Contradictions of highly regulated markets

While Microgame, the leading provider of online gambling solutions in Italy, announced to have received a major investment from a private equity fund, BMR run a quick investigation into Microgame-powered Italian sportsbooks and found quite a few who went out of business in some cases leaving players with balances empty handed as Microgame gives licenses to just about everybody but doesn't appear to take any responsibility when problems arise.
In 2008 StarPrice Italia, which was operated by a company called Veneta Servizi, disappeared owing money to players, and several months later only the intervention of Intralot guaranteed that everybody got paid.
In May this year, Microgame had problems with the Italian licensing authorities (AAMS) which apparently found irregularities in the way 4 of the sites powered by Microgame dealt with bets.
In Italy if you have an online account you cannot receive cash payments in a shop, but several old school operators (probably because players ask them to) seem to do just that.
Later in June, Microgame successfully appealed the AAMS decision, but before the successful appeal I found curious that the CEO of Microgame stated to the press that the company owned a second technology provider which would have been used to offer a immediate back up service to its 50 clients. Richard Creed, CEO of Leisure & Gaming, owner of Betshop Italia, one of the four companies accused of irregularities by the AAMS, said his company had identified a “work around solution” (in pure Italian style I must add) should Microgame had been switched off by the AAMS.
Surely if a company is proved to have broken the market rules (and only in that case), that company should not be allowed to offer a backup service or work around solution. Or is that too much to ask?

If you have had problems with Microgame-powered bookmakers we would like to hear your stories. Please submit them at feedback at bookmakersreview.com

Date published: 17 October 2009

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