GPWA Times Magazine - Issue 37 - February 2017

That trust and loyalty allowed Uber andAirbnb to stand up to city, state, provincial and national governments and impose (with some exceptions) their business model and philosophy on the marketplace. Instead of accepting regulation, they resisted it. And then they dictated it. Online gaming companies went in a different direction. As an in- dustry, online gaming hadn’t earned the trust or loyalty that Uber andAirbnb had. Part of that was the times. E-commerce was still in its nascent stages 17 years ago. Part of it was the industry itself. A proliferation of operators entering the market made it difficult for consumers to discernwhich sites could be trusted—and there were definitely sites that couldn’t be trusted. Part of it was the popularity of online gaming. Even during the height of the poker boom, online gaming never gained the broad followingUber and Airbnb currently have. So the industry embraced regulation in an effort to earn player trust and government approval. The iGaming industry’s embrace of regulation has hadmixed suc- cess. In terms of government ap- proval, online gaming has gained wide acceptance through large parts of Europe and limited ac- ceptance in Australia and Cana- da. But government acceptance in the U.S.,Asia,Africa and South America remains a challenge. In terms of player trust, the results are more uneven. And that’s a serious problem. First, the good news. Good regu- latory schemes — think Europe or New Jersey —have ensured that the games being offered are fair. That goes a long way in boosting consumer confidence. And because providing games and software platforms has become a global business, there has been a trickle-down effect to other licensing jurisdictions. If the games are being provided by a company that does busi- ness in regulated Europe or North America, the games can be trusted — regardless of who is providing the operator license. Regulators have also taken steps to protect the deposits of players. None of these steps are a guarantee that operators won’t walk away with player money, but it’s better than not having any measures in place at all. That’s the end of the good news. The truth is, when it comes to consumer protection, the industry and the regulatory agencies that govern it have a long way to go to inspire confidence. Consider this: I took an Uber ride in December where the driver, struggling to follow the navigation system, added 15 miles to the trip. I contacted Uber immediately after the ride to complain and was refunded my money within an hour. Does anybody honestly think the same thing would have happened in our industry? Nope. That’s what I thought. If you talk to operators, there are good reasons why resolving customer complaints take time. The issues they deal with are usually far more difficult to unravel than a driver taking the wrong route. But the fact remains that for players, the dispute resolution process is frequently opaque and time-consuming. At the very least, every jurisdiction should have a player bill of rights that includes what a reasonable dispute resolution response time frame should be. Exacerbating the problem is that most regulatory agencies either don’t collect or don’t publish data regarding customer disputes. We have no idea how many complaints a given operator re- ceives or how long it takes to resolve them— or even what the nature of the complaints are. I’m not saying complaints should be a proxy for quality, but I do think it’s useful information for customers to have before they choose to deposit their money. And then there’s the financial health of the operators. Licenses are supposed to be implicit endorsements from regulatory A call for transparency Uber and Airbnb quickly built up enormous and devoted followings. Their customers trusted them completely. They didn’t care that existing stakeholders thought they were illegal. They didn’t care that politicians thought they were illegal. They wanted their Uber and Airbnb. when it comes to consumer protection, and the that govern it have a long way to go to The truth is, the online gaming industry regulatory agencies inspire confidence. 27 w w w . g p w a t i m e s . o r g