KAHNAWAKE GAMING COMMISSION: an ineffectual online gambling regulatory body

Tuesday, March 21, 2006


The Kahnawake Gaming Commission is the online casino licensing body that supplies the license to Golden Palace Casino to run their operation from within Kahnawake territory.

In 2004, Golden Palace sabotaged the Athens Olympic Games with a streaker at one of the synchronised swimming finals.

There was substantial fallout as a result: Golden Palace gained "dishonourable mention" in the Casinomeister rogue section, and, in a precedent-setting move, the Kahnawake Commission publically sanctioned Golden Palace; the admonishment included the following telling comment:


Golden Palace will not use, promote, encourage or fund this type of 'marketing' ever again

In February 2006, Golden Palace, in DIRECT contravention of the above Kahnawake ruling, did the exact same thing - they sabotaged the Winter Olympics with a streaker at one of the Curling events. The matter was reported at Casinomeister, and Kahnawake were contacted by Bailey. Since they had required that Golden Palace not repeat the stunt, surely sanctions would now swiftly follow?

Fully two weeks and four emails later, this was Bailey's report on their response:


Well, a little over two weeks and four emails later, Kahnawake finally acknowledged my existence.

They said they're handling this internally.

And that was it.


The Kahnawake Gaming Commission have no option on this one:

1) Their response after the first incident was that Golden Palace should not repeat this act of sabotage.

2) Golden Palace ignored them, and repeated it.

3) Kahnawake are going to do nothing.

A genuine regulatory body would have no option but to revoke the license on a licensee so flagrantly in contravention of their rulings.

Kahnawake have proved that, as a genuine "regulatory jurisdiction", they are an ineffectual, worthless joke. How can you claim to "regulate" an entity when they completely ignore your directives and you do absolutely nothing about it?


eCOGRA recently got together with Kahnawake - see the Kahnawake recognizes eCOGRA principles of fair gaming press release of November 2005.

This is what eCOGRA say about the Kahnawake Gaming Commission:


The Commission's Regulations concerning Interactive Gaming were promulgated in July 1999, and are generally accepted as a model for regulating the global online gaming industry.

If this is true, then the online gambling industry is in a very, very sorry state of disrepair.

How can this ineffectual joke of a licensing jurisdiction be held up as a "model for regulating the global online gaming industry"?

(See also my slightly fuller Kahnawake Gaming Commission article.)
Posted by The 100% Gambler

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