Report on Rival and 400 Group
RIVAL SOFTWARE (
www.rivalpowered.com)
Rival is a software developer that has recently completed the 2 year development of a completely proprietary, downloadable online gaming suite that includes entertaining interactive slots and graphics of exceptionally high quality.
Four online casinos are currently offering the games, which appeared early in March 2006: Da Vincis, This is Vegas, Paradise8 and Cocoa.
These are all owned by
400Group.net (sans website) which is licensed in Curacao. Rival Software managers have assured us that 400 Group is an entirely independent and seperate company, and that its only links with Rival are the licensing of the Rival games and Support facilities.
The 400 Group is allegedly based in Curacao and operates the four casinos referred to above.
Quote from Scott Geisbrecht at Rival: "Rival is the software provider. The 400 Group is the licensee. There is no other relationship beyond this."
A Canadian company (sans website) called
Gaming Solutions.ca consulted for Rival in the development phase, and another company under the Rival umbrella called
Unified Support Systems has been set up, again allegedly in Curacao to handle Support for licensees of the software. Customer support is solely operated out of Curacao, Netherland Antilles, according to Geisbrecht.
Rival is a wholly owned subsidiary of
Black Chip Limited, a private company with unlisted directors that is incorporated in Cyprus. Black Chip Ltd. owns the Rival software brand and has licensed the Rival software to the 400 Group, who are incorporated in Curacao, Netherland Antilles.
The software has been in development for just under two years, and Black Chip is the outright owner of the fully proprietary source code.
There does not yet appear to be a final management team in place. In response to questions regarding the identity of the CEO, COO, CFO and Technical Exec, Geisbrecht told us: "A new CEO is currently being recruited and that individual will be responsible for creating the senior management team. I expect this process should be completed by GIGSE or shortly thereafter."
The following have all been identified as active in management at Rival or 400Group.net:
Justin Kelly
(support@gamingsolutions.ca)
(affiliates@400affiliates.com)
(justin@400group.net)
(jkelly@cmpo.ca)
Justin Kattan (could be an alias for above)
affiliates@400affiliates.com
Rob Lockhart
(rob@unifiedsupportsystems.com)
(rob@rivalpowered.com)
Scott Geisbrecht
(scott@unifiedsupportsystems.com)
(scott@rivalpowered.com.)
Al Maslovsky is believed to be a marketing guy working with Justin Kelly/Kattan at 400Group.
Take a careful look at the email addresses above, all of which have been garnered by various people in the industry from communications with these guys.
It is apparent that there are some startling relationships which do not gel cleanly with the answers given so far by Geisbrecht.
In particular note the
cmpo.ca and
gaming solutions.ca addresses for Justin Kelly. The former leads to a company specialising in software for the medical industry in Canada (Geisbrecht has subsequently denied any association between 400Group and this outfit) whilst the latter is the company that Geisbrecht says consulted on the development of the software.
Quote: Gaming Solutions is a software consultancy that helps with technical support and is not involved in the gaming business.
Unquote
Yet Kelly would appear to work for 400Group and
400Group Affiliates? These are issues on which more clarity is needed from Rival and 400 Group.
Black Chip also maintains contract employees for technical support in Canada.
There are no Rival partnerships with exisiting gambling software providers in place at this time. However, Black Chip - Rival is reviewing a number of potential business relationship opportunities across several different venues.
Anonymous domain ownership details have been highlighted by players as lacking in transparency, and in answer to this, Geisbrecht says: "The domain name registrations are in the process of being changed to reflect more accurate information. All the relevant contact information is posted on the casino websites. With regards to the googlemail account used at Moneybookers, this was a temporary solution while the account was being set up and it is being updated."
Rival claims that the random number generator (RNG) used by all Rival software was developed and tested independently by
CertainKey Inc., a computer security consultancy that specialises in implementing cryptographic algorithms. The RNG is based on public, open algorithms that are recognized as cryptographically secure.
Rival will be conducting its public launch at GIGSE in May, 2006. A number of games and exciting new innovations are in production and in the planning phases, according to the spokesman.
A dispute resolution process is in place for client issues that cannot be resolved at the casino/operator level. Players can use the following email address to escalate this type of issue:
disputes@rivalpowered.com.
We additionally submitted a list of questions to Justin Kelly at 400Group at the suggestion of Geisbrecht.
Unfortunately to date we have not received a response, and therefore much of the detail on 400 Group remains unknown. We do not know who is on the top management team, who owns the company, what other interests it has, the real nature of its relationships with the other companies mentioned here and its future plans.
We do know that The 400 Group is currently working on the development of their corporate site. That is surprisingly late bearing in mind that the casinos are already operational.
We also know that 400Group has been active in recruiting affiliates through 400Affiliates.com, offering up to 60 percent initially in commissions. That site is operational.
We queried the limited choice of financial options, to which Geisbrecht replied: "As part of the launch phase the 400 Group selected certain processors through which to implement their initial payment solutions. There will be additional processors and payment options added in the coming days and weeks."
If or when this is forthcoming (and it is to be hoped that the 400 Group will realise the need for transparency in an industry so based on trust) it will be posted. We have used the 32 Red.com website as an example of true executive transparency.
Our purely subjective opinion is that although some answers have been upfront, we're not being given the entire picture here. From the software and CRM glitches reported thus far by players, it would also appear that the operational launch was perhaps a little premature and before everything had been fully cleared.
Finally, we find a situation where a major commercial step such as an operational launch is carried out whilst the company is still recruiting a top management team incomprehensible.
Nevertheless, this software obviously has very good potential, and it is to be hoped that the glitches and unanswered questions will all be cleared up sooner rather than later.
