The scary thing is no one saw this coming. People say to do your research and that's all fine (I do agree make sure your money is in trust), but past statements listed players money as being held in trust and no one was posting warnings (people literally were able to withdraw funds a week before). Even once TUSK crashed several people associated with MGS skins told us not too worry and that if things wern't ok Microgaming would bail us out...

I only play on pokerstars now, I would certainly never trust another network (I simply will not take that risk). I'm sure ladbrooks if safer than most most MGS skins or many casinos for that reason. But I'd never play on a skin that is run by MGS. While funds may be controlled seperately it still stands that MGS runs much of the operation, no way I would trust them with anything at this point given how poorly they have handled this. I'd still like to know how MGS justifies keeping the rake I've paid them...

If anything this situation only proves that MGS will do the bare minimum to help players, or more accurately nothing/ignore them. MGS will not even answer emails, nor has ever made a public statement on this fiasco. Why play on a network like that? The fish wern't even that bad on MGS to justify it :P

OK I heard again from the liquidators' lawyers.
Basically Microgaming was attempting to scam the players money and eventually settle depending on how hard the money was pursued which is pretty standard in the business world(make additional money if you can, give them $1 million when you owe them $5 million, hope to settle for $3 million or less if they do not put up much of a fight). Bank records from Jersey and Guernsey indicate that Tusk never did hold the money and Microgaming has held it all along and has been attempting to keep the players' money for themselves. The records are quite clear and the liquidators are quite reputable and will not settle for anything less than the full amount so Microgaming is screwed in that regard and will be forced to cough up the money eventually, probably right before it goes to the courts so they do not tarnish their reputation too much. So the players will get much more than their 15-25% as Microgaming has the full amount of money and it was never touched by anyone. The players will receive their balances in full minus the liquidators fees or hopefully completely in full if my lawyer is successful in arguing that the funds are held in trust and the liquidators are only able to claim their fees after the players have been paid.

Since this is totally unacceptable from Microgaming's perspective in my opinion (as well as the others who are owed money and most poker players in general I would assume) I was wondering if a new thread should be created titled something along the lines of "Microgaming intentionally tries to steal funds from players" with links to that thread as well as the main point copied and pasted in all threads having to do with the Microgaming network such as Eurolinx's software thread, the Microgaming regulars thread as well as the MSNL and HSNL **** threads.

Great work BigT!

Screw a thread, if you read the other thread recently you'll see Skier said a certain 2+2er volunteered to help get a website up about this, the new info could be exactly what it needs and then it could be spread from forum to forum, site to site etc until the entire poker community knows exactly how dodgy that entire network is.

I don't get it. How could Microgaming think they were going to get away with this? When the liquidators saw tusk's books did they think they were going to ignore the millions of dollars worth of player's funds that they were supposed to have but didn't??

It just doesnt add up. Who holds the player's funds is a pretty big piece of info. I'm surprised it took this long for it to get out if Microgaming did indeed keep the balances.

From the Liquidator's Report March/09

I think the Liquidator's report pretty much sums up the extent of Microgaming's involvement.
.

It does not, Simspartners wanted to appear professional and decided to not put in values which could not be immediately realized or proven, but bank records show this money exists and is currently in Microgaming's hands

Any info on when they may be going to court?

Great job and news, Bigt, i hope those bastards will pay up to the last cent.

Nice job Bigt!

Aside from being totally unacceptable, this would be monumentally extraordinary if it turned out to be true. How could Microgaming ever have thought they would get away with it? And why? If the money was in their coffers, why would they withhold it? Rather than a swift and businesslike settlement, a couple of years holding on to $5,000,000, followed by enforced hand over, meltdown of their business and probably criminal charges.

I find these claims beyond incredible, but I hope they turn out to be true for the sake of the players.

I hope this is true as well, but I agree it just doesn't make sense to me. How do we know TUSK didn't cook the books to make it look like MGS were responsible and absolve themselves? In no way am I defendign MGS (since it should be obvious by now how I feel about them) but this scenario doesn't make much sense to me.

