eCOGRA News for February 2011

eCOGRA News Articles for February 2011, Table of Content:

eCOGRA Welcomes First Pan-European Consumer Protection Agreement for Online Gambling -23 February
eCOGRA Awards Two More Safe and Fair Seals: Latest recipients are Red Flush Casino and Casino La Vida -10 Feb
eCOGRA Releases 2010 Dispute Stats: Accredited operators maintain low dispute rate -2 February

eCOGRA Welcomes First Pan-European Consumer Protection Agreement for Online Gambling

London, 23 February 2011 - eCOGRA CEO and the Chair of the CEN workshop agreement on “Responsible Remote Gambling Measures”, Andrew Beveridge, today welcomed the publication of this first Pan-European consumer protection agreement by CEN.

CEN is the European Committee for Standardisation, one of three European Standardisation Organisations officially recognised by the EU (http://www.cen.eu/). CEN draws up voluntary technical specifications, such as a CEN workshop agreement, to help facilitate a single market for European industry and consumers across its members in 31 European countries.

This CEN workshop agreement on “Responsible Remote Gambling Measures” (16259) defines 9 policy objectives for the protection of online players in the European Union and 134 concrete measures to ensure that those objectives are actually met.

The 9 policy objectives are:

The protection of vulnerable customers
The prevention of underage gambling
Combating fraud
Protection of privacy
Fair gaming
Accurate customer payments
Responsible marketing
Customer satisfaction
Safe operating environment

CWA 16259 shows consensus across a wide range of remote gambling stakeholders – from experts on problem gambling and players to industry representatives and addiction and criminology academics - showing that there is real desire to work together to ensure consumer protection issues are fully addressed as important EU developments unfold.

Andrew Beveridge, Chief Executive Officer of eCOGRA and Chair of the CEN workshop agreement, said “Over the last 7 months, CEN has provided the platform for us to make this agreement to secure the high level of protection for consumers across Europe that is vital for the online gambling industry as it matures. eCOGRA intends to bring into line its own eGAP Requirements with these CWA control measures, thereby benefiting eCOGRA, its sealholders and players.”

He added “This is self regulation at its best, bringing together a wide range of stakeholders from across the world for the benefit of the consumer. This agreement can only complement existing industry standards and inform both national and EU regulation of online gambling. It has been an honour to be part of and chair this process.”

eCOGRA Awards Two More Safe and Fair Seals

Latest recipients are Red Flush Casino and Casino La Vida

London, 10 February 2011 - The independent player protection and standards body eCOGRA has announced the award of two more Safe and Fair accreditation seals to online gambling sites, bringing to 150 the number of tier one operations that have successfully met eCOGRA’s international requirements.

The latest seals were awarded to Red Flush Casino.eu and Casino La Vida.com by eCOGRA’s Independent Directors on January 25 following an extensive on-site inspection and audit process that examined every operational aspect and the financial systems in use.

To ensure continued compliance, Red Flush and Casino La Vida will be consistently monitored through regular onsite reviews and eCOGRA’s Total Gaming Transaction Review regime, which involves analysing every live gambling transaction for software fairness.

The accreditation inspection was supervised by eCOGRA compliance manager Louise Chunnett CA (SA), CISA Certified, who commented in her report to the Compliance Committee:

“These operations have a successful management with well trained, motivated and competent individuals servicing their players. The review was well and comprehensively structured, with full buy-in from management and the staff in attaining certification.”

Red Flush Casino and Casino La Vida are part of the Club Red Gaming Group of casinos. Each of these gaming destinations currently hosts over 450 games powered by Microgaming software.

Casino manager Alex Roberts commented: “We’re certainly proud of our newest accomplishment and glad to be recognised for our ongoing transparency, integrity and satisfactory operating standards.”

eCOGRA chief executive officer Andrew Beveridge congratulated the new seal holders, noting the full cooperation that the eCOGRA auditing team had been given throughout an extensive process toward accreditation.

“This achievement provides internet players at Red Flush and Casino La Vida with an added layer of assurance that the games are fair and the casinos are run on professional lines and to internationally recognised best practice standards,” he said.

eCOGRA Releases 2010 Dispute Stats

Accredited operators maintain low dispute rate

Press Release

London, 2 February 2011 - Tex Rees, the Fair Gaming Advocate at the independent player protection and standards body eCOGRA, has released statistics for the year 2010 on disputes involving online gambling sites accredited by the London-based company.

A total of 846 disputes (2009: 826 complaints) were submitted online to eCOGRA throughout 2010, an increase of 10 percent over 2009. 67 of these concerned companies not accredited through eCOGRA and therefore outside the ambit of the FGA's authority.

A further 125 were found to be invalid, being fraudulent, non-specific or abusive and anonymous in nature.

The remaining, or valid, 654 disputes (2009: 628 complaints) concerned cash-in problems (44 percent); Bonus issues (25 percent); and Locked accounts (19 percent).

12 percent were categorised as 'other' and involved software fairness, responsible gambling and spamming allegations.

Over the 12 months, an average of 43 percent of disputes was resolved in favour of the player.

"The small decrease in the percentage of disputes resolved in favour of the player, and a corresponding increase in allegations of unjust bonus disqualification have been proved through detailed investigation to be connected," Rees reports.

"A fraudulent player syndicate was caught out by sophisticated security systems, resulting in its members submitting allegations which subsequently proved to be false, but had to be painstakingly followed up."

The free eCOGRA disputes resolution service has been in operation since 2004, and has handled a total of almost 4 500 disputes over that period. Almost 49 percent of these were resolved in favour of the player.

The level of disputes per accredited eCOGRA site was again remarkably low for the volumes of business transacted, with a typical accredited site delivering only 0.38 disputes on average per month throughout the year (2009: 0.37).

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