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Citadel Gets Ready for European Growth
 April 7, 2007, 11:04 am (4 years ago)Citadel has joined companies, like many of its counterparts seeking asylum outside the United States of America where the Unlawful Internet Gambling Enforcement Act has made business almost impossible. ESI Entertainment Systems Inc, despite being based in Canada, is a parent of online gambling payment processor Citadel Commerce, and subsidiary Pay Line, will expand its UK operations moving related intellectual property and operations to Malta.
In January Citadel stopped processing United States customer’s money, following the United States Department of Justice Enforcement Actions against financial processors executives. Since the UIGEA done this shares have lost ninety percent of their value and have barely recovered. The iGAMING businesses however, have the advantage of mobility based on the fact that their market remains online-whether from the United States or Europe where Citadel predicts that they will have a huge growth cultural rebranding that is necessary for customer facing sites barely affects “back office” companies like Citadel.
Personnel issues however, are another matter. Its primary data centre also plans to relocate, though CFO Mark Bains will not, which leaves Tony Greening to take his role. In Costa Rica, the call centre has already been enhanced for increased operational duties and local accounting capability- which is a strong indication of good fortunes to come. Parent Company ESI is not known for huge investment in dead runners, and shares look cheap.
SportingBet is also on the run, in response to the UK tax increase on gambling revenue it has announced a move to the Channel Islands.
There is one important issue that both of these companies, all of the companies that are involved with these online games and etc should consider and that is the fact that you can’t turn your back on a company just because they have a down fall due to something that is totally out of their reach. When a company is forced to make changes due to the government there is nothing that they can do about, but quit doing what they are not supposed to do and obey the laws so that they do not face any other trouble.
Just because a business gets hit by a government related issue doesn’t mean that they will not find a way to come back, true it may take some time and money that they do not have but if they try hard enough anything is possible.
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