Lasseter's Closing

[Pinababy69]

I just got this in my email, how sad. I'm almost positive that Lasseter's was the first casino I played at online.....probably 7 years ago or so. I haven't played there in 3 or 4 years, but this is really too bad. They were a well run operation, but I guess the loss of the US market was too much for them.

Hi Lisa!

The purpose of this notice is to advise you that the Board of Directors of Lasseters Corporation Limited has today decided that Lasseters Online Casino will cease operation effective immediately.

Following the announcement to the Australian Stock Exchange on 9 September 2008, the Directors have taken the subsequent decision to cease the operations of Lasseters Online Casino due to our inability to compete and retain our market share since the closure of the US market in October 2006.

It is therefore with sincere regret we wish to inform you, effective 2:45pm on Friday 3rd October 2008; (ACST) you will no longer be able to play at the Lasseters Online Casino website.

It is important to note that whilst you will not be able to play, you will still have access to your Lasseters Online account to withdraw your funds.

To avoid unnecessary delays, please ensure that the personal registration and payment details in your account are up-to-date and accurate.

Your Lasseters balance, minus any unused bonuses is available to you immediately by following the withdrawal procedure on our website. Please note if your account balance is LESS than $, , 25 you will need to contact our Customer Support staff - [email protected] to request your withdrawal.

Players who have not previously provided age identification and have an existing cash balance are required to provide suitable age ID prior to withdrawing funds. How do I provide Proof of Age?

To meet the closure of business deadlines, please ensure that your withdrawal request is submitted by Friday 24th October 2008.

Further updates will be provided to players during this period.

From all of us here at Lasseters Online this is a very sad day. We hope you have enjoyed the Lasseters Online site as much as we have enjoyed delivering our games / services to you, and would like to take this opportunity to express our sincere gratitude for your loyalty over the past 9 years.

We offer you our best wishes and hope you enjoy good luck in the future.

Brian Gordon
Operating Officer
Lasseters Online

 

[chuchu59]

I thought that they wanted to pool their resources when I was informed that Ausvegas, their sister casino would be closed. I wouldnt have expected that Lasseters would be hot on their heels. This is sad. I have never had any hassles with them.

 

[chayton]

I received this too - I actually played there and AusVegas quite a bit originally too, but after waiting 2 weeks for a check withdrawal (my only option) I hardly ever played there anymore. Still it's a bummer, they had some fun games and were a nice bunch of people to deal with. Good grief, they even gave me a birthday present just a week or so ago!!!

 

[KasinoKing]

WOW! That's a shock!

I'm gob-smacked actually, because just a few weeks back they announced their sister casino AusVegas would be closing on Oct-13th and that players would be 'encouraged' to sign up with Lasseters instead.

So I certainly didn't see this coming

This is very sad news indeed.

 

[The Dude]

Yeah, it's definitely a shame. They were one of the few casinos which resided in a jurisdiction that gave a damn. If they wanted to change or add new bonuses, they would have to submit these changes to their licensing authority. I only wish some of these other regulatory jurisdictions would follow suit. This is one casino that rarely generated player complaints.

 

[vinylweatherman]

Yeah, it's definitely a shame. They were one of the few casinos which resided in a jurisdiction that gave a damn. If they wanted to change or add new bonuses, they would have to submit these changes to their licensing authority. I only wish some of these other regulatory jurisdictions would follow suit. This is one casino that rarely generated player complaints.

This might be why they had to close down. Other casinos seem to try to trade on hoping for a miracle, while paying winners only when new deposits give them the funds.

I suspect things got worse after the initial announcement to just close Ausvegas and continue with Lasseters, and they realised they were in trouble of not being viable should they continue.

Players have at least BEEN INFORMED, and know what they need to do, and the timescales. The OTHER Aussie outfit, Casino Action, should have done this, but they were licensed in Kahwanake, with only their offices in Australia.

Hype had some of the Lasseters and Ausvegas games, pity they more or less went bust ages ago

 

[Vegasbum]

They said it had to due with the closure of the USA market. Again that shows that casinos who have banned the US may be in trouble. Maybe many more casinos who are secretly struggling without the US players

 

[GrandMaster]

I, for one, won't miss Lasseter's. They sent me an personalised invitation for a birthday bonus, and when I tried to claim it they told me I was not eligible. Lasseter's also had the worst player logs I have ever seen. It was in HTML, with each line containing a few ten of bytes of actual data and several kilobytes of formatting. My computer just ground to a halt when I tried to open one of these files.

 

[lauram]

Months ago I use to deposit with this group faithfully few times a week.
Until the time came when i went to cashout. I hit the withdraw button and all it took me to was im sorry you are a first time user for withdrawing you can only use casino cheques. So i clicked that to find out there was a 30 dollar free involved then another 35 dollar processing fee and a withdraw limit of 150,
well once the 30 and 35 had been removed it left me with a 140 and unable to cash anything out. Not only that at my end in my bank comes the fun part of weeks of waiting for it to clear plus their own fees. That was one of my last deposits with this group and I do recall at that time i was not the only player with issues on their part about private cheques. Loved your games and customer service but there is a lot more to a casino then just friendly customer service staff.

 

[DogBoy001]

It was inevitable...just surprised that they managed to survive as long as they did.

AUD$62M in accumulated losses over the years, including paying $2.5M a year or so for their license...they would have been far better off building on their brand in a far flung jurisdiction coupled with ditching their software and becoming a licensor of a mainstream provider.

Having acquired a reputation for dependability they could have achieved great things with a bit of vision.

Wooof

 

[GamTrak]

Wow, I'm stunned.

