The Lernaean Hydra – Game Tech Group NV take on new names

Recently our team have been working on updating the casino review section of the site and getting a lot of new reviews published. One of the groups we specifically wanted to focus on was the Game Tech Group N.V. This group have long held Blacklist status with this site for a long list of unethical behaviour and we know that they regularly open up new brands. This being the case, and given we’ve taken a break from publishing new reviews for the first half of this year, there were good odds that several new casinos would have opened that we could look at in one go.

During our research to identify any new properties being run by Game Tech Group N.V. two other companies turned up with properties that we felt bore a striking similarity to the Game Tech Group N.V. properties – Equinox Dynamic N.V. and Alpha Interactive Solutions N.V.

After investing a lot of hours looking into these companies it is our opinion that they are likely being operated by the same people as Game Tech Group N.V.

Several of the properties listing their ownership as Alpha Interactive Solutions N.V. share identical web design to the standard layout of the Game Tech Group N.V. websites and the Equinox Dynamic N.V. properties, while not as similar still show key artefacts that are the same. We’ll look at Times Square Casino (Game Tech Group N.V.), Orient Xpress (Equinox Dynamic N.V.) and 6Black (Alpha Interactive Solutions N.V.) for our comparison:

Headers

Below you’ll see a side by side comparison of the headers used on Times Square and 6Black sites:

It should be immediately apparent how similar they are with the same layout for the header menus being used alongside the same categories shuffled around. It should be noted that the Orient Xpress header did not fit this exact pattern but was similar in its menu categories and the placement of the login/signup buttons.

Language Menus

Below you’ll see a side by side comparison of the language menus use on the 3 sites:

While not absolutely identical the similarities are readily apparent, down to the matching order of languages that are not in alphabetically order.

Footer Menu

Below you’ll see a side by side comparison of the footer menu used on Times Square and 6Black sites:

It should be immediately apparent how similar they are with the same payment method logos displayed in the same order, the same format to the ownership information and the same layout to the footer navigation menu. It should be noted that the Orient Xpress footer did not fit this pattern.

Bonus Terms and Conditions

Below you’ll see a side by side comparison of the results from clicking the link for the General Bonus Terms and Conditions:

In each case a new pop up window is opened, with the same dimensions and the same url structure.

Licensing Logo

Below you’ll see a side by side comparison of the licensing logo for each site:

In each case, even where a different Curacao license holder is used, the logo is positioned in the bottom right hand corner of the screen and floats (stays in position and you scroll down the page).

Conclusions about web design

Even in the Equinox Dynamic N.V. example where the web design is not an exact match with the Game Tech Group N.V. design, there are enough clear matches is layout, structure and aesthetic that we can comfortably conclude that these websites have been put together by the same company. This in itself does not prove shared ownership – perhaps each company is outsourcing their web design to the same company, explaining the extremely similar designs – however not many companies would be comfortable with a 3rd party web design company re-using their designs for their competitors.

Using Wappalyzer to inspect the frontend frameworks of a website will show you every framework that website uses and these frameworks act like a signature. Most casinos won’t have the same frameworks unless they are built by the same developer or it comes given to an operator as a turnkey solution. When you inspect the source code of the frontend, it becomes quite clear that these casinos are associated by either the same developer or are provided as a platform template.

While I am no expert in terms of programming, we have had a couple of professional web programmers look at the source code for these 3 sites. They agreed that these sites have either been programmed by the same team or copied from each other.

Even for a lay man, examination of the code shows clear signs of duplication. As an example you can see below the duplication in the Title text of the casino's name and further down a second Title text structured in a very similar fashion:

To allow for interested parties to review the source code we have archived the files for review which can be found at

To date we are only aware of the Game Tech Group N.V. offering GameScale casino games. While we could not prove this absolutely we have long suspected that GameScale and Game Tech Group N.V. share ownership. Both Equinox Dynamic N.V. and Alpha Interactive Solutions N.V. are now offering GameScale games:

This screenshot also falls into the previous category of matching web design with all 3 groups showing a very similar menu system, the same abbreviation for GameScale software and even matching games in exactly the same layout.

