This is much of what I posted at
:
Back in the beginning of 2002, Bryan Bailey and Mike Craig bought the OPA url and hosted parts of the OPA on their respective web sites--Bryan handled the forums, Mike handled the dispute resolution.
There were no bylaws. We were working on them.
Mike wound up being the "contact person" on a professional level to casinos and software vendors. Bryan, Brian C., myself, and some other volunteers were the "Executive Committee" with voting power, and there was a Players Advisory Board with voting power.
OPA member casinos would apply, we'd post their application and discuss them, and most votes were easily decided. It was pretty clear who was ok and who wasn't.
Stress points were that Mike wanted to make enough money to make a living. I, Brian C., and several others wanted the OPA to have its own site and be free of commercial considerations. Bryan B. had Casinomeister bringing in personal income, but was devoting more an more time to creating the ad-free OPA site. I thought Mike could do the same thing; develop Casino Gazette and also work with the OPA.
When Sunny Group left Microgaming, they were very nervous about the effect it would have on their players. Playtech was a relatively unknown software at that time. Sunny had been advertisers in the "Old" OPA, and were advertisers on both Casino Gazette and Casinomeister. They had a good player reputation under the Microgaming Software, and had been good at handling player and webmaster complaints.
They approached the OPA to have their payout percentages under the Playtech software be certified, much as PWC does for Microgaming. MIke wanted to do it, and took care of getting an accountant in his area, talking with Playtech, getting server access, and so forth.
The rest of the Exec Committee and PAB were not enthusiastic, but if it did not cause problems with respect to preferential treatment for Playtech casinos, if Sunny maintained their quality, if we were not talking about significant sums of money, etc. we would let Mike do it.
Over time, Sunny Group began to lose ground in their treatment of both professional peers such as webmasters and in their treatment of players. "chaotic" was often used to describe them. Playtech opened Sterlinghouse, with prominant copy about it being OPA approved when it had not been; its payout percentage was being verified, but it was not an OPA member casino and had never been voted upon.
We were arguing about that. Other Playtech casinos were piling up complaints. Black Widow,Grand Banks. We were getting frustrated with that. Mike described what he was doing in phone calls, but ultimately refused to show the rest of us the actual contract.
That propelled us to resign as a group. None of us can be working both without pay and without oversight of the results of our own efforts. The OPA had the reputation it did because (in my opinion) we were cutting out as many conflicts of interest as we could.
Mike Craig is now the sole owner and operator of the OPA. He is redesigning his Casinogazette site. One of the changes he has made is that he will no longer do mediation for casinos that are not OPA member casinos. He recommends that players go to Casinomeister or Julie for those casinos. This is a sound business decision.
He plans to have a "flatter" structure to the organization; player members will vote directly on casino membership. Player members can propose casinos for membership.
We had not done that in the past because so few individual players wanted to be publically participating. The Players Advisory Board had their own closed messageboard so that they could confer freely among themselves. The open forum had many casino owners and webmasters in lurking mode, so it wound up being more of an one-way communication between the Exec Committee and the rest of the world.
Players who are interested in posting are mostly found on WOL; though the traffic balance there can shift quite a bit between players and affiliate enrolled webmasters.
Mike's and CasinoGazette's strength is in doing radio shows, and Mike is planning on doing behind-the-scenes tours of UK based operators. Those should be worth a listen.
................................................
In hindsight, I want to add that Mike was consistent for the most part in stating his preferences for making the OPA an earning organization. I've always thought that Casino Gazette, as an affiliate funded website, had plenty of intrinsic appeal and value-added in the audio webcasts.
.............................................
Realistically, there should be no need for the OPA. It performed many of the functions that should be performed by state entity regulators or by the affiliate funded webmasters. The OPA was putting benefit into the system, but recieving little back, at least in terms of money.
.........................................
In the business model I proposed, and thought we were operating under.
Actually, the idea of the OPA offering a form of testing is not an intrinsically bad idea. We discussed it in terms of supporting the Online Casino Analyzer. I personally think the technical specs of the OCA are brilliant, and should be adopted by regulators.
The problem with offering certification arises if it compromises other functions, such as player support mediations, in favor of the paying casino customers. This does not necessarily *have* to happen, since it is ultimately self-defeating.
I also think that whoever does certification needs knowledge in computer systems and professional level testing experience. That's a level of expertise and work involvement that can't be supplied by unpaid labor.
............................................
In terms of social and business contacts, and access to information, it was very worthwhile to me personally; mostly because it kept me out of investing in the Online Casino Sector! I remain convinced that the current operators of the land industry, worldwide, will inevitably have online outlets. We will all have online outlets, be it socializing as Sims, or using email for home addresses.
We now know the demand is there, but vulnerable to problems with moving money and extremely vulnerable to politics. We now know the potential is there to track player enrollment and operator integrity to levels unmatched on land, but the political will for both goals does not yet exist. Those countries that have entered the regulatory arena are too dependent upon the operators for revenue to truly regulate them; and this is a lesson for land political entities too as more states become dependent upon gambling tax revenues.
I still plan to be posting, and try to get off my lazy butt and write proper articles. I'm curious to see what would happen if all the players who had taken their disputes to the OPA about casinos licensed in Antigua would take their disputes to Antigua instead. Antiguan gaming authorities have been promising to improve their oversight, and they have finally upgraded their web site and added the actual regulations, so now players know what they are entitled to!
...........................
The OPA shielded many of the small regulators by taking complaints that should have gone to them. The OPA posted a code of ethics and developed and posted expectations for casino behavior before many of the regulators did. Personally, I resent that paid professionals were getting free assistance without even bothering to answer their email, but, the OPA didn't have to deal iwth politicians.
.......................................
I've emailed Antigua with some questions about the regulations. I hope they answer.
.......................................
Day 2 and no answer.
