SHAS­TRI BOODAN

Free­lance Writer

On­line gam­ing agents are threat­en­ing to with­hold ser­vices and take le­gal ac­tion against the Na­tion­al Lot­ter­ies Con­trol Board (NL­CB) over de­posit re­quire­ments from com­mer­cial banks.

On­line Gam­ing Agents As­so­ci­a­tion of T&T pres­i­dent Dean Per­sad said some banks are de­mand­ing that agents use a night safe to de­posit cash. He said the banks said they will al­so soon stop agents from con­duct­ing over-the-counter trans­ac­tions.

How­ev­er, he said the night safe de­posit sys­tem is less than ide­al. He claimed that mon­ey de­posit­ed can­not be ac­count­ed for from time to time.

“We have a lot of agents whose de­posits are re­mit­ted late by the banks and a lot of agents who, NL­CB call­ing them and telling them, ‘look, your de­posit is $1,800 dol­lars short, you de­posit $2,000 short and we have no re­dress with this.’ We have no de­posit slip stamped as re­ceived, which is what we would get nor­mal­ly over the counter,” Per­sad said.

He added that de­posit­ing mon­ey at night is al­so risky giv­en the crime sit­u­a­tion. He said many agents are fear­ful for their safe­ty.

Per­sad said his as­so­ci­a­tion sug­gest­ed three op­tions, in­clud­ing the use of over-the-counter trans­ac­tions, a night safe in a se­cure place in­side the bank and the use of tellers for two days of the week ded­i­cat­ed to NL­CB agents.

Per­sad said giv­en the re­cent spate of rob­beries out­side of banks and ATMs, agents were wor­ried.

“We feel that NL­CB is not rep­re­sent­ing the agents ag­gres­sive­ly and they are not ar­tic­u­lat­ing our po­si­tion prop­er­ly. We are ask­ing that we meet with the banks and tell them our prob­lems. Do­ing night safe de­posits is a very risky thing.”

Per­sad al­so claimed the night de­posits are not cleared in a time­ly fash­ion and agents are of­ten pe­nalised when the NL­CB does not get its mon­ey on time.

He said gam­ing ma­chines are shut down and when this hap­pens, agents are charged a $500 fee to re­ac­ti­vate.

Per­sad said he had in­struct­ed all agents to make their de­posits at the NL­CB of­fices in­stead of at banks.

Mean­while, NL­CB chair­man Eu­stace Nan­cis said they had raised the con­cerns of the over 1,300 gam­ing agents with the com­mer­cial banks in a bid to find an am­i­ca­ble so­lu­tion that would ben­e­fit all par­ties.

Nan­cis said the NL­CB opened a dis­cus­sion about the is­sue with banks on Thurs­day.

In the mean­time, Nan­cis said agents can use the night safe at any time dur­ing the day to make de­posits and do not nec­es­sar­i­ly have to go at night to con­duct busi­ness.