Gameaccount
| type = Gaming community
| genre = Online gambling
| foundation = 2001
| founder = Dave McDowell and Kevin O'Neal
| location_city = London
| location_country = United Kingdom
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| homepage = http://www.gameaccount.com/
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Gameaccount is the world's largest Internet Skill Gaming Network. The company is based in Soho in Central London, England.
Since its launch in 2002 it has become the world's largest skill gaming network, having attracted over 1,000,000 players through some of the largest names in online gaming such as William Hill, Gala Coral Eurobet, Paddy Power and Sportingbet plc.
Sometimes referred to as the Betfair of skill games, the company has created a unique community for players to chat and play person-to-person games. Games offered include backgammon, gin rummy, dominoes and multiplayer blackjack.
History
The two founders, Dave McDowell and Kevin O'Neal set up the company in 2000 and began working on a multiplayer gaming platform. The company was folded into Cantor Fitzgerald in 2001 and then demerged from that same company in 2002. Investment rounds in 2002, 2004 and 2006 brought in a variety of high profile investors such as the Smurfit family, who recently floated the Smurfit Kappa Group packaging multinational, Andrew Black, founder of Betfair, and Dermot Desmond founder of Betdaq.
The founders originally intended the company to monetize popular first person shooter (FPS) games but then settled on online sports games such as golf, pool and darts. Later additions to the early fun game portfolio were a scrabble type game, word-noodle, various solitaire games and blocs.
In 2005-6 the company's direction changed in that games of pure 'skill' (such as pool or blocs) were replaced with games of skill and chance combined such as gin rummy and backgammon. These games proved more successful as, like the online poker phenomenon they appealed to both beginners and professional players. In addition, the company also adopted more of a business to business strategy than the traditional operator or business to consumer route. Major bookmakers were signed up such as William Hill, Sportingbet, Paddy Power and Betcris on whose sites a new product 'tab' called 'skill' was offered under their branding.
The Gameaccount financial transaction platform allowed bookmaker clients to use the same account for the skill games as for all of their sports, casino and poker products.
More bookmakers were added in 2007-8 including Gala Coral Group, Boylesports, Bluesquare and Stanjames.
In 2005 the company was awarded the industry's Award for Innovation for their Tournament Blackjack (person-to-person) game by egaming review.
In 2007, Gameaccount became one of the very first UK gaming operators and suppliers to be licensed by the new UK Gaming Commission. In the same year they also received an Associate certificate from the Alderney Gaming Commission.
In 2008, Nigel Payne, previously CEO of Sportingbet joined the Gameaccount board as Chairman.
US Controversy
In October 2006 after the US Government introduced legislation to prohibit online gaming in the US, Gameaccount closed all US accounts. . Some of its business partners also suffered from the US policy including Sportingbet whose Chairman was arrested in the US and whose US business was eventually sold for £1. .
Legal Controversy
In 2006 Gameaccount became embroiled in a bitter legal dispute with former business partner Cantor Fitzgerald. An agreement from 2002 prohibited Gameaccount from using software developed within Cantor for use with third party bookmakers. Gameaccount agreed to compensation for use of a golf game in conjunction with bookmakers and agreed to submit to damages. This, was, however, considered unsatisfactory to Cantor Fitzgerald who sued for copyright infringement for other parts of the system. The dispute was eventually settled in 2007 and in his judgement, Daniel Alexander found that a Cantor database that was still on the Gameaccount servers, though not used was still technically in breach of copyright. He noted that "Although it wasn't actually performing the function for which it was designed (i.e. as a full-function database), GA Money was stored, backed up, reproduced in part and regularly regularly accessed in order to perform the limited function for which Gameaccount used it between 2004, following its arrangements with UKBetting, and 2006. Much of this case revolved around various interpretations of the words 'use' and 'copy', especially in the context of databases. Effectively, the ruling suggests that to have a dormant database sitting on servers does still constitute usage and copying.
Acquisitions, partners and brands
Gameaccount operates a gaming network supplying bookmakers mentioned earlier. It also operates a number of smaller consumer facing brands such as casinorip.com and worldgammon.com. In 2004 the company acquired the URL and customer assets of treasuregames.com and in 2008 the company acquired the same for a large backgammon site called gamesgrid.com.
External links
de:Gameaccount es:Gameaccount