Is TV getting that boring?
C'mon, there is nothing cloak and dagger about this at all.
I've been speaking to casino reps off and on for a bit and they are unable to comment fully on their business structure at the moment since things are still being finalized - I'm guessing. What I
do know is that this connection of casinos lets them share non-monetary assets like support functions, licensing agreements, affiliate programs, marketing etc. It's really not that big of a deal - and not really interesting unless you know behind the scenes gossip that every industry deals with (who works for whom, who's boinking so-and-so, that sort of thing).
As far as I know, the casino groups will still be managed separately. But as all things in this industry, time will tell.
Edited to add: Fortune Lounge is in the process of changing the terms - so as soon as this is done, they should be back on board.
All very well, but the structure changes are already becoming pretty obvious long before they make the announcements. I am sure they would have finalised things before going to the trouble of changing their licensing arrangements with the LGA, and the footers on the emails they send to players.
The other thing being shared is players' personal data, and players have a right to know which subsidiaries that are trading as "independent" from each other are in fact connected to the extent that data is being shared.
We have already had this with the Rival saga over their secretive Rival wide player database that meant supposedly independent casinos had pretty intimate histories on players before they had even signed up.
Under UK regulations, which will apply from 2015, there has to be far more transparency with regard to gambling companies than most other businesses. At present, online casinos are more secretive than other businesses.
Far worse than not announcing such things is outright lying to players and the press, and then announcing later on that what was being denied was in fact true all along. It's what we had in the early days of Rival, and it dented trust in the brand as a whole.
Again, my interpretation of the signs turn out to be true, even though at the time there was no concrete evidence, just the observations based on seeing Digimedia crop up where it shouldn't on promotional emails and websites.
The only thing I got back to front was the history surrounding the first merger. I thought Digimedia started out as Belle Rock, who then recently bought Fortune Lounge, whereas it seems Digimedia has for some time been Fortune Lounge, and who then bought out Carmen media, moved it to the LGA, and added it to the main Digimedia LGA license, whilst retaining the brands as separate subsidiaries with their own management and promotions.
I expect that the speculation surrounding the addition of Palace Group, possibly even Betway, to the Digimedia portfolio will turn out to be true later in the year.
For players, the changes have been detrimental. The nasty terms first appeared at the old Belle Rock, then Palace group, where entirely at the discretion of the casino a new player could not win more than £6000 from their first few deposits, the surplus being confiscated. I also experienced the bullshit and 10 day pending period from Belle Rock once it had become part of Digimedia, and most recently Fortune Lounge lost it's accreditation over the enforcement of rogue terms, which at first they were not prepared to alter. I have also suffered repeated problems recently at Fortune Lounge over the Gone Gambling conversions, with many new rules that appear nowhere on the GG site being used to argue that my "clean" deposit of £500 does not in fact qualify. It has reached the extent that I have given up with GG, it's just not worth the trouble any longer.
