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February
17 2001
The Interactive
Gaming Council’s Player Protection Initiative: The Seal of
Approval
By
Rick Smith and Keith Furlong
A common question: How big is Internet gambling?
Since the industry is inadequately regulated in most parts
of the world, and most company financial reports are not readily
available, accurate figures are difficult to come by.
It is fair to say, however, that Internet gambling has
quickly grown from an industry of relative obscurity to an
industry estimated to be growing at a very high rate, with some
reports quoting annual growth of 100% for the foreseeable future.
Growth is a reality. According
to estimates by The River City Group, Inc., a Missouri-based firm,
there were now now over 1400
gambling sites. Christiansen
Capital Advisors estimates that Internet gambling expenditures for
the year 2001 will eclipse the $3 billion mark.
The number is expected to rise to $4.5 billion in 2002 and
then $6.3 billion in 2003. Billions
of dollars are reportedly being bet over the Internet with very
little, if any, oversight or guarantee that the operators of these
sites are fair and honest.
What is the Interactive
Gaming Council?
The Interactive Gaming
Council (the “IGC”) is an international non-profit trade
association of over 100 companies from around the globe that are
involved with the interactive gaming industry.
The IGC was created in November 1996 as an affiliate of the
Washington DC-based Interactive Services Association.
It is now headquartered in Vancouver, being incorporated in
Canada in March 2000.
Each operating member of the IGC is required to be licensed to
lawfully conduct interactive gaming from the jurisdiction within
which it operates, and, as a member of the IGC, agrees to abide by
the IGC’s Code of Conduct, a copy of which can be found at the
IGC web site (www.igcouncil.org).
As with most industry codes, the IGC’s Code of Conduct is
a living document and is currently being reviewed.
The IGC’s mission is to: provide a forum to address issues and
advance common interests in the global interactive gaming
industry; establish fair and responsible trade guidelines and
practices that enhance consumer confidence in interactive gaming
products and services, and serve as the industry’s public policy
advocate and information clearinghouse.
An important role of the Interactive Gaming Council is to
advocate for the adoption of strong government regulation of the
Internet gaming industry throughout the World.
To achieve this objective, the Council actively promotes
cooperation within, and between, industry and government.
The IGC is proactive in its pursuit of this goal.
One of the main goals of the
IGC is to communicate and encourage active debate among
legislative and regulatory bodies about the future of Internet
gambling, and to this end, various representatives of the IGC have
spoken at seminars and conferences, as well as at informal
meetings, and submissions have been forwarded when opportunity
presents.
Within the last year, IGC representatives have testified about the
pros and cons of Internet gaming regulation before at least four
important US bodies, namely the National Council of Legislators
from Gaming States (NCLGS), the National Council of State
Legislatures, the Nevada Gaming Control Commission and the New
Jersey General Assembly Commerce, Tourism, Gaming and Military and
Veteran’s Affairs Committee, during full-day hearings in Rhode
Island, Chicago, Las Vegas and Trenton, respectively.
The IGC has also been proactive throughout the international
Internet gaming industry, for example, providing written testimony
to the Gambling Review Body in the U.K.
In addition, the IGC has made an important achievement with
the launching of its Seal of Approval program.
IGC’s Seal of Approval
As the IGC has evolved, the association has recognized the need to
provide industry members with an accreditation that the public
will recognize and trust. The
Seal of Approval program (the “SOA”) allows operators to
display a seal that indicates to consumers the site’s
willingness to adhere to a new, higher level of compliance as a
supplement to existing government regulatory regimes.
The Seal is an actual logo that is placed on interactive gambling
site to symbolize a willingness of the operator to adhere to a
higher level of integrity and responsibility.
The Seal of Approval logo is currently served from a
dedicated third party server in order to protect, to the best of
our technical abilities, its authenticity and to allow for
instantaneous removal of the seal should the IGC revoke its
approval.
While there are no guarantees, the IGC believes that the SOA is an
important step toward increasing the legitimacy of the Internet
gaming industry. The
program allows players to have some reassurance that Internet
gaming sites that display the IGC’s SOA logo have agreed to
higher standards, a strong Code of Conduct, and random monitoring
by a third party industry association.
The Seal of Approval program also provides an important mechanism
for dissatisfied players in the form of a more “formalized”
dispute resolution procedure.
The SOA establishes a system where a designated Compliance
Officer can intervene and mediate a resolution when there is
evidence that any attempted resolution, between a Seal of Approval
member site and the consumer, has not been effective.
The SOA is by no means designed to be a replacement for strict
government regulation. In fact, as previously mentioned, the IGC has been actively
advocating strict licensing and regulation by governments.
It is the IGC’s contention that effective government
regulation is the only way to move the Internet gaming industry,
as a subset of eCommerce in general, to the next level of
legitimacy.
The first three companies to participate in
the program and display the SOA logo are VIPsports.com, operator
of VIPsports.com, VIPsoccer.com, and VIPcasinos.com, the Sunny
Group Casinos (www.sunnycasinos.com), operator of
Casinofortune.com, Mapau.com, and Miamibeachcasino.com, and Bet
and Chat, operator of betandchat.com and betandchat.org.
The Interactive Gaming Council
(IGC) is the leading trade association for the international
interactive gaming industry, with its membership operating or
supplying services to, most of the reputable gaming and wagering
sites on the World Wide Web.
Additional information about the IGC, including membership
details, can be found at the association’s web site, www.igcouncil.org.
Rick Smith is the Executive Director of the Interactive Gaming
Council (executive.director@igcouncil.org). He is a former regulator with the Queensland Office of Gaming
Regulation in Australia and a former New Zealand gaming regulator.
Keith Furlong serves as the
Deputy Executive Director of the IGC (keith.furlong@igcouncil.org),
and is the Vice-President of the Catania Consulting Group, Inc., a
New Jersey-based gaming consultancy and lobbying firm.
He is a former Public Information Officer and Legislative
Liaison with the New Jersey Division of Gaming Enforcement.
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