All players:

What do you expect of an OPA member casino? Not an approved casino--we do more in depth checking on those--but those casinos that apply to be members of the OPA.

And I will confess a bias for those of you who are shopping for software: we do take into account the reputation of the software provider. Put baldly, I am much more likely to vote in favor of a Boss Media or Cryptologic site than I am a site running gamblingsoftware.com. I know that casino operators have to be financially in pretty sound shape to get the expensive software.

All casinos:

What do you expect to be asked for OPA membership (as opposed to approval, in which case as you know we take DNA samples and hostages. Just kidding. Actually, we force you to listen to Steve's show for hours as a show of tolerance.)

Just to warm up this subject a bit, here are some things I have been considering:

*Requiring a casino to have been in operation for six months. My thinking on this is that there are so many casinos opening, and the competition is so fierce, that even an otherwise honest and well-intentioned operator can still go bust and take players' funds with him/her, or, be ill-served by bad banking or financial services.

*Require no outstanding player complaints

*Require a primary contact person and phone number for OPA issues (such as player disputes that may arise).

What would be nice to be able to get:

*Third party verification of the honesty of the software *or*

opening the software to a public beta and bust party as has been done in the past. Offer prizes to the casino crashers that find the most bugs.

*References from happy affiliate partners, advertising suppliers, and players.

*The Web site meeting a set of standards re:terms, conditions, banking info, support, etc. etc.

What doesn't impress me:

*A government operating license from most of the jurisdictions currently offering them.(except as proof of solvency)

*Interactive Gaming Council membership (except as proof of solvency).

What does impress me:

*Spontaneous player testimonials, esp. from players I trust.

*Going with a big name brand software.

What worries me and makes me wary:

*False or idiotic information on the Web site.
*Conflicting information on the web site.
*No useful information on the web site. Most trusted casino on the net, my butt.
*Software I have never seen before
*Too good to be true percentages offered in promotions to players and webmasters
*Software I have seen before used by crooks
*Spam
*Persistent spam
*Lying insulting idiotic spam
*Frank admissions of withholding players funds for the hell of it, excusing bounced checks, and guff about "island time".
*Owners dissing their programmers. Right, now you think the guy is an idiot, but I'm supposed to still trust the software with my money? I don't think so.
*Copyright infringement in site name or content.
*Spam

Your thoughts?

I think you should send all potential OPA approved casinos an email from a generic hotmail or yahoo account asking a simple question such as "what software do you use" or "how fast do you pay".

If they reply within 24 hours in a kindly manner, they pass!

If not, trash the application.

Require no outstanding player complaints

This is unrealistic. The best of casinos get complaints, some of which are unwarranted. What has to be looked at is the frequency and basis of the complaints and how they were handled.


Software I have never seen before

This is not neccesarily a bad thing, but the casino has to be looked at more closely.


Software I have seen before used by crooks

This isn't bad either. There are crooks that were using Microgaming software that we all know about.

For OPA membership:

- 6 months in business. Like Mary said, new operation may be good, good people etc. but these days even the best of operations can go bust.

- I like the "send an Email" idea. If they respond within a given time frame, this is a good sign.

- Most certainly a contact person with "juice" is needed. Not just a CS rep who can't do anything anyway. Someone with some clout must be available for contact.

- Known software is good.

- As Babe said, even the best casino will have complaints, but it's how they handle them, the number of complaints out there and the type of complaints.

- Need to know their pay history. Chances are a number of people here on this site have probably played at Casino XYZ and can give reasonably objective feedback on that issue.

Dirk

I feel the speed of payment is the most important factor. Most complaints are due to slow payment.

I've only been an OPA member for a little over a month, so I've basically kept my mouth shut on this topic. However, there are at least four OPA 'recommended' casinos on the list that have NO BUSINESS being there for at least one of the reasons given above IMO and obviously to many others.

The trouble with some of casinos is that in one area they excel while in others they are certainly flawed. I think the OPA needs to look at the whole package they present and definitely become more strict on the requirements.

Jesus Christ. More strict. We turn away over half of the casinos that apply as it is now.

I do not think amount of time in business really matters. I can think of several been around a long time casinos that put the screws to everyone.

We can only do so much to screen casinos before we accept them.

Here's my two bits on this.

The OPA should function like a BBB of internet gambling. This would require nothing more than ratings based on the existence of unresolved complaints.

Every business has complaints and there is only so much Due Diligence the OPA (as a volunteer Org) can be expected to do.

Membership by casinos should be based on maintaining a good record, and good record should mean no (or few) outstanding unresolved complaints.

Basing membership and approval on qualititative things like, site content, software, p e n i s length, may be interesting, but I fear it will be far to onerous for people that operate in what is essentially an unregulated business. The net effect will be to discourage perfectly good operators from signing up.

Similarly, basing membership on financial solvency is also problematic. Companies lose money, either through mismanagement or bad luck. That is true in any industry and I think setting a higher standard for Internet casinos than we would expect from any other business is again so onerous as to make membership innefective.

Software that's good today may be s h i t t y tomorrow. Bugs develop in software or are discovered through use. Regulating jurisdictions change etc, and pinning membership and approval on those things would not be very effective.

The complaints and resolution process should also be confidential. That is to say that a casino that has an unresolved complaint can still be a member, but its complaint is unresolved and that should be public record. The rationale being that casino that has one unresolved complaint is better that one that has 10. Similarly, a complaint that remains unresolved today can be resolved tomorrow.

This is the kind of process that would get more than just a handful of casinos to join.

Thats my too bits.

I couldn't put together a list of my 3 worst casinos because I really haven't had any experiences that I could genuinely classify as 'bad', yet. However, ask me to put together a list of casinos that don't belong on the OPA recommended list and there would be NO PROBLEM!!!!

Good post and a practical approach, Rainmaker.