Valerio: On the subject of it moving quickly, with regard to the dates you just mentioned, let’s suppose that I wanted to keep track of a particular applicant. Now, being from the poker community I won’t deny that a lot of us have a special interest in PokerStars. Leaving completely aside any speculation over whether what’s going to happen with their application, how soon, be it for PokerStars or any other applicant who still has not received their approval, should we have an idea how they can proceed?
Rebuck: Well, certainly you’ll have a good sense by the 26th. Actually, by the 21st, but again, just because a company has not been approved by that date doesn’t mean they’re going to be denied. They may still owe us more information, they may not have completed our work and I’m going to have to tell them, “I can’t get it done.”
I would say that anybody who is not going to make it, you more than likely will find that out from the company themselves because you’ll see a situation very similar to what you just saw in Massachusetts where the company that is being evaluated withdraws from the process. That’s a common action in the gaming world.
Now, they may withdraw because they just don’t want to deal with you anymore and they figure that regulators are being unreasonable, they may withdraw because they see the handwriting on the wall, or they may withdraw because they don’t think there’s a business opportunity here for them anymore where they can make money. So I don’t want people to believe that a withdrawal automatically connotes that the company has findings of unsuitability because that’s not true.
More than likely, if we have the ability to do so, when you look at these companies, you look at the individuals who are running them to see if they have the right character, suitability, and what are the tentacles of the leadership as such that it taints the whole company, or if it’s such you just cut out the person and they get replaced by somebody who is of good character and honesty and integrity.
As a regulator, I don’t like to be in a position of killing a company unless I can show that the leadership, the tentacles of leadership are such that they have unduly influenced the operation of the company so that no matter who you take out, you can’t correct the problems that you’ve identified.
I think history will show that in New Jersey, a lot of times the person will divest their interest. They’ll leave the industry. They’ll separate themselves, or they’ll just take the company out and say, “We’re not dealing with you guys anymore. We can’t live under this oppressive oversight.” Okay, it’s their decision. That’s where we are.
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