MIT to Co-Locate in Europe and Asia

Mohawk Internet Technologies, the technology service provider for the Kahnawake Gaming Commission, this week announced plans establish co-location and hosting facilities in Singapore and Ireland. They should be up and running within 30 days.

CEO Michael Tobin said an agreement with the government of Singapore will allow the company to open up a server facility at which Kahnawake licensees can run a portion of their operations.

"The Singapore government made it very clear that they have no interest in getting in the licensing and regulation of the online gaming industry," Tobin said. "They are only going to allow companies to use our facility that are already licensed by the Kahnawake Gaming Commission."

The company reached a similar agreement in Ireland.

The two facilities will be operated separately from MIT's server operation in its Montreal headquarters and will be open only to existing Kahnawake licensees.

The deals are a boon for the Kahnawake Gaming Commission, which can now offer the ability to operate out of three locations under one license.

"This will really give them an advantage in gaining new licensees," Tobin said.

Tobin said the expansion was a result of customer demand.

"Some customers have expressed an interest to have a co-location facility," he said, "while others will use it as a load balance, and still others will operate entirely at one of the locations as they look to target a specific type of user."

MIT officials just returned from an exhaustive trip to Singapore, where they worked out agreements with regulators and technology providers.

"They want to have the benefits of having a solid technology-based industry utilizing their location, but they have no interest in becoming an I-gaming jurisdiction," Tobin said.

The hardest part of dealing with the Singapore government, he said, was making it clear that MIT was not directly involved with online gambling transactions.

"We are a utility," he said. "We are not linked to the profitability of the gambling operation."

They also had to assure the government that companies using the facility will not accept wagers from any residents in Singapore or advertise their sites in Singapore.

The process of setting up a facility in Ireland, meanwhile, was much easier.

Tobin said both facilities could be functional today, but MIT is still doing high-level testing and working with customers to find out how each intends to use the facilities (if at all).

So far, the Kahnawake licensees have shown an interest co-located, as have non-gambling-related companies operating out of MIT's server park.

"We have had a lot of corporate entities that have heard about this," Tobin said, "and knowing they can serve three different regions through us is appealing to them."