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ROUNDTABLE
ROUNDTABLE: DATA AND COMPLIANCE Industry leaders from Continent 8 Technologies, Internet Vikings and W2 discuss compliance risks within gaming, as well as the storage and protection of data, with Peter Lynch David Brace, Technical Account Director, Continent 8 Technologies
Rickard Vikström, CCO & Founder, Internet Vikings
Warren Russell, CEO, W2
WARREN RUSSELL:
WHAT ARE THE GREATEST COMPLIANCE RISKS FACING THE GAMING INDUSTRY
RICKARD VIKSTRÖM:
IGaming is an agile and fast-developing, yet relatively young, industry. As a consequence, it is exposed to a number of compliance risks. Be it GDPR, licensing challenges or staying on top of ever-changing regulations across multiple jurisdictions, our compliance departments always have their hands full. However, I would like to emphasise the issue that is beyond our control at the moment. That is the absence of a working banking system which increases the risk of money laundering and other fraudulent activities. Unfortunately, the payment and payment/bank withdrawal system for iGaming is counter-effective. We are being largely pressured to work with iGaming-specific banks because there is hesitancy in the larger banks. On the contrary, the industry should attempt to build an ecosystem where they work together with the well-known reliable banks, who are good with such pivotal elements as KYC (Know Your Customer) and AML (Anti-Money Laundering).
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GAMBLINGINSIDER.COM
One of the key factors the operators and all stakeholders within the industry need to understand is the changing face of regulation; now more than ever legislation is driven by public opinion and international politics. Be that data sovereignty due to Brexit, responsible gambling highlighted by public figures and multimedia platforms, or the opening up of new markets. The positive and negative impact of any changes needs to be taken into account and failure to properly understand that will cause the biggest issues. If we simply look at ‘risk to the industry’ being fines levied, then this is often due to systems and processes not keeping up with change, rather than a deliberate attempt to flout or ignore regulation.
DAVID BRACE:
The sheer velocity of the expansion in regulated markets, globally, represents the biggest challenge to all parties in the gaming industry. The number of new jurisdictions looking to take advantage of the boom in online gaming, coupled with the race to be first to market in every location, represents the biggest compliance risk to the industry. Every new market has its own set of rules covering some or all aspects of licensee’s businesses, from KYC & AML responsibilities to age verification, and player locations requirements to data sovereignty and locality requirements. This, combined with the recent surge in M&A activity worldwide, means many organisations are facing a mountain of compliance work in combining new obligations with merging and revalidating existing regimes of acquired organisations.
