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Man of Mystery

I opened my Betfair account on 22nd April 2003. I was one of the first subscribers to BetTrader and was a founding partner of JuiceStorm.com on 17th February 2007.

The JuiceStorm team built TradeHost for profitable automated trading and betting on Betfair in the UK, IE, AU and US horse racing markets. TradeHost Lite started in 2013 and is free forever.

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Well, not quite. But it got your attention. 🙂

There was a meeting of the The Malta Remote Gaming Council (MRGC) and the most informative presentation was made very professionally by GBGC who are probably the most credible specialist international gambling consultancy in the world. The GBGC speaker at the meeting was Warwick Bartlett, founder of Global Betting and Gaming Consultants who are responsible for the production of the Global Gambling Report. Warwick has been a consultant to the Government of Malta for 2 years.

Now to the point of my headline. In 2001 Stan James decided they wanted an offshore gaming licence and, at that time, Gibraltar weren’t issuing any more. So the powers that be looked at the map for a jurisdiction which had easy reach from the UK and was in Europe. It was decided that Malta should be approached who weren’t, at that time, involved in the gaming market at all.

A meeting was arranged with the Maltese Ambassador in London by Stan James but the directors were concerned that Malta being very Catholic there would be difficulties because they would frown on gambling. They outlined their plans for Malta to grant a remote gaming licence to Stan James and after considering the revenue possibilities the deal was done in three days! Commerce beat the church in to a poor second place and a new Industry for Malta was born.

Stan James only used their licence for nine months and are now licensed in Gibraltar although their Maltese license remains valid. There are now over 100 active remote gaming licenses which generate £16million growing annually for the Maltese government. And another 100 in the pipeline. But if it hadn’t been for that meeting in London Malta may well have ignored the remote gaming market altogether.

And now to the point of my headline. Malta is the size of the Isle of Wight approximately. Unfortunately, there are only two internet paths which all global internet traffic go through to Italy from Malta. They are provided by Datastream and Vodafone. Half of their capacity is used by remote gaming companies and the other half is shared amongst the resident population of 380,000. In the summer the population is well over 1 million due to holiday makers.

So, did Stan really steal my bandwidth? Well, no. But they certainly caused the problem by prompting Malta to set up remote gaming licenses in the first place. So I’ll never have a bet with them again!

And for the many Maltese readers of my ramblings if you haven’t already then join my “Campaign to receive the internet speed you pay for in Malta” Facebook group started just over a year ago. It now has 174 members but to be heard we need more.

Seriously though, I’m only joking Peter, please don’t close my account! Many of you will know that Stan James never actually existed; the name is a hybrid of Steve Fisher’s name with that of his wife Ann. The firm has only a few betting shops in the UK, but now has a major Internet and telephone betting presence in Gibraltar, which handles several millions of pounds on a daily basis. Over the past decade, Stan James has developed a name for inventive markets, attractive prices and especially, in-running betting.

Stan James has one of the best online betting sites. Why not try it out by using Oddsmatcher? They have also offered an online casino facility since 2005. They have a unique approach, with no downloading of software and games that load quickly and easily.

Poker is a fairly new addition to the Stan James website. In keeping with the rest of the site, the poker room is classy looking, with highly playable games. An easily achieved $100 matched sign up bonus is available, along with monthly bonuses and substantial prizes for tournaments.

The Stan James sportsbook is also absolutely huge, with online betting opportunities on just about every imaginable sport. There are also numerous novelty markets, including the next General Election, along with frivolous markets such as Eurovision, TV shows like American Idol, I’d Do Anything, etc. Stan James is consistently competitive with prices across a whole range of sports. Very useful for Oddsmatcher.