Online Gambling Commission

[TheDonk]

What would happen if the PPA, or a group of us started an Online Gambling Commission (or Online Poker Commission) just like those who regulate b&m casinos? If the industry already had a truly independent commission in place to regulate and investigate situations like the AP mess, would this not help to squash the governments arguments about security? Poker rooms would have to pay a fee, but in return could post on their site that they were regulated by the Online Gambling Commission, building trust with their customers. We, the affiliates then encourage our players to only play at rooms that are regulated by the commission. Part of the agreement for a poker room to become a member would be that they would have to let commission auditors and investigators have access to whatever they needed, just like the b&m commissions.

I don't know, is this a crazy idea or not?

TheDonk

[TheDonk]

Okay, I have more ideas here. If I'm just out of my mind, feel free to say so.

You could charge the poker rooms say 1% of the gross generated by U.S. players. If a room grosses $500,000/month then the fee would be $5,000 month, enough for a full time agent dealing with complaints/issues for that room. If the room is larger, they have more players, more gross, more complaints, but pay a higher fee. So, 2 or 3 agents are full time on that room.

The commission could set up standards on rake %, tournament fee's, deposit/withdrawal options, payout times, and other issues that players are insecure about. If a room doesn't want to participate in the commission, they would look shady and it would hurt the bottom line.

Basically it would be a Better Business Bureau for the poker rooms. When a site gets numerous complaints from different players, they automatically go in and investigate.

It seems to me that poker rooms would benefit by having this in that it would build trust amongst the players, and help the industry as a whole going forward legally.

Maybe this is just a stupid idea, I really don't know. It just seems to me that if the online poker rooms want US players to be forever able to play, that something like this would greatly help the cause.

Then, all the government would have to do is tax the damn thing and leave it otherwise alone.