Perhaps now, more than ever before in the Online Gambling industry, providing a safe and secure playing environment for players is of the utmost importance for each organization. Naturally, providing that type of environment and having that reputation in the industry certainly helps maintain and boost the client base, but it just might be the key to the future. Many online gambling companies are on point when it comes to security and protection of their players… Just try and use a friend’s credit card on your account with certain organizations and see how fast they shut your shit down.
Additionally, many online gambling companies and online poker sites have a 24 hour security department monitoring play to prevent against the unauthorized access to player’s accounts, fraudulent accounts, and collusion in the poker rooms. For many it’s not yet a perfected system, but it’s definitely a start, because the gaming environment appears to be changing right before our eyes, and those that don’t keep up, could get left in the dust.
Just taking a look at what is being debated in the House Financial Committee proceedings and taking arguments from both sides into account; you begin to see a trend. Many of us are all too familiar with the main arguments against the legalization and regulation of online gambling. But during the hearings, a refreshing and statistically backed rebuttal came from Parry Aftab, the executive director of Wired Safety. Wired Safety was recently commissioned to conduct its report on the online gambling industry. It’s results in my mind, just confirmed what people in the gambling industry have known for years.
Basically, Parry Aftab explained that:
“Without regulations to handle underage gambling, addictive gambling, fraud, collusion, malware and malicious code, privacy and data protection, criminal involvement, disputes and online security threats, consumers and families are on their own”.
Aftab went on to make the critical observation that the US already faces all of the social costs the gambling opposition fears, except without the benefits of control and regulation and of course, consumer protection.
At some point it just appears that common sense will suggest regulation of online gambling. Regulation will do many things, namely weed out organizations that are not prepared for it; by that, I mean, organizations that do not have stringent security and regulatory protocols already in place for their clients.
If regulation ever happens, no one wants to get caught with their pants down. The organizations that already have a detailed and effective implemented security and regulatory system already in place won’t have to worry about an interruption of their services. If regulation were to happen, it would be reasonable to expect that there would be a governing body put in charge to review and inspect online gambling companies, before issuance of a license to operate in the US. It will be interesting to see what the requirements would be in that case, but given the current concerns, if the US licensing were a buffet line… Online gambling companies with consumer protective, fraud preventive and money laundering detection and prevention techniques already in place; these companies should and will likely have first dibs.
