Jay Cohen has always had bad judgment and limited business skills. He got into online gaming early and had a decent business going when, in the late nineties, instead of settling with a slap on the wrist like everyone else, he decided to fight the U.S. government over its application of the Wire Act to his U.S.-facing, but Antigua-licensed company WSEX. His thinking was that when he won this case he would be the poster boy for online gaming and his brand would bask in the great publicity. As everyone in the industry knows, he lost, spent a few years in jail, is now a convicted felon in the U.S. and agreed to never enter the U.S.-facing online gaming industry again.
After getting out of jail, Jay returned to the online gaming world a bitter and defeated man who spent his time attacking other prominent online operators who had grown in stature during his jail stint. This further eroded his stature with the new powers of the industry. He could never come to terms with how his plans had blown up on him. At the same time he was attacking others, it was common knowledge in the industry that he was back working with WSEX and in fact had never stopped working with them. (He came out publicly and admitted this in the last year or so.) Technically, he is in breach of his agreement with the U.S., but given the disastrous condition of WSEX these days, its hard to see him being targeted again. However, these nonsensical attacks on others in the industry were undeniably a distraction from keeping his gaming operation competitive and his once proud WSEX brand has been on a slow death spiral ever since.
Many in the industry are now predicting this is the death of WSEX. Sites and forums are reporting winners are not getting paid anymore. It’s a sad end for a group that, though proven not to be any good at running a business, were in fact instrumental in helping Antigua win its WTO gaming services case against the U.S.. Jay is guilty of lots of things, but mostly of incompetence. Moves are afoot in the industry to try to save the players. These players are lucky that WSEX is Antiguan-licensed as the government there will move quickly to protect the players. We hope Jay does the right thing by them before fading into obscurity in the now maturing world of online gaming.
