Gaming Sites

[TonyK]

Can someone teel me if we can host gambling game sites like Poker and other card games?

[Vixen]

You can only host them if gambling is legal in their location.

[TonyK]

Thanks Vixen

[TonyK]

I'm re-opening this thread to thank Vixen for misleading me. You see, I asked if it was acceptable to host gambling game sites like Poker and other card games and Vixen told me “you can only host them if gambling is legal in their location.”

I interpreted Vixens’ post to mean if gambling is allowed at the clients location then I can host the site. Well, my client is in a country where gambling is legal and I’m in Canada where there is no law against hosting gambling sites, so I didn’t see a problem. I went ahead, hosted the sites and two days ago at 2am. my client called to ask why I suspended his sites. My first reaction was I didn’t suspended your sites so he said why don’t you try them which I did and to my surprise when the page appeared all I could see was “Site has been suspended.”

Do you know how small this made me feel? How do you explain that you didn’t know the site was suspended?

Thank you Vortech for pulling the plug on my clients’ sites and you didn’t have the decency to tell me first. Come to think of it, you still haven’t informed me yet. Do you not understand I’m your client and if I did something deal with me? My clients are not yours, so if you have a beef with one of my sites then take it up with me not them.

To top it all off even after I submitted a trouble ticket explaining what had happened this is the response I received, “These sites were suspended as gambling sites are illegal in our location. We cannot host them. James” No explanation, no one investigated the incident, NOTHING.

Gambling is permitted in many countries you sell hosting to, so what happens then? Since no one would answer my questions in private on my trouble ticket would you please answer me here, so everyone can be enlightened

[admin]

We can't host any of them because our systems are located in the US where it is not legal. We were unaware of this until we did some research. We sent all gambling sites on our network an email telling them they must be removed.

[Vixen]

TonyK, I did not intentionally mislead you and I honestly don't appreciate you implying that I did. At the time that you asked the question in 2004, gambling sites were allowed as long as the site owner was not located somewhere that gambling was illegal. During a recent audit of Hsphere we found 100+ gambling sites so we dug into the Florida law to make sure gambling sites were still indeed legal to host, because as we all know laws change. We discovered that it is a FELONY to enable anyone to gamble within the state of Florida unless you are on an Indian Reservation or within International Waters. Neither of those scenarios apply to us therefore, management made the decision to request removal of all gambling sites from our network.

Every reseller that hosted a gambling site was sent an email stating which domains needed to be removed. If we received no reply within 24 hours, we checked the accounts and if the domain was still within Hsphere we suspended them.

It was a decision that had to be made because no account we host is worth this company being tried for illegal activities. Regardless of whether or not gambling is legal where the customer resides, we can not and will not host any gambling sites. When in doubt about the compliance of a site you can always submit a ticket to the Sales Dept and ask before taking on the site.

[Brangwyn]

A heads up on the forum as well as the emails might have proved beneficial for some, chances are if TonyK missed the email, he may well have caught it on the forum instead.

[mresell]

Yeah, I understand that the gambling thing is different on a national level even. Tonyk I would not have relied on year old info. Tho maybe it could have been handled better. Laws have changed alot over the last few years. However, a public notice does seem like a good idea. Well we got one now.

[TonyK]

Ok now I know, but no one is going to tell me that you send me an email and Brangwyn can you please point me to the post about gambling

[mresell]

Yeah, it is the pits, but anything that I think is iffy I double check and often won't deal with. Just helps make things easier. It is silly in a way...like many things in US. They have lotteries, but won't allow gambling...hmmmm. Personally, I don't enjoy either.

[Brangwyn]

Originally Posted by TonyK

Brangwyn can you please point me to the post about gambling

???

I was pointing out that they (Vortech) could have posted here as well as emailing customers to try and avoid what's just happened to you.

[Vixen]

Originally Posted by TonyK

Ok now I know, but no one is going to tell me that you send me an email and Brangwyn can you please point me to the post about gambling

TonyK, why do you insist on implying that I am lying to you?? It is not necessary and it is down right rude. I would like to point out that you had more than 1 gambling domain under your account. Below is a copy of the email that you say we did not send you. I have altered the email address for obvious reasons.

Subject: Abuse: royaltraincasino.com, luckybreakcasinos.com, leukospirgoscasino.com
From: lick****@***.com
Reply-To: lick****@***.com
Date: Mon, 11 Jul 2005 21:46:03 -0400

Hello,

It has recently come to our attention that site(s) hosted by yourself or your customers violate our TOS. Management has deemed these sites inappropriate for our shared server environment. Please remove these domains from our servers within 24 hours or we will be forced to take further action. You can notify us that you have completed their removal by responding to this warning.

The following is the list of the domains which must be removed:

royaltraincasino.com
luckybreakcasinos.com
leukospirgoscasino.com

David
Vortech, Inc.
Phone: 407.323.5634
http://vortechhosting.com
http://matrixreseller.com
http://rapidcolo.com

The email was sent on 7/11/05 at 9:46pm. The sites were not suspended until 7/14/05 at 11:47am, well over 48 hours later and this was due to the fact that you did not respond to the email, nor did you suspend or remove the domains as requested.

[Vixen]

Originally Posted by Brangwyn

???

I was pointing out that they (Vortech) could have posted here as well as emailing customers to try and avoid what's just happened to you.

TOS violations have never been posted here (to my knowledge) which is probably why no one ever made the post. We handle TOS violations with the individual customer. I am sure Brad will read this thread and if he feels that we should post these things in the future, he will let you and us know.

[TonyK]

Vixen had I received this email will I be here now? This is the reason I used a trouble ticket, so I can avoid all this. If James told me what is going on instead of this cut and dry reply to my ticket we would be here now. “These sites were suspended as gambling sites are illegal in our location. We cannot host them. James”
I rather use the ticket system then this forum anytime, But don’t treat me like five year old, I’m paying costumer not enemy number one, it only takes few minutes to explain what is going on please do it. I didn’t received the email for one reason or an other, was it to much trouble to send me a copy of this email in the first place.
By the way Vixen I’m not implying that that you are lying to me, all I’m trying to say is, your support system is not the best.

Now we know that gambling sites are not allowed, can you please tell me if gambling portals are allowed no directed gambling just advertising and information about gambling?

[Vixen]

TonyK, I posted the email because of what you said in your previous post, which did imply that I was lying in regards to the email being sent. No one here is treating you like an enemy. You were the person that came here, said I mislead you and then stated we did not inform you about the gambling sites, which we did indeed do. Maybe you should ASK what happened before accusing us of something. After the accusations, I figured the way to put this to rest was to post the email so that way everyone who read this post could see that we did indeed send you a notice.

How is our support system "not the best"?? An email was sent and you were given well over the 24 hour time period before the accounts were suspended. I am sure James' response was due to the fact that he looked in the Abuse tickets and saw that an email had been sent to you about these domains and we had received no response from you, until we suspended the domains ourselves. Unfortunately, this happens alot; customers ignore warnings until we take the matter into our own hands. I am not saying that is what you did but it does happen.

If the email address on your account has an issue with receiving emails then I would recommend that you submit a payment form so we can update the information to make sure you get any future notices.

Lastly, to answer your question in regards to gambling portals, etc; those are not allowed either. Any site that enables someone to gamble whether on that direct site or linking to another site is not allowed.