Is Kahnawake Toothless?

**prrmike** · 29th April 2006, 12:52 AM

Recent posts regarding the Kahnawake Gaming Commission got me to wondering about this organization. I did some research, but could not find any instances of KGC ever revoking the license of a single gaming organization. In fact, I found horror stories of complaints against permit holders taking 18 months to investigate. Does anyone have information regarding KGC ever fining, punishing, or doing anything to back up their claims of regulating their permit holders?

Thanks

**jetset** · 29th April 2006, 08:41 AM

Good subject, and one which is especially live right now due to a number of cases like the non-responsiveness to a Turkish player's dispute and the more high profile issue of Golden Palace disrupting the last Winter Olympics in flagrant breach of an agreement with the Kahnwake, on which these people remain obdurately and disrespectfully silent.

I'm sure you'll find plenty of material in Casinomeister news and archives.

The Kahnawakes have never been good at the player-regulator interface in my experience, with almost non-existent communications and little transparency.

They have good regs on paper, drawn up in consultation with one of America's top gaming legal experts and they must be one of the biggest online casino licensing jurisdictions out there with literally hundreds of licensees and, I am told a massive high security server farm on their ancestral lands in Quebec.

So this lack of a friendly face toward the player community is even more puzzling.

They spend money on sponsorships like GIGSE, their admin and telecommunications facilities are reported to be pretty hot and yet when it comes to the most important factor of all in the equation - the players - they seem to be woefully lacking in responsiveness, a public presence and a disputes mechanism that can be seen to be operating fairly and quickly.

It's astonishing. Or maybe not - their history of confrontation with the Canadian authorities on other issues makes for interesting reading.

The only conclusion I can personally draw is that they do not have the interests of the player as their major priority: imv the indications are that they are in it for the licensing money.

It's not too late for them to become efficient, useful and respected, but I think they need to do some serious rethinking and reorganisation with the player front-of-mind as the person they are supposed to be protecting.

**prrmike** · 29th April 2006, 10:54 PM

Jetset, you are a gentleman and a scholar, and I thank you for your thoughtful reply. I took your advice and searched Casinomeister's excellent archives, yet I couldn't find any reference to any actions taken by the KGC against permit holders. If you or anyone else knows of any, I surely would like to read about them.

Thanks.

**Achenar** · 30th April 2006, 07:56 AM

not surprised

**jetset** · 30th April 2006, 09:40 AM

I guess the lack of publicity on licensing discipline would also suggest a lack of transparency or arrogance, because I find it unlikely that the Kahnawake have never had the need to discipline a licensee in the several years they have been in operation and with the large number of licensees they boast.

Now I think about it, they did put up a notice on their site when they slapped Golden Palace's wrist for disrupting the synchronised swimming at another Olympic event some years ago. That wasn't too convincing, I'm afraid because all it did was say that a donation to a charity of Kahnawakes' choice had been levied, together with an agreement by GP not to do it again.

As we saw at the last Winter Olympics that agreement was not adhered to, and enquiries with the Kahnawakes for more detail on the consequences for GP and what charity the original donation went to and how much it was went unanswered - more evidence of a lack of upfront honesty and communication. And in fact even today they do not respond to questions on what they have done about GP's latest questionable behaviour, arising from the last Olympics fracas involving Golden Palace streakers.

This difficulty in achieving a sensible dialogue with these guys certainly makes it hard to accept them as an efficient and player-sensitive regulator.