GPWA Times Magazine - Issue 12 - April 2010

ing any real regulatory oversight of this part of the industry. Traditional audit firms and regulators donot understand it, consider it highly riskprone, and are understandablyunlikely toeverbecome involved due to the hostile nature of some parts of the affiliate industry.We urge affiliates and programs to work with us to improve our ability to regu- late programs, rather than to discour- ageour involvement. An enormous amount of money and effort has been invested to ensure eCOGRA is able to operate indepen- dentlyofanysoftwaresuppliersandop- erators, and we will never deliberately compromise our professional reputa- tions or the company’s future by favor- ingoneof ourmembersor seal holders, all ofwhomare incompetitionwithone another inone formor another. eCOGRA has recently introduced our AffiliateTrust Seal,which isawarded to programs that are able to demonstrate that: Affiliate revenue is calculated ac- curately and deductions are cor- 2. 3. i. rectly allocated, and payments are promptlyattended toand complete- lyandaccuratelyprocessed; Preventative and detective controls are in place to ensure accurate and correct linkingofplayers toaffiliates; Affiliate program applications are developed, implemented, main- tained and secured in a manner representative of best practice stan- dards; and iAffiliate programs shall be able to demonstrate that they can recover froma systemdisaster. This is theonlyprogram certificationper- formed by professionally qualified audi- tors, and we have already accredited five leadingprograms. And finally, what do you feel you have learned from and about affiliates during thiswholeGrandPrivéprocess? eCOGRA is aprofessional business services organi- zation staffed by well qualified people of integrity, butweare still human. ii. iii. iv. We were therefore very disappointed at the hostility and unfounded accusations, professional slights anddoubts about our capabilities that were bruited about on affiliatemessage boards bymany posters who appeared to be ignorant of the facts andourbusiness recordwith scoresof top companies in the industry. Inparticulartherepeatedandtotally falseal- legationsthatweweremerepuppetsofMicro- gaming rankled, simply becauseMicrogam- ing has nomore influence onhowwe carry out our professional duties than the other twoFounding–andcompeting–Members. Thissortofallegation isalsodeeply insulting to the Independent Directors who exercise operationalcontrolateCOGRA. Perhapsaffiliatesneed to takeamorecon- sidered, informedand lessemotional view of the industry and its component parts instead of resorting to what are often of- fensive as well as inaccurate speculation and statements – in dealing with profes- sionallyrunbusinesses,amoredisciplined andbalancedapproach is ingeneralmore productive. Continued frompage13 14