reasonable assumptions can be made...
I think its pretty reasonable to assume that most of the stipulations and amendments that were passed so quickly by the house financial services committee in the summer session of 2010 would indeed remain part of the structure of any online gambling regulation and reformation laws that may come to pass...
These revisions that were introduced, and then passed in late summer 2010, are summed up here:
Key provisions of HR 2267 include:
Thorough vetting of potential licensees and the creation of an OFAC-style list of illegal operators;
Mandatory implementation of technologies to protect against underage gambling using the commercial and government databases used for online banking to verify age and identity
Requirements for operators to set daily, weekly or monthly limits on deposits and losses to monitor and detect individuals with excessive gaming habits;
High standards to thwart fraud, abuse and cheating to ensure fair games for customers;
Regulation to prevent money laundering; and,
Processes to prevent tax avoidance.
and this might help a lil:
Before passing the bill, the committee insisted on amendments that prohibit operators that have violated U.S. laws from getting licenses (suggested by Rep. Bachus); a statistical record proposal; and one to ensure that online betting on sports such as football isn't allowed.
Obviously this could all change, but given that many of the land based giants exited the marketplace with the sole purpose of pole positioning themselves for legal and favorable re-entry, and given that many other companies negotiated fines with the D of J in hopes of a green light for re-entry, a ban or at least a suspension period for the operators that did serve the US during the UIEGA's time as law seems to fall in line with what the feds would want...
Also, with the proposed tax of online casinos revenue, one might also feel comfortable assuming that there would indeed be laws against playing with unlicensed and unregulated houses since they would not be paying taxes... And so those laws could be subject to tariff legislation and smuggling penalties and in any case would hold more serious punishment than the current law provides.
I loved rtg and I loved MG, but the two products avail. now to the US punter are hardly RTG and MG as we knew them... I have a 28 percent win rate in VP double ups at level 11 casinos... English Harbour anyone? I have always maintained that a Wagerworks product would be my druthers if I had every option available, and I am gonna stick with that...
More top-tier choices may emerge: Given that Caesar's Ent. Inc seems primed to enter the online marketplace, they will probably team up with a software maker to compete with wagerworks...
Given any other viable options besides Rival and Level 11 (which IMO are no longer viable) I would gladly throw MG and RTG into the trash.
I really think the way that RTG has handled its rogue operators along with their
POLICY of untruths when it comes to RTP% should be held as an accurate show of their integrity in the players' minds, and I hope we reciprocate once our big bro gives us legal gaming by showing RTG what a band of licensed casinos without players looks like...
Lastly, I want to reserve final judgement on MGS for what surely the future will tell us about the past 10 months in particular... If this BS US facing clone turns out to be less than random, and MG had only sold the games rights to a third party which then made the clone software and included the shaft feature, then maybe I could accept that they were not implicit in any abuse on players. But lets keep in mind that some of the most highly regarded MG casinos do not serve any us clients with the horsefeathers level 11 product...32red for example, casino of the millennium? If places we know to have the highest regard for game integrity, fair play, and customer service are not offering the product, I think that says a lot about the product... While I do love some of their games, if there is some sort of level 11 scandal exposed, I would imagine it might be a deal breaker between the US clients of MG sites and the casinos themselves...Maybe a blow that they might not be able to rebound from, esp. since we can assume the likes of Casino-on-Net and Wagerworks, and Playtech would suddenly fill the vaccuum... JMO, but there is def something up with the way many of the MG sites have dealt with questions about their level 11 US facing sites which remain unaudited by ecogra (unless u talk to DichDeels, they have no problem claiming their site is audited, reviewed, rng sealed and whatnot by eCogra... Then again, they have no problem spitting in MGS's face and accepting new US signups to this day...so go figure)
