Is Curaçao licensing improving?

[maxd]

As many of you will know the licenses issued by Curaçao haven't meant much, historically speaking. I've been in the business 20+ years and for the vast majority of that time the Curaçao Master License holders -- the issuers of individual casino licenses -- haven't given a fat rat's arse about what their casinos do or how they do it. And why does this matter? Because there are literally thousands of online casinos holding a sub-license from one of the four Curaçao Master License holders and that's down from the high water mark of a few years ago when it was (probably) pushing 10,000 sub-licensees. In other words we're talking about many, MANY players not to mention the boat loads of cash they represented for all the parties involved.

That said the truth is that players were long ago pushed to the very bottom of the Curaçao casino food chain. That has meant one thing and (almost always) one thing only: if you are a player at one of these casinos you are very likely to be used, abused and ignored. There were and are exceptions -- good, even excellent, casino operators holding a Curaçao license -- but they are few and far between. To put it bluntly, if a Curaçao casino hasn't been thoroughly vetted by a reputable entity then the savvy player would and should look elsewhere for their casino services.

So how did this 20-year shit storm come to be? I won't pretend to be an expert on Curaçao internal affairs so I'll just quote Wikipedia where they say that Curaçao is a "Parliamentary representative democracy within a constitutional monarchy". What that all means is that Curaçao has emerged from its colonial days within the Dutch Carribean to now be a "Sovereign state of the Netherlands": they have their own parliament but the King of the Netherlands is still the head of state, and so on and so forth. As far as the online casino scene is concerned this has meant that the Dutch government was happy to turn a blind eye to the abysmal state of affairs regarding Curaçao casino licensing until enough people raised enough of a stink in the Dutch Parliament that they needed to do something.

Fast forward to the past few years; the recent claim has been that the Dutch Government has applied pressure on the powers that be in Curaçao to get them to clean up their act regarding how Curaçao licensees were dealing with and treating their players. Suddenly, the Master License people were willing to accept player complaints -- something they'd never done before -- and if you believed the PR that looked like a big step forward. Certainly the claim was that Curaçao had now entered the modern age in terms of player care and Responsible Gaming and, you guessed it, all was going to be goodness and light.

For the old guys in the industry like yours truly, and most certainly the @Casinomeister himself, this all sounded a bit suspect. Would Curaçao turn the page and now behave responsibly toward the legions of players that played at their casinos? For a while it looked like they might. License verification became available early on and -- after a generous pause -- some of the Master Licenses started offering complaints resolution. At first it was obvious, posted right on the License verification pages. Then it was shoved down into the fine print at the bottom of those pages. All the while the same bold claims of renewal and reform were repeated over and over for anyone that would listen. And that brings us to the present.

Today the Master License people appear to be in full retreat from the promise of Responsible Gaming. Take this current example from the Antillephone License (Master License 8048/JAZ) verification pages:

Antillephone should only be contacted by players when they believe an Оperator is in breach of their license. All disputes with an Оperator about a payout, a blocked account, a delay, broken features and so on, should first be taken up directly with the Оperator. If no resolution is found there are number of independent bodies you can contact, which should be listed on the an Оperator website.

And there you have it, their hands are thoroughly washed of the unpleasant business of player complaints. Operators "should" list one or more independent arbitration services but who they are, what they are, what they do (if anything) and the responsibility for the whole nasty business is back in the casino operator's hands where it's always been, for them to do as they see fit.

Oh, and that business about the Master License people being contacted by players "when they believe an Оperator is in breach of their license"? Try finding out what the Terms of a sub-license actually are, in other words the license details of how the casinos are supposed to behave as dictated by the Master License holders. You would need to do that in order to decide if there was a "breach" but I can honestly say that after working in player complaints full time for 15 years I've never seen a word of the Terms between a Curaçao sub-licensee and their Master License. I reckon your average player won't have had a prayer of seeing them either.

And that, finally, brings us back to the question: is Curaçao licensing improving? Well, maybe, ish. If not getting worse -- which at various times over the last 20 years was the norm for Curaçao casinos -- is what some would call "getting better" then sure, why not, things have improved from that sorry state of affairs. Are player complaints now being responsibly received, dealt with and resolved? From my view on the front lines of the player complaints scene I'd have to say "No, complaints handling has not measurably improved." Of course there is the promising "breach of their license" stuff but as pointed out, if the Terms of the license are not available then how can a breach be known or legitimately claimed.

So here we are, the end of 2022, and the hype of "new and improved" Curaçao licensing lingers in the air like a mildly tantalizing, but ultimately cheap, eau de toilette. The actual day-to-day, boots-on-the-ground results for players at Curaçao casinos are not markedly different than they were in the bad old days. Slightly improved maybe in that at least there is a (somewhat) general recognition that the rhetoric of Responsible Gaming and so forth is more or less required but unfortunately many, if not most, Curaçao casinos still operate as they always have: free and clear to do as they please, answerable to no one.

Addendum: See post # 7 below for some afterthoughts on the above.

 

[AndrewPearson]

 

[maxd]

Yup, "pay your fees and taxes and have at it" is generally how we've understood the Curaçao Master Licenses to operate. Some do more than the others but none are exemplary.

- Max

 

[playforcash]

This is a nice breakdown, but also missing few important points from what I know of the industry:

1) As far as I know, the re-regulation is still ongoing and nobody knows if it will be approved or not, so we are still waiting for how the new regulation in Curacao will work and if it will pass.

