Who actually holds your money
UK operators must tell you how customer funds are protected, and the three levels are not equal. Most people never read the page that says which one applies.
If an operator went under tomorrow, would the balance in your account come back? The honest answer depends on a disclosure most people never read — and the three possible answers are not close to equal.
Three levels, and they are not equal
The Commission requires operators holding customer funds to tell you what would happen to them in an insolvency, and to rate that protection in one of three bands.
- Not protected. Customer money sits in the operator's own accounts. If the company fails, you are an unsecured creditor, somewhere behind the banks and HMRC. In practice this usually means you get nothing.
- Medium protection. Funds are kept separately, with some arrangement — an insurance policy or a quistclose-style trust — intended to return them. Better, but it depends on the arrangement holding up.
- High protection. Funds are held in a genuinely separate trust account, independently controlled, and verified. Your balance is not the operator's money to lose.
Where to find it
It must be disclosed, usually in the terms and conditions under a heading about customer funds or protection of funds, and you must be told the rating when you deposit. If you cannot find it in two minutes of looking, that is itself a data point about how the operator treats disclosure.
What to do with the answer
Most online casinos sit at not protected or medium. That is not a scandal, but it is a reason not to treat a gambling account as somewhere to store money. The practical response is unglamorous: withdraw winnings rather than leaving a balance sitting, and do not keep more in an account than you would be relaxed about losing to an insolvency rather than to a game.
A gambling account is not a bank account, and the rules that make a bank safe do not apply to it.