GameAccount Network is the world's largest Internet

Internet

The Internet is a global system of interconnected computer networks that use the standard Internet protocol suite to serve billions of users worldwide...

 Skill Gaming Network. The company is based in Soho in Central London

London

London is the capital city of :England and the :United Kingdom, the largest metropolitan area in the United Kingdom, and the largest urban zone in the European Union by most measures. Located on the River Thames, London has been a major settlement for two millennia, its history going back to its...

, England

England

England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Scotland to the north and Wales to the west; the Irish Sea is to the north west, the Celtic Sea to the south west, with the North Sea to the east and the English Channel to the south separating it from continental...

.

Since its launch in 2002 it has become the world's largest skill gaming network, having attracted over 2,000,000 players through some of the largest names in online gaming such as William Hill, Gala Coral Eurobet

Gala Group

Gala Coral Group Ltd is a British betting shop, bingo and casino operator owned by private equity houses Candover Investments, Cinven and Permira. In October 2005 it merged with Coral Eurobet for £2.18 billion. The acquisition made it the UK's third largest bookmaker and largest bingo operator. It...

, Paddy Power

Paddy Power

Paddy Power is Ireland’s largest bookmaker. Offline it conducts business through a chain of licensed betting offices and by operating Ireland's largest telephone betting service. Online it offers sports betting, online poker, online bingo, online casino games and spread betting...

 and Sportingbet plc

Sportingbet

Sportingbet plc is a British e-gaming operator. It is listed on the London Stock Exchange and is a constituent of the FTSE SmallCap Index.-History:The Company was founded by Mark Blandford in 1997. Sportingbet acquired Paradise Poker in October 2004...

.

Sometimes referred to as the Betfair

Betfair

Betfair is the world's largest Internet betting exchange. The company is based in Hammersmith in West London, England. Since Betfair was launched in June 2000 it has become the largest online betting company in the UK and the largest betting exchange in the world. Betfair claim to have over 3...

 of skill games, the company has created a unique community for players to chat and play person-to-person games. Games offered include backgammon

Backgammon

Backgammon is one of the oldest board games for two players. The playing pieces are moved according to the roll of dice, and players win by removing all of their pieces from the board. There are many variants of backgammon, most of which share common traits...

, gin rummy

Gin rummy

Gin rummy, or simply gin, is a two-player card game created in 1909 by Elwood T. Baker and his son C. Graham Baker. According to John Scarne, Gin evolved from 18th-century Whiskey Poker and was created with the intention of being faster than standard rummy, but less spontaneous than knock...

, dominoes

Dominoes

Dominoes generally refers to the collective gaming pieces making up a domino set or to the subcategory of tile games played with domino pieces. In the area of mathematical tilings and polyominoes, the word domino often refers to any rectangle formed from joining two congruent squares edge to edge...

 and multiplayer blackjack

Blackjack

Blackjack, also known as Twenty-one or Vingt-et-un , is the most widely played casino banking game in the world...

.

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

Smurfit Kappa Group

The Smurfit Kappa Group is Europe's leading corrugated packaging company, following the merger of Jefferson Smurfit Group and Kappa Packaging. This merger was finalized by the end of 2005...

 packaging multinational, Andrew Black

Andrew Black

Andrew Black is a poker player from Belfast, Northern Ireland, who presently resides in Dublin.Black played cards with his mother when he was younger, and began playing more seriously in 1986, whilst he was studying for a law degree at Trinity College, Dublin...

, founder of Betfair

Betfair

Betfair is the world's largest Internet betting exchange. The company is based in Hammersmith in West London, England. Since Betfair was launched in June 2000 it has become the largest online betting company in the UK and the largest betting exchange in the world. Betfair claim to have over 3...

, and Dermot Desmond

Dermot Desmond

Dermot Desmond is an Irish businessman and financier. He is estimated to be worth €1.45billion and is ranked by the Sunday Independent as the sixth-richest person in Ireland.-Background and education:...

 founder of Betdaq

BETDAQ

BETDAQ is the trading name of Global Betting Exchange, a betting exchange operator based in Ireland. It is the second largest betting exchange operator in the market, with Betfair being the largest....

.

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

Poker

Poker is a family of card games that share betting rules and usually hand rankings. Poker games differ in how the cards are dealt, how hands may be formed, whether the high or low hand wins the pot in a showdown , limits on bet sizes, and how many rounds of betting are allowed.In most modern 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 and Paddy Power

Paddy Power

Paddy Power is Ireland’s largest bookmaker. Offline it conducts business through a chain of licensed betting offices and by operating Ireland's largest telephone betting service. Online it offers sports betting, online poker, online bingo, online casino games and spread betting...

 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

Gala Group

Gala Coral Group Ltd is a British betting shop, bingo and casino operator owned by private equity houses Candover Investments, Cinven and Permira. In October 2005 it merged with Coral Eurobet for £2.18 billion. The acquisition made it the UK's third largest bookmaker and largest bingo operator. It...

, 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 Gambling Commission and operates as a software supplier to the gambling industry under this licence. In the same year they also received an Associate certificate from the Alderney Gaming Commission.

In 2008, Nigel Payne, previously CEO of Sportingbet

Sportingbet

Sportingbet plc is a British e-gaming operator. It is listed on the London Stock Exchange and is a constituent of the FTSE SmallCap Index.-History:The Company was founded by Mark Blandford in 1997. Sportingbet acquired Paradise Poker in October 2004...

 joined the GameAccount Network board as Chairman. The Company re-branded as GameAccount Network and moved to larger premises in the West End of London. GameAccount also launched the Italian Skill Games Network on 29 September 2008, with SNAI S.p.A. as its first licensee for regulated online Skill Games in the newly regulated Italian market.

In 2009, David Hudd re-joined the GameAccount Network board as Chairman replacing Nigel Payne who stepped down in September 2009. David Hudd is currently a director of several companies in the UK and the chairman of publicly-listed Falkland Island Holdings Plc. On 23 November 2009 GameAccount Network launched tournament-based Skill Games for Lottomatica.

In 2010, GameAccount Network launched its first Italian cultural game Briscola and readied its 'true multiplayer' gaming platform for commercial launch offering true multiplayer cash games for Three Card Brag.

In May 2011, GameAccount Network won the Skill Games Supplier of the Year Award from eGaming Review Magazine, cementing GameAccount Network's leading position in supplying online skill-based games.

In 2011, GameAccount Network launched the first in a series of online 'ports' or conversions of offline, land-based machine casino slot games manufactured by global casino slot game manufacturer Aristocrat Leisure Limited (ASX: ALL). Aristocrat's USA subsidiary Aristocrat Technologies, Inc. subsequently partnered with GameAccount Network in order to offer an online platform solution to its 200+ land-based casinos in the USA in preparation for expected USA online gaming regulation. By year-end 2011 GameAccount Network had delivered several Aristocrat casino slot games into the online regulated market in Europe including 50 Lions, Queen of the Nile and More Chilli, playable for fun or for real money.

USA & UIGEA Position

In October 2006, after the USA Government introduced the UIGEA legislation to prohibit online gaming in the USA, GameAccount Network closed all accounts opened by USA residents despite providing only games of pure skill for free and for real money in tournament formats.

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. In 2010, the company acquired certain assets previously held by The Moneygaming Corporation Limited trading as MoneyGaming.com and relaunched MoneyGaming.com on 19 January 2010 as a member of the GameAccount Network.