Talking to iNTERGAMINGi recently, Garth Kimber, head of egaming development for the Isle of Man Government, said that we haven't seen the last of the Full Tilt situation.
Kimber spoke about player protection, which is considered to be one of the most important parts of regulation on the Isle of Man. Unlike other jurisdictions, the Isle of Man safeguards player funds to minimise the negative impact of events such as Black Friday. “We had that nearly a year before Black Friday occurred, so that was the proof of the pudding that it works,” he said.
Since Black Friday, PokerStars – licensed on the Isle of Man – has paid back more than $100m to US players, compared to Absolute Poker and Full Tilt, which haven’t repaid players and are from different jurisdictions. He added that he believes that the Full Tilt situation is by no means over - “if you read on the forums out there, people aren’t happy.”
He went on to say that normal business has “sort of” resumed since April 15. “I think it’s new normal business,” he said. “It’s normal business with players now knowing that companies not repaying them is a possibility.”
It remains to be seen as to whether or not every jurisdiction will eventually adapt the same system for protecting player funds as the Isle of Man and, for Kimber, there are two things that are interesting when looking ahead on the matter. “The first one is, is a jurisdiction there as an entity to look after people or is it there to land grab and get as much as business as possible?
“Secondly,” he continued, “it’s all about getting the balance right. We expect to lose out on business occasionally but it’s worth it for the integrity of the company and the jurisdiction.” He added: “It’s probably cheaper not to separate funds but it’s about running a quality regulatory system for the businesses and their players.”
The full interview with Garth Kimber will be available to read in the September issue of iNTERGAMINGi
