SEARCH NEWS:

 

Change Comes to Paradise: Antigua's Plans to Monitor Betting Sites Anger Some Licensees

But before the presentations by TST and a subcontractor, Riptide Technologies, began, representatives of several licensees walked out of the meeting, which was held at the Courtland Hotel in St. John's, Antigua.

Gyneth McAllister, director of offshore gaming in Antigua, said the walkout was led by CryptoLogic.

"Some of the licensees walked out in protest to the new money laundering prevention measures before the speaker opened his mouth," McAllister told RGTonline.com. Others, representing 132 of the country's 159 licensees, remained for the presentations and discussion, she said.

The companies that followed CryptoLogic out of the meeting, McAllister said, included Boss Media, which like CryptoLogic is a developer of software for Internet casinos, and five online sports books: WWTS, Intertops, Post-Time Sports, SOS (Sports Off Shore) and World Sports Exchange (which is partially owned by Jay Cohen).

"We didn't lead a walkout,'' Nancy Chan-Palmateer, director of communications for CryptoLogic, said Friday afternoon when informed of McAllister's comments. "Some of our licensees participated (in the walkout) and we were supportive of our licensees."

Chan-Palmateer said she was told the walkout was spontaneous, "the result of frustration over where the meeting was headed. It sounds like, in the heat of the moment, people were getting frustrated.''

Asked if CryptoLogic is opposed to the new auditing procedures, Chan-Palmateer said, "We're pro regulation, we always have been." But she said her company has "concerns with attaching a black box to a site's server. There are security and privacy issues."

"All of us are keen for an open dialogue, on how we can effect regulation and appropriate auditing measures," she said.

Two executives of TST who were at Thursday's meeting said there was no opportunity for a dialogue with those who walked out.

The four-hour meeting began at 9 a.m. with a discussion of the Kyl bill, led by two U.S. lawyers. When the next topic - the system being developed by TST - began, so did the walkout.

"The people who walked out did so before we had a chance to make the presentation," said Ross Brierty, general manager of TST. He and his boss, chief executive John Cargnello, said the move seemed like "a political statement."

"Those who stayed saw a number of advantages," Cargnello said. "This will protect the operators as well as the players. If a player claims he was cheated, with the new system, we can prove what the player bet and won."

"We are bringing a new level of integrity to Internet gaming software,'' Brierty said, "a level that doesn't exist anywhere in the world, including in Australian jurisdictions." Australian state and territorial governments are widely believed to be the most rigorous regulators of online gaming.

Simply put, the system that TST is developing, with the help of Riptide, depends on an audit server that checks the digital signatures on the operating programs of a Web site's server. This is the "black box" that worries CryptoLogic.

The audit server at each licensee's office will be connected to a central controller in the government's office. This will enable regulators to determine if an operator's programs are changed after they have been approved.

Otherwise, Brierty said, "How do you assure that the programs that are operating are the same ones that were approved?" The same procedure is followed by governments that regulate land-based casinos, he said. That's what prevents a casino from switching computer chips in a slot machine, chips that might generate a lower payout percentage than the one that regulators had okayed.

McAllister and Cargnello said the new system will make it much harder to launder money through online casinos and sports books.

"One of the major ways money is laundered is by making opposite bets with different Internet sports books,'' Cargnello said. "For example, if the Denver Broncos are playing the Dallas Cowboys, you make a large bet at one book on the Broncos, and bet the same amount on the Cowboys at another book. Whatever happens, you get most of your money back, and it's clean.

"In a normal environment, that's hard to pick up. But we'll be monitoring on a central basis."

Cargnello conceded that a money launderer could simply place one of the bets at a site that's licensed in another country. But such people will be deterred from doing any of their betting in Antigua, he said, by the government's record of transactions.

"If you want to launder money," he said, "the last place you'd go is a system that keeps detailed records."

McAllister praised Starnet Communications, saying the company is already altering its software to meet the new standards.

Starnet and CryptoLogic are major rivals in the business of developing and licensing software and ecash services for online casinos and sports books. Starnet moved its headquarters to Antigua shortly after its former headquarters in Vancouver, British Columbia, was raided by Canadian police in August.

CryptoLogic is a Canadian firm, with headquarters in Toronto, Ontario.

< Gaming News