Social Gaming Association receives official launch
Industry organisation to push for greater self-regulation of social gaming companies - hopes to establish executive committee in coming weeks.
Social gaming industry body the Social Gaming Association (SGA) has secured its first paid member following its official launch last week.
Headed up by former Sportingbet European legal counsel and iGaming Counsel founding partner Stuart Tilly, the SGA hopes to name its executive committee before the end of 2012.
It already has an as-yet-unnamed US company among its members, while Andrew Hughes, CEO of mobile social casino business AbZorba Games, is the first member of the executive committee.
Tilly told eGaming Review: “We are looking towards social games publishers but we are also keen to get games suppliers as well as real-money gambling operators on board.
“Now it’s a question of putting forward our views that the industry needs to do more as a collective with regards to self-regulation, which is what we stand for.”
His views echo statements made by PKR president and founder Jez San at last week’s Social Gambling Conference in London, where San argued that while there is not necessarily a need to regulate the social games industry as with the real-money gambling industry, “providers of social gaming products should take more responsible attitudes.”
Paid and free memberships to the SGA are available, with the former targeted at publishers, suppliers and governments keen to access SGA’s real-time information library.
The SGA has also been in contact with various European regulators and is set to meet with the UK Gambling Commission next month, and Tilly explained: “We want regulators on board [because] their approval will help us achieve our goals.
“We have had initial conversations with European-based egaming regulators, those with formal online gambling regulations already in place. They have been supportive so far and we are hopeful of converting this support into membership [of the SGA].”