as a Covid-related measure made little sense. After all, the pre-programmed responsible gaming flags that used to apply in relation to deposits are now misconfigured and need changing to take a re-deposit into account. That brings further issues when trying to monitor problem gambling as players now have to re-deposit winnings every time.

The rest of the Covid-19 guidance made sense and was largely already in place but this reversal piece was a bit left-field and operators should have ideally been consulted before the change.

Perhaps a simple player deposit cap during the Covid-19 lockdown months would have been a simpler and more effective approach, but to fundamentally change the banking ecosystem of the casino mid-pandemic makes little sense.

I’m glad a consultation has been announced but based on the importance of the required change and the political pressure surrounding the issue, this should command a consultation in its own right.

Designing a responsible reversal platform with daily caps, time gaps and other necessary responsible gambling features is definitely possible, while the collaboration of operators to agree on a new system with the Gambling Commission would be hugely beneficial.

Let’s hope they follow Spain and remove some of the temporary Covid-19 restrictions imminently now that the threat level has dropped, allowing the industry to take one step back and then two forward in collaboration.

Richard Skelhorn founded affiliate business Mandalay Media back in 2001 and operator Costabingo in 2009 before selling them both to Intertain PLC. He co-founded Bgo Entertainment in 2013 and remains an interested yet passive investor, while actively growing super affiliate Atemi since 2016.