It is not technically illegal what they are doing. They don't talk to anyone, hope all blows over and no one pursues the matter so they can keep the money for themselves. The money has been in their possession all along, they did not steal it so when a civil suit comes along they attempt to settle for less and eventually depending on how much proof is shown forced to settle for a larger amount if not all(They could hold out and just wait for the courts to decide against them, but that is bad publicity)
So technically they are not breaking any laws and no criminal charges could be laid, but they are legally responsible for the money in a civil court.

bigt2k4,

Why would the liquidators not list the debt along with all the other debts they've listed that the debtors are denying?

It just occurred to me that the TUSK skins were probably the only skins for which MGS held the money. Every other skin out there says that they handle the player balances and not MGS. Many of them are public companies attached to sports books so that would make sense. Bigt2k4 are you able to confirm or deny this?

I've for a long time speculated that MGS were indirectly running skins (to avoid legal prosecution). The idea that they ran TUSK skins though seems odd given the supposed poor relationship between the two. What Bigtk says makes sense if MGS lawyers told them not to turn over the 5 million (lawyer would never voluntarily suggest giving it up).

But there are too many holes
-MGS already sent money and the report makes it seem like they owe nothing.
-Sims has a duty to report accurate numbers to creditors, don;t see how they could get away with not including this in their report.
-I still think this could be a ploy from TUSK to dodge criminal prosecution and make it look like MGS always had funds.
-We need hard data to prove that MGS has even a dollar. Anything you can provide would be helpful bigt.

Just to clarify, I'm not suggesting that MGS ran any skins, they definitely did not run the Tusk skins. However, it seems very probable that they did hold the player balances for those skins. We know none of those skins did.

Remember, bigt2k4 claims his source is the liquidator lawyers. If this is true we have to believe what the guy is saying. Hard to see a reason why bigt2k4 should be lying about this.

Hey Ace, BigT posted this a few posts up, maybe it answers your last question?

So it looks to me that at the time of the report, the liquidators could not prove the money was in MGS's hands despite strong indications that it was. Now it seems they have solid proof that can be used in civil court. Hope that helps.

I can't see how the withholding of money which belongs to someone else is not illegal. It is theft. I take the point about battening down the hatches and hoping it all goes away - I'm currently involved in a similar situation myself on a non gambling-related matter - but it remains theft, and subject to civil, if not criminal, prosecution. Theft is illegal. If a paper trail can show that the $5,500,000 player balances are held by Microgaming, then Microgaming must be guilty of the crime of withholding money from the rightful owners.

You mentioned bank records earlier -

Well, if these demonstrate a pool of 5.5 million originating as the balances of the Tusk skin players, you surely have a case of theft by Microgaming.

I'm sure nobody would suggest he's lying, he's clearly the last person to be accused of being one of the handful of trolls who have contributed bogus information with malicious intent. People are trying to make sense of it, that's all.

No I truly believe that bigt is being honest. This news just comes as quite a shock. It does make sense though if MGS thought the money could not be traced to them, or lawyers told them not to admit to having money (since MGS maintains they don't handle players money).

Anyways I will wait for more info to come up before doing anymore speculating.

If Microgaming held the player funds, why would Tusk go into liquidation? It just does not add up with all the other information out there.

By the way, many/most Microgaming casinos use the payment processor Proc-Cyber, and it's reasonable to assume that MG owns/has a stake in this processor. Did the Tusk skins use this processor?

I assume Tusk went into liquidation because MGS cut off their revenue stream and they didn't have the cashflow to pay their debts without it. The player fund should be irrelevant.

I would just ask lawyers to make sure those bank statements arn't transfer payments to MGS (MGS transfer money between skins) in which case nothing would need to be repaid. I'm hoping they arn't but still seems too good to be true.

If a company can't pay it debts the creditors can appeal for bankruptcy at an adequate court. So if MG owes the players money which they won't pay, can't we just fill in a formula and send it to a court in Jersey or something?

What about the interest that's built up on all that money? Do we get some of that?