I have just finished reading an article that is posted on The Prescription (www.theprescription.com) entitled "Sports Book Owners Furious Over Posting Forums", which was written by Sting. I don't know Sting personally and, to the best of my knowledge, he and I have never even corresponded by e-mail or in any other way. But, I have enjoyed many of Sting's articles, which always seemed to be written from an "insider's" point of view. From what I gather, Sting often travels to the various countries where many of the sportsbooks he writes about are domiciled, particularly Costa Rica.

From his articles, I gather that Sting is a bit of a party animal and is not opposed to raising a glass or two when the day's work is done and my attitude toward that is only one of envy, not disapproval.

But, I think Sting got a bad load of Rum on his most recent trip, judging by his ramblings in the aforementioned article. You can read it for yourself, but he basically starts off with: "The sports book operators are all furious over some of the nonsense that has appeared on the posting forums, including the one affiliated with this Web site."

Then the rambling begins. Sting goes on to explain that the sports book operators are "completely fed up" with how the message boards are run, citing "forum wars" and the "constant flaming" as problems that, unless they are "dealt with immediately" will cause the end of these forums.

Let me sum up what I'm getting from this so far: The operators have a problem with the forums and if nothing is done soon, they (the forums) will go out of business. Why would the sports book operators have a problem with that? They evidently hate the forums, so let them die a terrible death.

Ah, but we get more insight when Sting tells us that many of these sports books are contemplating the removal of their ads from such sites. Now here's the kicker to this: "With the Prescription.com looking to go global in the upcoming months, this type of nonsense simply cannot be tolerated here."

The Prescription is going global? Aren't they already global, or are they operating on a different Internet? Or, does he mean the the Prescription is going public, as in selling shares? I honestly don't know, but it sure appears to me that the Prescription is going to be a lot more active in moderating their message boards and, while I'm not saying they'll remove posts that are critical of their advertisers, the thought does come to mind.

I have always recommended The Prescription as the # 1 sportsbook "watchdog" site, but will that be the case in the future? I fully realize that none of us in the "portal" business asked to be made "watchdogs" of the Internet gambling industry (hell, we don't even want to be a portal; we liked being an "e-zine"), but due to the lack of regulation, our role just sort of evolved. Personally, I love to catch casinos using rigged software and then exposing them. Such situations don't happen at sports books because the outcome of every game is public knowledge, of course.

What happens at sports books who want to cheat their customers is that they close their doors and walk away with all the $$$. Sting recognizes this in his article and offers the following advice: "Web site operators need to be focused more on how to help players get paid because such fiasco's (sic) only hurt the industry as a whole."

Hey, Sting! What about focusing on telling players where NOT to play, so as to avoid delays of payments in the first place? What about getting those who run the sports books to focus on paying players in a timely manner; they sure accept the deposits quickly enough!

Many of the Internet casinos and sports books were purposely set up in jurisdictions with little or no regulation and now they're fed up with the "regulation" that happens on the message boards. I understand that there's a lot of B.S. that gets posted on these sites, but as imperfect as they are, the message boards serve a very useful public purpose.

For example, we recently were asked by the Wizard of Odds to verify some data that indicated Casino Bar was cheating players at their Blackjack game. We did so and arrived at the same conclusion as the Wiz that the game is rigged. Within two days of posting his findings, the Wiz received a letter from Casino Bar's attorneys and, for his own reasons, decided to pull his article to allow Casino Bar time to respond to the allegations. (My report on our experience with Casino Bar can be found on the Blacklist Page; we were not contacted by the casino's attorneys). The Wiz's story was pulled, so how was anyone going to find out that they should think twice before playing at Casino Bar? Well, they could read it here, but we get only about 1000 visitors each day, so some people might get scammed because they don't know about us.

Riding to the rescue were the message boards. The story quickly went out that you should wait until the matter is resolved over at the Wizard of Odds site before playing at Casino Bar. I can fully understand the knashing of teeth that must have occurred at Casino Bar over this, but the people who read the boards on a regular basis aren't stupid, yet I'm afraid some casino/sports book operators think they are. A lot of messages like, "this place cheats" and "so-and-so's game is rigged" and others of that type get posted, but it's not difficult to separate the wheat from the chaff if you're a player, so I'm sure that Casino Bar's business dropped off quite a bit. At least I hope it did, because I'm fully convinced they were cheating.

But back to Sting's thoughts on this matter (and I quote): "The constant bashing of 'reputable' sports book operators has got to stop because (they) are completely fed up."

He then goes on to the true "bottom line" of his article: "And since THEY (his emphasis) pay our bills to insure sites like the Presicription.com stay free, it is very likely forum sites will need to impose a 'membership fee' in the very near future."

And, like so many other things in life, it all boils down to money.

Now let me see if I've got this straight: Sportsbooks domiciled in countries that are essentially regulation-free (let's face it, Costa Rica is hardly a bastion of gaming law) now want to use their economic power to stifle any sort of quasi-regulation that the message boards offer, as imperfect as it may be. Well, I cannot argue that any business anywhere may choose to spend their $$$ when and how they see fit, but I want to give them a bit of advice.

If you are running a good operation that takes care of its customers, you should welcome all the scrutiny you can get. To be sure, some of it will be reported in a mis-guided or even incorrect way, but as I said earlier, the people who frequent the message boards aren't stupid and they can tell the true from the patently false postings, so you won't suffer, IF you are genuinely running a fair book or casino.

Anything worth believing in should be able to withstand quite a bit of examination, but we are all suspicious of an operation that wants to stifle any criticism. Casino Bar sealed their fate when they threatened the Wizard of Odds with legal action, rather than fight it out in public with him. I understand that none of us has the time nor inclination to fight over allegations that later may turn out to be false, but that's the price you're going to have to pay for not being licensed by, say, the Isle of Man or Australia or one of the other jursidictions that genuinely regulate casinos and sports books.

The vast majority of the posters on the message boards are your customers or potential customers. But ignore them for the moment; the vast majority of the READERS of those boards are your customers or potential customers and probably 90% of them will never make even one posting. But remember, they aren't stupid.

They don't think for a minute that the tail can wag the dog.