Something Is Missing Here

You might have heard that yesterday the Kahnawake Gaming Commission finally released its report on the Absolute Poker audit. The audit was conducted by Gaming Associates, and the report summarizes that group’s findings as well as the KGC’s planned course of action resulting from those findings.

I’m not gonna get too far into the particulars of either the KGC’s report or Absolute Poker’s response to the report. I did, however, notice a fairly obvious problem with the audit’s findings which I thought worth mentioning. Tell me if you see this one, too.

In the report, one reads a summary of what Gaming Associates believes to have happened at Absolute Poker last August, September, and possibly part of October of last year -– the so-called “impugned activities,” as the authors of the report comprehensively refer to ’em.

The report then lists items from the KGC’s “Regulations Concerning Interactive Gaming” the auditors believe Absolute Poker to have breached. That list contains exactly four items:

261. A person must not, in relation to an authorised game, dishonestly obtain a benefit by any act, practice or scheme or otherwise dishonestly obtain a benefit through the use of any device, equipment or software.

270. In the event an Authorised Client Provider, Approved Agent or any other employee or agent of the Commission becomes aware, or reasonably suspects, that:

(a) a person, by a dishonest or unlawful act affecting the conduct or playing of an authorised game, has obtained a benefit for the person or another person; or

(b) there has been an unlawful act affecting the conduct or playing of an authorised game; within twenty-four (24) hours of becoming aware of, or suspecting, the dishonest or unlawful act, the person who becomes aware must give the Commission a written notice advising the Commission of all facts known about the matter.

245. Unless the information previously contained in the gaming record is kept in another way under an approval of the Commission, an Authorised Client Provider must keep a gaming record for five years after the end of the transaction to which the record relates.

275. A person must not obstruct an Inspector in the exercise of a power or someone helping an Inspector in the exercise of a power.

The report then concludes with a list of sanctions Absolute Poker must abide by if they hope ever again to be one of those “gaming operations that hold a valid and subsisting permit” granted by the KGC.

All righty, then. Let us take a look again at those four items in the KGC’s regulations the audit found Absolute Poker to have breached. Notice anything missing?

How about this one regarding “Confidentiality of player information”:

194. An Authorised Client Provider or an employee or other person engaged in duties related to the conduct of an authorised game must not, without authorisation under the following section:

(a) disclose information about the name, or other identifying particulars, of a player; or

(b) use information about a player for a purpose other than the purpose for which the information was given.

Remember that Excel file mistakenly sent to CrazyMarco containing all of the email addresses, IP addresses, and other information regarding the play of those who participated in the $100K Guarantee on 9/12/07? You know, the one without which everything else listed here may never have been proven?

Absolute Poker without a doubt failed to conform to item #194 of the KGC’s regulations, but somehow the auditors likewise failed to acknowledge that in their report. AP probably could be said to have breached item #195 (“Authorisation for disclosure of information”) here, too. (No time today to look through all 370 items in the KGC’s regs, but others could have been overlooked as well.)

Not that we expected perfection, but that’s a friggin’ glaring omission. Ain’t it?