Changes pending at the IGC

Igaming news published the following:

http://www.igamingnews.com/index.cfm?page=artlisting&tid=5292

Monday, August 16, 2004

Major Changes for Interactive Gaming Council
The Interactive Gaming Council is in a state of transition. The trade association recently parted ways with members involved in the bookmaking business and will soon have a new chairman.

Keith Furlong, deputy director for the association, said the board of directors has been informed that Chairman Sue Schneider will not be running for reelection this year.

Schneider, CEO of River City Group and publisher of Interactive Gaming News, has served as chairman since co-founding the association in 1996. She is leaving to focus on new projects at River City Group.

“I’ve served as chair for eight years and I’m stepping down to devote some time to some new endeavors that the company is getting involved with,” she said.

Furlong said Schneider’s presence will be missed.

“She is the IGC,” he said. “It will be difficult to replace her, but I am confident that between the contributions of our existing leadership and everyone on the board as a group, the void can be filled.”

For years, Furlong said, Schneider has been a prime mover in the interactive gambling industry. “It will be strange not having her in an official roll,” he added, “but we will still have her around in the industry and be able to use her expertise and insight.”

Schneider’s replacement will be picked this fall, after the new elections are held for the eight board positions on the IGC. The board elects the chair and vice-chair from its ranks.

Along with new leadership, the IGC will experience a change in the makeup of its membership. In a strategic move aimed at strengthening its lobbying position in Washington, D.C., the association has decided to make sports book owners and operators who accept play from U.S. bettors ineligible for membership. It has also asked current members fitting this category to withdraw their membership.

“There was a lot of discussion and debate about how to handle this, but in the end we decided it was best for us to distance ourselves from operators who were accepting play from U.S. residents,” Furlong explained. “There are a lot of upstanding and credible operators that we are going to lose, but in order for us to engage in effective lobbying in D.C. we had to show that our group wasn’t about breaking existing laws.”

Whether online casinos are permissible under federal law isn’t clear; however, a strong case can be made that online sports books are not.

“As this issue has evolved over the last year, it has put the association in an undesirable position in which it became difficult to proceed with certain activities that would clearly benefit some of its members while at the same time threatening to undermine the cause of other members,” Furlong said.

He added, “This policy change has nothing to do with the reputation or standing of any specific member or potential member, or the character of individuals involved with those companies. It is simply the result of a difficult business decision. As with all IGC policies, this policy is subject to ongoing review.”

The effects of the shift have already been felt; two longstanding board members, Bryan Abboud of IGW Software and Alistair Assheton of VIP Management Services are on their way out. Abboud is continuing as a director until his term expires Aug. 31. He was eligible to stand again for re-election to the board, and his company was eligible to maintain IGC membership, but he opted to leave the IGC after his term expires.

Assheton decided to resign instead of waiting for his term to expire at the end of August.