Best and worst in online gambling

17.01.2008

2007 was a turbulent and difficult year for an online gambling industry adjusting to the hostile official climate in the key US market following the imposition of the Unlawful Internet Gambling Enforcement Act, but the business continues to advance by diversifying into other regions.

One of the consequences of the US legislation was the departure from the US of large, publicly listed and reputable gambling companies, making the American online gambler more vulnerable to unprofessional and integrity-challenged firms seeking to fill the vacuum.

This scenario makes the need for reliable information on online gambling casinos, sportsbooks and poker rooms all the more pressing, and the annual awards and brickbats of influential information portal Casinomeister.com released this week are a useful guide for gamblers, affiliates and operators alike.

The awards are made in 31 categories and range from Best Online Casino 2007 and its antithesis; through best and worst player experiences to most significant industry milestone and most spectacular blunder. The nominations are put together on player suggestions and decided by Bryan Bailey, the owner and webmaster of Casinomeister.

It's a fascinating stroll through key events and incidents in the business over the past year and can be found in full detail at http://www.casinomeister.com:80/bestworst2007.php

The list is too exhaustive to cover in full, but here's a few that InfoPowa picked out:

The Best Casino of 2007 award went for the fifth consecutive year to 32Red.com, a Gibraltar-based online casino and poker company that has been able to maintain high standards of efficiency and customer service over the years, generating a large and very loyal fan base. The man behind the site's operational success, manager Pat Harrison, received the Best Casino Manager 2007 accolade, too.

The other side of the coin is the Worst Casino for 2007, which this year goes to a name familiar in a negative way to many online players - the Costa Rican-based Cirrus Casino in the RealTime Gaming powered Virtual group (which is itself marked as "Worst Casino Group this year) Economical with the truth about its ownership from the get-go, Cirrus has become notorious for a reluctance to pay players who win more than they have deposited.

Best Casino Group this year goes to the Microgaming-powered Jackpot Factory company, which made a remarkable comeback after a black hat SEO disaster in 2006 that saw it universally slammed by the player community and penalised by eCOGRA. "During this past year, players often expressed their relief and gratitude to the Jackpot Factory group; it had truly focused its energies on player satisfaction. This is admirable since it's not often that a group can recover so quickly. Keep up the good work JF," says Bailey.

RTG powered Virtual group picks up the brickbat in the "Worst Casino Group" category: "....they bring shame to the entire online casino industry with their amateurish "we've changed" mantra and constant screw ups. They've been around for years and still haven't figured out how to manage a casino right. But what incentives to improve do they have? They're based in Costa Rica, so obviously there is no licensing jurisdiction to monitor their operations. They use RTG gaming software, and RTG has a hands off policy towards player issues. So this is like shooting fish in a barrel for Virtual. They can do pretty much whatever they please," says an irate Bailey, who has mediated many complaints from aggrieved players in the past.

Back to the positive side, and the award of "Best New Casino 2007" went to 3 Dice Casino, a new arrival owned by a land gambling group in Belgium and using proprietary software. With original and unique games, a red hot and highly responsive manager and helpful Support, the venue has received a continuous stream of praise from the player community.

Worst Player Experience was generated by the RTG-powered Hippo Jo Casino. Funded by Australian investors and managed by an Aussie team with wide online gambling experience, there were great hopes for this online casino when it launched last year, but within months it was in trouble and started giving its players, affiliates and winners a hard time on payments and customer service. The management should have known better than to go into incommunicado ducking and diving mode, but that's what they did, losing the respect of colleagues who had praised their experience and capabilities. And players remain unpaid, besmirching their professional reputations.

Runner up in this category was a debacle on a much larger scale and higher profile - the million dollar Absolute Poker cheating scandal which saw the company whacked with a $500 000 fine by its licensing jurisdiction for a cheating through flawed software scam involving insiders.

Customer Service is of paramount importance in the online environment, and here Club World Casino took away the top award for 2007. Bailey says: "If a player had a question - it was answered promptly. If there was an issue or player grievance, it was taken care of quickly and fairly. Club World's support can be reached via chat, toll free numbers in five languages, and of course standard email. They are based in the UK - so their knowledge and usage of the English language is pretty good. No pigeon English spoken here. Good going Club World, keep up the good work."

The UK Gambling Commission, which commenced operations in September 2007 after years of preparation, receives the Casinomeister Milestone of 2007 Award. "This progressive development opened the way to true and responsible regulation of Internet gambling in the UK. It has reinforced the integrity of UK regulation with a whitelist for UK advertisers, resulting in significant movement to whitelist jurisdictions, and frantic attempts by others to smarten up their previously lackadaisical approach to player protection," Bailey comments. "The whole British effort in this regard has been well planned and impressive in a professional sense, involving extensive consultation and communication with all possible interested parties, and the only dark area has been the high taxation imposed politically on licensees. This is a true milestone in the short history of online gaming."

Procrastination is recognised in the "Sitting on One's Hands Award" which this year is a lacklustre tie between Kahnawake Gaming Commission and RealTime Gaming. "It's an absolute shame that this commission can't seem to get it together when it comes to assisting players in a swift and effective manner. They have made themselves available for player issues, but so far it has not been so productive," reads the citation.

"The Kahnawake Gaming Commission issues licenses to over 450 gaming entities. To not have an active call center that can promptly answer player grievances in an effective way is an indication that this licensing entity has not taken its role seriously. The sad thing is - they are one of the first jurisdictions to offer gaming licenses to online casinos. They could have led the way as a torch bearer for all to follow, instead they let this opportunity slip through their fingers."

Online gambling turnkey provider RealTime Gaming get the brickbat for the second time for a year and a half of unproductive lip service over a promise to set up a player dispute resolution service. Over half of Real Time Gaming's licensees are in Casinomeister's rogue pit, and two thirds of RTG casinos operate without gaming licenses, says Bailey.

The key "Best Software" award this year goes to Wagerworks, a US based company acquired by International Gaming Technologies (IGT) a couple of years ago that has been pumping out games that are familiar to hardcore Vegas fans and refreshingly different for online gambling slotsters. The games are easy to navigate and are all no-download - the graphics are sharp and match their land-based counterparts.

On the Dark Side - "Worst Software Provider 2007" - Casinomeister has named Futurebet, a company that has been around for years, yet never seems to "get with the program" Bailey observes: "Failure after failure, their poker rooms and casinos drop like flies - and there has never been any safeguard for their players. Most of their casinos are unlicensed (Costa Rica, Belize, etc.) so their casino properties are at liberty to make rules as they go along - or disappear without a trace. If a software company dares to reap licensing and other fees from their clients, then they better be able to protect players from unscrupulous or mismanaged casinos."