Group Looking to set up fit for purpose Adjudicator Service. Advice

philiphewson

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Apr 8, 2021
Location
Cork
Hello,

Myself and a group of players/1 solicitor/former addicts are looking to set up a fit for purpose adjudicator service for MGA based casinos due to severe failings of current 'non-biased' adjudicators.

So far we have hounded MGA for advice and support with no help whatsoever forthcoming.

Would anyone on the forum be able to offer some advice on steps to receiving proper accreditation (If any) and how to go about achieving our goal?

Thanks in advance.
 
Who are the current 'non-biased' adjudicators? How did they fail?

And what are you attempting to do? I don't quite follow you here.
 
Who are the current 'non-biased' adjudicators? How did they fail?

And what are you attempting to do? I don't quite follow you here.

Thanks for the response.

The mission is to create a fully transparent and independent adjudicator to mediate player and casino complaints and ensure casinos and players are operating in line with consumer law. We think it's painfully clear there are too many instances where this doesn't happen at present.

From the small data samples we have and my own experience dealing with MGA and non UK based regulators they are not fit for purpose. If you look at ECOGRAS adjudication of my complaint with Mr Green this is woefully clear.

We are trying to get a gauge on the viability of this concept and a roadmap to achieving the goal.

Any advice would be greatly appreciated.
 
Well, a few questions come to mind: what experience if any, would your mediators have, what are their credentuals? Is this a free service? If not, how are you charging? How would you do things differently that what we do here?

The PAB service we provde here is free, but only for our members. Both Max and I are certified arbitraors from the Ciarb, and both of us have +22 years worth of experience - each - on dealing with player complaints.
 
Thanks for your response.

Yes we would have mediators. It would be a free service....In terms of being different to your organisations we would have no affiliation with casinos. We would offer legal help when a player is wronged by a casino E.G my experience with Mr Green, as great as your PAB service is, I was basically told there was no point as they wouldn't engage with you.

Thank you for the info on Ciarb. I see this would be essential. However I am trying to explore a means of changing the culture in the industry where casinos are compelled to engage with arbitration and bodies such as MGA assist in this actively. Im not sure the steps to achieving this as my interactions with the MGA (as seen in my thread on mr green) have been amateurish imo.
 
Stumbled across this, thought I'd chip in a few things:
  • I believe you'll find Malta fairly disinterested in new ADRs. They largely ignored us but in the end we were told that only Malta-based organizations were eligible for accreditation in Malta. This is clearly not true because ThePogg has provisional status as an accredited ADR there and he isn't Malta-based, not that I've got anything against ThePogg and good on him for it! The point is that the MCCAA or whatever they're called -- they're the folks responsible for approving organizations for ADR accreditation in Malta -- haven't wanted outsiders in on the action. They've wanted to give the ADR work to locals, coincidentally most specifically a group who are ex-MCCAA employees, and outside applications haven't been welcome. Last time I checked the MCCAA wasn't even looking at new ADR applications. The word I've been given is that it will take a legal challenge under EU law to get Malta to open the doors to non-Maltese ADRs. AFAIK no one has done so thusfar.
  • Mr Green -- and many other "big" casinos (remember the Mr Green is owned by William Hill) -- are well known for being hostile toward 3rd party ADRs. We've heard a number of reasons for this but the bottom line is that any casino or casino group that considers itself big enough to be immune to criticism from 3rd party ADRs will ignore those ADRs. If you can muster enough clout to get their attention then suddenly they're happy to talk.
    • FTR in the beginning and up until their sale to WillHill Mr Green was quite happy to work with us on player issues. This is a story that we've seen played out time and again in recent years. Casino conglomeration is done for the benefit of the casino conglomerate, player satisfaction is a secondary consideration (at best).
  • Most casinos in regulated environments would rather use an ADR that they can have a standing contract with, namely eCOGRA and IBAS. They're usually institutionally disinterested in dealing with smaller ADRs. (ThePogg is again an interesting exception here -- albeit on a much smaller scale -- but that's a topic for another time.)
  • The casinos and casino groups that we are are able to work with largely do so because of our reputation. We have a 20 year history of doing this, we are well known across the industry, and we know many of these people personally. For those that care about such things -- specifically NOT the big corporate casino groups -- that makes the difference.
 
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