Jon Jacobs is one of the more popular folks of the Entropia Universe, thanks to his virtual venture, Club NeverDie. From the looks of it, the gamble paid off and although Entropia's cash card scheme was cancelled, Jacobs still has a lot of things to smile about in Entropia.

He has just announced that he won one of the first five virtual bank licenses for US$ 90,000. This new venture will specialize in short-term bridging loans to help finance avatars building virtual manufacturing and constructions. The auction started last February, with the price starting at US$ 0.10 and climbing to US$ 99,000. When asked for his reaction, Jon Jacobs had this to say:

We had a ball! The auction came to a close to virtual cheers, dancing and champagne popping when the more than 125 visitors to Club NeverDie’s VIP bar got the official word that Anshe Chung and I scored two of the coveted five banks on the block. We gamers achieved victory!

Whether or not this new gamble pays off, well we don't know. But heck, that's open for speculation.

ATM Marketplace reports that MindArk's MMORPG, Entropia Universe, wanted to do something different for players. It wanted to let players withdraw in-game money as real-world dollars. In May of 2006, MindArk announced a planned new ATM card to make it happen.

The Entropia Universe Cash Cards were supposed to simplify the process of money withdrawal for players by allowing them to withdraw their PEDs (Project Entropia Dollars) as real-world currency at ATMs.

Jon Jacobs (known within Entropia as Neverdie), an artist/filmmaker who spent US$ 100,000 of a loan against his real-life house to buy an Entropia space station which he resold as apartments and commercial space, called the Entropia Cash Cards "the Holy Grail of massive multiplayer gaming that everyone has been looking for."

Sadly though as revolutionary as the scheme was, the ATM/cash card scheme had to end.

The plan seemed all well until January 2007, when players were informed that MasterCard would no longer support ATM traffic from the card's backing financial institution, North York Community Credit Union of Ontario, Canada. Because of this development, Entropia announced refunds to be credited to players' PED accounts.

Almost a year after opening the virtual resort Club NEVERDIE, champion gamer-turned-entrepreneur Jon Jacobs is back to gladly report on the success of his business venture.

According to Jacobs, his virtual resort raked in a gross of $100,000 USD in the first eight months of operation alone. "It's a tremendous vindication to reach the break-even mark so fast; very few people really believed a turnkey virtual business inside an MMORPG could do these kind of numbers, but the dynamic real cash economy in Entropia Universe is extremely conducive for operating a business or developing a trade; however, once you have the tools or skills it's really up to the individual to serve the community and develop the business. It's definitely work, but since it exists within a Video Game style world, I'm in my element," says Neverdie.

Having a virtual net worth at an estimated $1 million plus, Jon NEVERDIE Jacobs is unsurprisingly one of the most high-profile Entropia citizens for over three years. Entropia Universe is the only virtual gaming community that actively supports sales of virtual products with actual cash value within its real economy system. The economy offers the user a secure and safe way to make purchases, sales, and exchange real life currency into PED (Project Entropia Dollars) and back again into real money via the real world ATM system, at a fixed exchange rate to the US dollar. The Entropia Universe turnover back in 2005 was an estimated $165,000,000 US.

Club NEVERDIE is located within the Entropia Universe and is a registered trademark of Jon Jacobs. You can visit it via spaceship from the planet calypso or new accounts can be spawned directly at the resort by downloading the Entropia Universe client.