Lasseters, has been a sponsor for four years and I'm sorry to see them close thier doors.

 

[armygirl]

I got it too!

Kind of a downer for my weekend as I had planned to play there. I've been playing there for about.. 7 years? It was one of those places where I didn't feel like I was being taken for a ride if I'd lose my bankroll as I knew there'd be more than one occaision that a little deposit would take me a long way.

Oh well.

 

[SierraDawn]

Dang! That is too bad..

They were one of the first Casinos I gambled at, when the US was still allowed to play there.. way back when.
I loved their site & still do to this day.

*Sad Panda*

Even got an email from them, since I used to play there.. informing me IF.. rules were changed in the US.. they were happy to have me back.. sighs.

 

[Pinababy69]

Yeah, it's definitely a shame. They were one of the few casinos which resided in a jurisdiction that gave a damn. If they wanted to change or add new bonuses, they would have to submit these changes to their licensing authority. I only wish some of these other regulatory jurisdictions would follow suit. This is one casino that rarely generated player complaints.

Isn't that always the way? The good ones bite the dust, but the rogues just carry on business as usual, making more and more money. And they say crime doesn't pay.

AUD$62M in accumulated losses over the years, including paying $2.5M a year or so for their license...

That is a staggering amount!! Any ideas how much an online operation pays in a jurisdiction like Alderney or (God forbid) Malta?

Months ago I use to deposit with this group faithfully few times a week.
Until the time came when i went to cashout. I hit the withdraw button and all it took me to was im sorry you are a first time user for withdrawing you can only use casino cheques. So i clicked that to find out there was a 30 dollar free involved then another 35 dollar processing fee and a withdraw limit of 150, well once the 30 and 35 had been removed it left me with a 140 and unable to cash anything out. Not only that at my end in my bank comes the fun part of weeks of waiting for it to clear plus their own fees. That was one of my last deposits with this group and I do recall at that time i was not the only player with issues on their part about private cheques. Loved your games and customer service but there is a lot more to a casino then just friendly customer service staff.

I think that may have turned a few people off Laura, the initial cheque withdrawal. The good thing was that once you had that first withdrawal out of the way, you were free to use Neteller, Moneybookers, etc. for subsequent withdrawals. But I get your point...a pain the first time.

Kind of a downer for my weekend as I had planned to play there. I've been playing there for about.. 7 years? It was one of those places where I didn't feel like I was being taken for a ride if I'd lose my bankroll as I knew there'd be more than one occaision that a little deposit would take me a long way.

Oh well.

That's one of the things I always loved about them as well.....I could play forever on $20 or $30. And I loved their variety of different slots.

I really find this shocking, that an operation that had been around so long and was so professionally run....has gone belly up. I always equated Lasseter's with "reputable". It's a sad day for online gaming when places like this disappear, while the "Virtuals" of cyberspace just keep on going (and growing).

 

[oyw7862]

Another big old brand fading away... What is the next?
I just feel cold on online casinos.
This is a winter for online gaming industry, and just few strongest will survive.

And I think there should be a recommendation for all fellow players:
stay with big boys and cut off deposits.

I am sure that one day things will turn better, but the question is when?

I just wish when the day is come, we are not broke.

 

[Westland Bowl]

Wow, what a bonzer! I, for one, hated this casino for blackjack play. They offered 2 cent minimum blackjack several years back which was enticing but, damn, 15+ losing hands in a row happened quite often! And within the same session! I could NEVER win a decent amount in any blackjack session I played there! If I bet an amount that would put me in the positive for the session, I would lose that hand at least 85% of the time! THAT is not random! Down the gurgler they go!

 

[Vrindavan]

it surprises me.

 

[blackjackguide]

This is very crappy that they are closing. They were one of the best casinos on the net who really cared about getting proper licensing and taking care of each and every player.

I also thought they were just closing ausvegas and keeping lasseters. Very crazy. The USA screwed this one up too!

 

[SierraDawn]

This is very crappy that they are closing. They were one of the best casinos on the net who really cared about getting proper licensing and taking care of each and every player.

I also thought they were just closing ausvegas and keeping lasseters. Very crazy. The USA screwed this one up too!

Excuze me???
How has the USA screwed this up also?

Granted our goverment is lacking in alot of areas.. BUT - NOT every US citizens agrees with our goverment either!

Don't lump or dump everything on the USA please!

 

[SlotKing]

Excuze me???
How has the USA screwed this up also?

Granted our goverment is lacking in alot of areas.. BUT - NOT every US citizens agrees with our goverment either!

Don't lump or dump everything on the USA please!

The USA screwed them up (and over) by "passing" the UIGEA. Since reputable companies follow laws and regulations, They had to stop accepting US players, as most reputable casinos have (with the exception of a select few).

Also since most of their business was from the USA, and they weren't well-established outside of here, they probably had no choice. As it was stated earlier, Losing AUD$2.5 million a year to a licensing board plus the amounts they were losing by not having income coming in led to their demise.

It is truly sad, as this is also one of the first casinos I played at.

 

[AussieDave]

Although the UIGEA didn't help as I'm sure the US players would have amounted to a large slice of their business, I have to wonder if this was the real reason for closing.

With AusVegas closing that equated to a 2.5mil licensing save per year. Granted not a huge amount in the big picture. However the UIGEA was introduced in Oct(?) 2006 and supposedly came into action in July 2007(?)

Lasseter's have had two years to look at demographics and establish them self in other markets.

Closing one casino makes sense but both especially Lasseter's out of the blue like this makes no sense at all.

Hypothetically if we were to talk about theories I'd say the USA government put the hard word on Rudd (Australian Prime Minister) and this is the result.


Cheers

T