BETFAIR OBSERVER AT SOUTH AFRICAN ONLINE GAMBLING REGULATION HEARINGS (Update)

24 August 2007

Elliott Kernohan upbeat about the development work behind proposed new law

Contrasting sharply with yesterday's attack on the National Gambling Amendment Bill by Casino Association of South Africa and Tsogo Sun chairman Jabu Mabuza (see previous InfoPowa report), the legal counsel for international gambling group Betfair gave the research work on the proposed Bill a thumbs up this week in an interview with MoneyWeb.

Elliott Kernohan, the legal counsel for Betfair was in South Africa observing the Department of Trade and Industry portfolio committee hearings on the proposed new legislation, which seeks to regulate and license online gambling at provincial level.

Kernohan told the business publication that Betfair was following developments with interest, because the legislation was aimed at protecting the public in an area where there was significant demand - online gambling.

"....you want to make sure that the protections that you provide are adequate, that they're enforceable, that they're able to be policed properly, and that they apply uniformly right across the spectrum of gambling that people want to participate in," he said.

Asked for an opinion on what he has observed thus far at the committee hearings, Kernohan said: "I think the DTI and the National Gambling Board have gone to great lengths over the last couple of years to really research the way that gambling has been regulated elsewhere around the world, and they haven't leapt into it.

"They've done their work pretty carefully and they've constructed quite a sensible and, if I may say, by global standards, quite a responsible - quite a high level of compliance is being required. And I think what we would like to see is those same good standards apply universally right across the range of Internet gambling activities that are currently available to South Africans who seek them out."

Questioned about provisions for probity checks on the directors of companies applying for licensing, Kernohan pointed out that without licensing and regulation there was nothing to stop a continuation of these shortcomings. However, under a regulatory regime applying such safeguards would be the responsibility of the provincial licensing authorities that the regulations envisaged, he said.

"I think the very point of this legislation and the reason why it's so important to South Africa, if it wants to protect the players, is to ensure that it provides for licence providers. And as part of that licensing process, they must ensure that they meet the standards of probity, that all of the necessary empowerment objectives are met," he added.

Asked why Betfair has not entered the South African market, as Piggs Peak had done, Kernohan said: "That's not the way that we do things. It's much more important for Betfair as an organisation to ensure that we're able to say to our players, look, we provide the standards of probity and protection and safeguards against problem gambling that you would expect to have in your home country.

"So where there is a country that takes the view that gambling should be regulated safely, we very much prefer to come in the front door, rather than be characterised and perceived as some of these other operators are. And, you know, in fairness you can't necessarily point the finger solely at Piggs Peak, who themselves would take the view that they're operating perfectly legitimately from a jurisdiction that's granted them a licence.

The interviewer referred to criticism of the proposed legislation by Mabuza and Derek Auret, Chief executive of CASA, and asked Kernohan whether he thought the DTI should "take these regulations back to the drawing board".

Kernohan said he did, but for different reasons to those expressed by the Casino Association representatives.

"Derek is focussing on some of the detail because he wants to be sure that the standards that his constituency has had to meet are applied across the board," he said, adding that he could accept that.

"But from our point of view it's slightly bigger than that. These requirements and these protections that are to be provided for South African players really need to be imposed right across the online gambling space. It doesn't matter whether you're an online casino or whether it's online poker or sports betting or anything in between, it's the perceived risks of transacting through the Internet that need to be addressed, and that's what we think needs to go back to the drawing board."

Read the interview here http://www.moneyweb.co.za:80/mw/view/mw/en/page55?oid=155836&sn=Detail

Online Casino News courtesy of InfoPowa