Internet Gambling

In the past companies like PayPal predominated the online gambling payment market. This is no longer the case, however, since PayPal recently decided to stop taking gambling payments due to the uncertainty of the law. The predominant market player at this juncture is Neteller, which has the deepest pockets of the sector.

PayPal, the Ebay-owned e-payment financier, used to control the gaming sector-until it swore off the business in 2002, citing legal risks. A year later PayPal paid $10 million to settle Justice Department allegations that it violated provisions of the Patriot Act barring the transmission of funds known to have been derived from a crime. (Federal law effectively bans online gambling sites from operating in the U.S., but it doesn't prevent American gamblers from using them.).

Neteller, headquartered on the Isle of Man. It claims to handle transactions for roughly 90% of all online gaming sites and compensates for chargebacks by getting as much as 8.9% per transaction versus PayPal's 2.9%. To date the company boasts 1.5 million customers (versus PayPal's 64 million accounts) and enrolls 3,000 new members every day. Last year it netted $33 million on $82.6 million in sales. In the last year its shares, traded on the AIM London Stock Exchange, have tripled to the equivalent of $11.56. The solution is 100% own branded.

Online gambling, now $9.8 billion a year, will grow an average 13% annually through 2010, estimates industry tracker Christiansen Capital Advisors. According to the American Gaming Association, online gambling, with more than 2000 Web sites, has grown from zero in 1995 to a more than $6 billion industry today. And that is expected to grow to more than $16 billion by 2009.

Internet gambling has become a substantial phenomenon in the gaming industry space.

Expertica provides a range of services to the gaming sector, enabling websites to access a range of services through one interface.

These services include:

• Payment Infrastructure - multiple pay in types in multiple currencies and territories
• Fx engine - integration to major fx provider, enabling vastly reduced exchange rates
• User verification service through third parties
• Visa /MasterCard pre-paid cards for low cost international payouts
• User profiling and limit setting - intelligent solution that enables a risk score to be given to new and existing applicants

Aggregation of banking relationships, enabling a transaction cost model that reduces as we grow.