https://www.betable.com/

They claim to LEGALLY allow players to gamble by piggybacking on their US-based license.

Any suggestions on if this is something that can work in the poker world? If so, is anyone (with meaningful business experience) interesting in building a poker site with this? (I'm a developer with > decade experience, CS degree, MBA etc.)

This could be one of the first BFI-sourced businesses

You mean UK?

Pretty sure this is some 2p2'ers friend's company.

I remember sending a couple emails back and forth with the founder a few years ago. He had a pretty good head for how they were going to go about growing amidst all the random national regulations.

did some more digging, looks like it's UK-based but they are actively targetting US-based startups.

If it's legal, would be interesting to build something based on it.

Get this message when you click on sign up link:

Sorry, we are only offering our services in the UK. Sign up so that we can reach out to you when Betable is available in your area.

ah well, seemed too good to be true. No sense in continuing the thread.

http://venturebeat.com/2012/07/09/be...oney-gambling/

Interesting concept, but that story is so full of fluff it makes me puke.

Just because they have "UK worldwide license" doesn't mean anything. Pokerstars, Party, FTP - they all had "worldwide licenses" also. Having a UK license doesn't make operating in the US any easier, or any less illegal.

As far as verifying user location, what is so hard about using the phone number and on-phone GPS? Can onphone GPS be spoofed to provide false location?

And lastly - they will not keep that license in the UK for long if they don't audit all the code of their vendors who want to provide gambling games in jurisdiction where gambling games are legal. It looks like you could use their API to write a 'fake' BJ game where the house wins 70% of the time, they would process the payments, and then they would probably lose any credibility and their license.

I don't know what the rules are for maintaining your license in good graces, but my guess is that UK doesn't mess around like some Canadian tribe and will close you down the second you stumble. It's going to be an immediate problem when you let others develop games and set the rules (and cheat) and only process payments and do geolocation for them.

I think you are misunderstanding something. They aren't allowing companies to take bets from US players. They are allowing US companies to take bets from foreign players in places where gambling is licensed and regulated. That doesn't break any US laws.

The only thing stopping Zynga from legally taking bets from UK players right now is a UK license. That process takes a couple years and is extremely expensive. Betable makes it free and instant.

So whatever can go wrong, will go wrong, right? Why not give them a chance to try to solve these problems before assuming its not going to work?

You are partially correct that something like that could happen but partially wrong also. Basically, there is a limit to how bad you can make the odds. And it is fairly reasonable.

If some no-name, no-history startup can get a UK license, I'm pretty sure it's not that hard and Zynga can easily get one as well. Zynga has been talking about gambling games for years, so they may already have a license under some holding company.

I'm not assuming it's not going to work. I'm simply skeptical of anyone making huge promises in the poker industry, and I'm speculating on the minefield of problems this setup creates instead of repeating their press release claims.

If I was going to spent a year and XX,XXX to design gambling games, I would make sure I have my own license instead of relying on an outfit that can shut down overnight when some kid developer cheats the games and betable license is revoked. Developer time and effort is not free.

This whole pass-through licence scheme sounds very risky. The point of government licensing is to vet the history and operations of whoever is getting a license and verify games for fair play/etc. Why would that same governing body allow betable to give out their own sub-licenses to anybody without that vetting and without that oversight is a mystery that will shake out the second that this is actually operational, instead of hypothetical.

Ventrurebeat/Techcruch/Pando are just press release aggregators paid for by the same people who they are covering. It would be cool if someone actually called the UK gaming commission and asked them what they think about this sort of sub-licensing of their license.

You wont get a license on that kind of budget. Try X,XXX,XXX. Just for the license. + a ~2 year process/wait.

This due diligence has surely been done, look at their list of investors. Those guys aren't putting money into a business like this based on a slick pitchdeck.

I will take a wild guess that if it´s basically legal loophole situation, eventually somebody will be so pissed off and something against it will be implemented.
Maybe, something along the lines of the wire act.

EU member states seem to have very little regards towards EU underlying contracts, otherwise segregating players and randomly overtaxing would not be such a issue as it lately is.
First they seriously **** up with the regulations and then they start fixing something with reversing taken steps and calling it regulation of the industry.