We then used the Copyscape site to compare the terms and conditions of each group with those used by Game Tech Group N.V.

- Times Square vs 6Black

We’ve looked at both the General and Bonus terms for these group.

For Bonus Terms we can see a very high proportion of these documents that match exactly. In many areas where an exact match has not been detected, a manual review demonstrates that the theme of the unmatched text is regularly the same in both documents (i.e. they are laying out rules covering the same situations).

For General terms we see a far lower proportion of matched text. However, on manual review we can actually see that an error with the Copyscape system has failed to detect thousands of words at the end of each document that are effectively an exact match.

- Times Square vs Orient Xpress

Again we’ve looked at both the bonus and general terms and conditions and compared them below:

Bonus terms

Once again, while only around 1/3 of the content of the documents is an exact match (this is still a very large proportion as far as establishing plagiarism goes), when we look at the non-matched sections of the documents we see that the sections are regularly tied in the issues they are discussing.

General terms

The documents have the lowest percentage matched content – though again this is still significant in plagiarism terms – but when we look at the non-matched sections of the documents there is an exceptionally high correlation in the topics being covered in the same sections of each document.

Conclusions about the terms and conditions

Where these documents are not exactly matching in terms of wording, it is abundantly clear that one document is simply a re-wording of the other. We can safely conclude that these terms and conditions documents are derived from the same source material, or more likely that the new companies have based their terms and conditions or a reworking of the Game Tech Group N.V. terms and conditions documents.

If you're interested in reviewing the documents, plese get in touch with us and we'll be more than happy to share our findings and comparisons.

We then ran the same Copyscape comparisons on the affiliate program terms and conditions for AffPower (the biggest Game Tech Group N.V. affiliate program) and Rock Solid Affiliates (the affiliate program for the Equinox Dynamic N.V. properties). The documents are a 90% exact word match.

It should be noted that we ran a similar comparison for the various Alpha Interactive Solutions N.V. affiliate programs and found no remarkable similarities in their terms and conditions documents.

Once again, do get in touch with us if you wish to review these documents.

We tested the Live Chat service at each of the casino at the same time and at all 3 groups. In each case we were met with an operator using the same name (‘Brad’) and using the same thumb nail profile picture:

While there’s no way for us to determine absolutely that it was the same operative answering the Live Chat at each group, it’s clear that it is exactly the same Live Chat infrastructure being used at each and in our opinion it is likely that it was the same operative. It should be noted that when questioned about this one of the ‘Brads’ denied answering the Live Chat service at the other sites.

When we looked into the domain registration information for the websites owned by the various companies we found multiple domains from the Game Tech Group N.V. registered to an 'Igor Visilcan'. Looking at the same information for the Alpha Interactive Solutions N.V. properties we found that both Gale&Martin and Slots Zoo are registered to the same person:

It should be noted that the domain registration for the Equinox Dynamic N.V. and other Alpha Interactive Solutions N.V. properties was restricted and as such we could not confirm whether or not the same individual is also the owner of those domains.

From the above we can say that these three companies are clearly using the same web design teams, are working with the same software provider that is unique to them these three companies, are using the same Live Chat infrastructure, have all constructed their general and bonus terms and conditions documents from the same source material, in one case have almost exactly matching affiliate terms and conditions, and the properties that did not restrict their ownership information show that domains across two of the companies share a single individual as their registrant. Effectively huge sections of each of these companies operation's are structured in exactly the same way as each other and the same people are clearly involved in the operation of at least two of the three companies.

In our opinion it is highly likely that either Alpha Interactive Solutions N.V. and Equinox Dynamic N.V. are owned by the same people that own Game Tech Group N.V. or that they are working in very close partnership with the Game Tech Group N.V. and that being the case, based on the extensive negative history of this group, we would strongly advise both players and affiliates avoid any interactions with any properties run by these companies.

In all likelihood Alpha Interactive Solutions N.V. and Equinox Dynamic N.V. are the new heads of the Game Tech Group N.V. Hydra.