2) Yes, there are official complaint processes for other licensees like MGA, DGA, etc. however I believe you can count on 2 hands how often MGA has gotten involved in a player complaint over the last 15 years and I believe the Danish Gaming Authority has only ever gotten involved in 1 case that I heard off. So should we really be looking at the licensing entity or should there be an external 3rd party to work as an arbitrage between the Casino and the players and provide a security stamp?

3) Most casinos are almost forced to start on curacao license since every other license has too long processing time or too high cost, especially for startup companies.

4) Most new casinos start as a white label and gets sheltered under someone else's license, which means that the license is worth nothing in general.

 

[Jeroensgambling]

Yup, "pay your fees and taxes and have at it" is generally how we've understood the Curaçao Master Licenses to operate. Some do more than the others but none exemplary.

- Max

And this explains why

- They got away years with douching, sacking, ditching or simply put robbing their players.
- They can run casino's with lower RTP's without even having to mention anything about it

I mean god i hated BTG games so much; till i realised i played on the wrong casino (Curacao) license that had their RTP / volatility and such notched down to the very core so that it would legally still produce results (but overall horrible outcome for it's players).

Even tho this gesture is here now, i'd still avoid playing at those ventures. You have no backing to even get your money.

 

[maxd]

@playforcash , you raise some interesting points although I see some of those issues rather differently.

2) Yes, there are official complaint processes for other licensees like MGA, DGA, etc. however I believe you can count on 2 hands how often MGA has gotten involved in a player complaint over the last 15 years and I believe the Danish Gaming Authority has only ever gotten involved in 1 case that I heard off. So should we really be looking at the licensing entity or should there be an external 3rd party to work as an arbitrage between the Casino and the players and provide a security stamp?

As far as the MGA goes that's not quite true. For years they were quite responsive on player complaints insofar as they would prod reluctant casinos to address issues raised. Then they adopted the UKGC model -- about 3 years ago IIRC -- and devolved the complaints process to the operators and their ADRs. After that their participation became markedly less noticeable.

3) Most casinos are almost forced to start on curacao license since every other license has too long processing time or too high cost, especially for startup companies.

I don't doubt there are cases where that is quite true however many operators choose Curacao deliberately. The primary reason for them is that the Curacao license leaves them largely in control of their operation unlike the heavy-handed oversight they might be forced to accept elsewhere.

4) Most new casinos start as a white label and gets sheltered under someone else's license, which means that the license is worth nothing in general.

As always, the Curacao licenses vary. In recent years some Master License holders have shown that they do expect a certain level of conduct from their sublicensees and can generally be counted on to provide some over-sight. Others not so much. As tempting as it may be there is no "one size fits all" description of the Curacao Master Licenses, at least not these days. YMMV.

 

[maxd]

Addendum to the original post:

A month has passed and I've had cause to re-read my original post. I think I made the general point I was trying to make -- that the hype of "improved" Curaçao licensing had not produced the promised results -- but I also see that one major point about Curaçao licensing got lost along the way.

The bottom line with Curaçao licensing for many operators is that it is pretty much a "hands off" type of licensing arrangement. The Master License holders are generally pretty invisible because they don't conduct their business in a manner that would make them visible to the public, or to the industry at large for that matter.

HOWEVER, Master License business aside I think it does need to be said that some of the best operators in the business hold a Curaçao license and have done for years, some for years and years. These are all relatively small operations -- 10s of employees (if that) vs the 100s you might expect at a large scale operation -- and are run by entrepreneurial-minded teams of genuinely good people. Their games are fair, their players get paid and there are exceedingly few complaints. After 20+ years in the business these are the operators that I respect and admire. The big operators may have happy shareholders but these smaller operations have happy players. If I was still a regular player I know which of those two I'd choose.

 

[Casinomeister]

....HOWEVER, Master License business aside I think it does need to be said that some of the best operators in the business hold a Curaçao license and have done for years, some for years and years. These are all relatively small operations -- 10s of employees (if that) vs the 100s you might expect at a large scale operation -- and are run by entrepreneurial-minded teams of genuinely good people. Their games are fair, their players get paid and there are exceedingly few complaints. After 20+ years in the business these are the operators that I respect and admire. The big operators may have happy shareholders but these smaller operations have happy players. If I was still a regular player I know which of those two I'd choose.

And this is something that I can truly concur with. Some of the best hands-on operators hold these Curacao licenses. We're talking about the Legends Casino group, Deck Media casinos, iNetBet casinos and their brethren, and the others that are found here in our Accredited Casino section. As Max mentioned, these are bona fide entrepreneurs who run a tight ship and have gained our respect over the decades. This is very unlike the larger casinos with scores if not 100s of employees. Unfortunately, these Curacao licensed casinos are real mixed bag. One reason that players must be a bit cautious and do their due diligence on which casinos to play at. Max an I and the rest of the Casinomeister team here do our best to showcase the best and worst of the casinos that hold these licenses. And of course, we rely on our members to keep us informed on their experiences at these casinos.

 

[Cicadasinthetrees78]

This is a nice breakdown, but also missing few important points from what I know of the industry:

1) As far as I know, the re-regulation is still ongoing and nobody knows if it will be approved or not, so we are still waiting for how the new regulation in Curacao will work and if it will pass.

3) Most casinos are almost forced to start on curacao license since every other license has too long processing time or too high cost, especially for startup companies.

Number 3 is a red flag, if you ain’t got the money to get a real license, you ain’t got the money to run a book. Having played at a few Curacao places, the question of cash flow or lack thereof is more and more glaring.

Skeptical of the reform as well, Costa Rica announced a similar thing and it’s still the same Wild West shitshow.