European i-Gaming Congress and Expo

At the European i-Gaming Congress and Expo held at the beginning of October in Barcelona there was an interesting incident that caught the attention of a few online bingo industry experts.

While debating the predilection for gambling monopolies in many European states, Ron Martin from Neteller came out with a beauty when he made the following remark: “…the preceding year has been surprisingly straightforward for Neteller and not much fun. The Neteller brand has been damaged and repair work is in progress”.

Certainly, online bingo players will keep in mind that Neteller’s plight began with the advent of the US’ UIGEA law and had little to do with any European state-run gambling monopolies. But, I found the discreet nature of the remark on his company’s recent plight almost upsetting.

To call Neteller’s encounter with US authorities ‘a matchless and dangerous situation’ for a business caught up in the reputation-heavy industry of online payment processing would not minimize the essential truth. As most online bingo players know, things got pretty tense for Neteller and their US customer base who started to doubt if they would ever get their money again once US authorities latched on to the Isle of Man-based company.

Nevertheless, everything ended just fine and Neteller are in the middle of returning payments to those US customers who saw their accounts frozen for almost six months as Neteller faced off with US Department of Justice. More, things seem to start working just well for the company as they branch out their interests away from the US online gambling market.