Hi. Okay, I guess I shot from the hip on these comments (chalk it up to someone who's spent a few years navigating the regulatory world of online gambling). I do think what you're trying to do makes for a pretty compelling proposition to games developers, and as you seem to be shouldering all the risk and cost involved, it would be difficult to refuse that kind of monetization without any research or overhead, especially the kind required to achieve the gold-standard UK license.

I do think $1.5M was a bit expensive for the license. Your T&C state: "the “Game Rules” (which are different for each Game), which explain
the specific rules of the Game and are available on our Game Rules
page [Note to the Gambling
Commission: we propose to do this in a similar way to other
operators, see for example http://casino.ladbrokes.com/en/live-
dealer/help and http://www.partycasino.com/games/more-games/.
The games (and, therefore, the rules) have not yet been finalised,
but in drafting the rules we will comply with the “Fair and open”
provisions of the Licence Conditions and Codes of Practice];"

This sounds like a pretty pricey pay-to-play for rules that aren't yet finalized (i.e. the assumption being that zero games are yet licensed on your platform). You could have done the same thing in Curacao for about $60k, or Malta for around $250k.

The question of whether there's an ecosystem like what you're describing, or whether that's something that can be astroturfed, is open, but depends on regs outside the EU and to a large extent individual jurisdictions' willingness to play ball, and the ability to move money rapidly through local payment options.

This still leaves open the question of what happens to a guy in Russia who's making money by hosting a game that's monetized through your site, with other Russian players betting on it. While the UK might have no problem with that, the Russian / Chinese / Vietnamese / Australian / Japanese / Norwegian / French / Italian / Greek / Israeli (and lots more) governments certainly do have problems with any casino that's not specifically licensed and regulated separately under their own jurisdictions. So a local developer in those markets may not be violating UK law or WTO regulations, but could still be in deep trouble with their own local law enforcement. If Her Majesty's MI6 is going to spring rebel iphone devs out of a Tajik prison for that $1.5M, then it was well worth it =)

As with all things online-gambling, there's a murkiness in the system, because one country's laws state that doing X is legal in another country, and that this license permits it. Likewise, a Costa Rican data processing company is fully within its legal rights to run gambling in the United States, as far as Costa Rican law is concerned. We know how that usually works out.

I think -- and I'm not trying to be harsh, because there may well be a market for this (although the HN crowd probably isn't hip to how or why exactly, and you'd do better on a gambling forum) -- but essentially you've prepaid for prestige by the truck-load and are hoping a market exists to rent a piece of it. It'll be interesting to see if it works. I think it's hard for any company to justify the price of a UK license w/o a huge volume in sportsbetting already coming through the door. What you're potentially tapping into here is an unknown quantity, and everything (legally) is in flux right now around the world, so it's an interesting time to try it.

I wish you the best, and apologize for coming off as rude. I've got my doubts, but look forward to seeing your progress.