But you are speculating. It's a fair argument, but speculation. I don't know that they have, crystal ball-like, been able to correctly estimate the damage to their reputation of not bailing out the players and therefore saving $3,300,000 (after 15% liquidation). Maybe they did initially (we speculate), but did not factor in additioanl bad rep (I speculate).

Maybe they didn't think this through in that manner at all. Maybe they just thought, "screw this, too much money, period", then battened down the hatches and hoped it woud go away. But I speculate.

You can hypothesise as you wish on the Microgaming corporate mindset around this time, but you know no more than I do.

Source?

I'd be genuinely surprised if this were the case, as then the money would have surely been safe, in Microgaming's accounts, not those of the failed Tusk. If any coroboration of this can be provided, it'd be useful.

Why are these pro-Microgaming posts so "factual"? You do not know that this is a fact. Microgaming's spectacular lack of due diligence on Tusk may well be a legal weakness. Do you know for a "fact" that it isn't?

You're comparing the legitimate business of poker to the illegitimate loss of these players' funds. How is the legitimate analogous with the illegitimate?

But I have cited two instances where Microgaming did JUST THIS. How do you square this fact - and it is a FACT, not your speculation - with your statement above?

Here's another apparently pretty categorically factual statement that I suspect is speculation. You have insight into an instruction from Microgaming's lawyers to NOT pay the players? I would be flabbergasted if this were the case.

exactly what i'm doing:

I'm withdrawing anything i had left there (about $1250 - not exactly a fortune, but worth something) and will be sending an email with my reasoning and a link to this thread.
This really is the only reason I'm leaving since i actually liked the software/fish

won't hurt the odds of people who lost their money
best of luck to those people

A banking institution is in the business of lending money and if a loan is percieved to be in jeopardy they look to mitigate their losses.

For instance, Mr Customer has a line of credit in good standing.

He also has a seperate account that he uses for his annual vacation money.

If a 3rd party demand is made against his accounts, the banking institution will not pay the demand but will pay down the line of credit with the savings even though the line of credit is in good standing, right of offset.

We know from the liquidators report that Tusk had a $4.6M overdraft. We also know that Tusk complied with the 'letter of the law' and held the player's purse in a segregated account.

If you review the Tusk financials, they had no assets that would secure the overdraft other than the player's purse.

In all likelyhood the Bank took security as a 'fixed and floating charge' against all of Tusk's assets.

When they were notified of the liquidation, would they as bankers attempt to seize the casino propeties to sell or would they offset their overdraft with the easiest collection method available, the player's purse?

As an ex-banker I can tell you we always took the easiest method.

Did Tusk know this was the eventual outcome?

A better question is how does a marginally profitable company who expands it business base manage to lose $8M in less than 2 years?

Do you mean that the player purse was actually stipulated as the security on the overdraft? Or even verbally? If it was either of these, then the account can't really be viewed as segregated.


See, is there legislature dealing with exactly this? Because that sounds so wrong (from an ethical pov, not a legal one as I have no idea about that). If the bank had lent tusk unsecured money then I don't see why they should get to jump ahead of everybody else who lent them unsecured money.

If the loan was actually unsecured, why didn't Tusk move the account somewhere else before going tits-up, therefore allowing the bank and other creditors be dealt with fairly? (indeed, why wasn't it at a different institution to begin with).

I'm with you on this 100%. Do we have any right to see the full accounts for tusk?

Regardless of my personal thoughts on your decision (and FWIW I think it's more than wise), I really appreciate your coming in to tell us this and wish us good luck. Thanks for your kind words, sir.

And in the case you do get a response to your e-mail, please post it in this thread as it would be good material for discussion.

The player's purse would not have been stipulated as security for the overdraft. However, a fixed and floating charge on all assets would cover the player's purse. And all a segregated account means is a seperate account from the operating one.

Banks are not in the business of making ethical loans, they are in the business of lending money that they can recover easily..

The whole point is bank didn't lend Tusk unsecured money, banks don't lend millions of dollars unsecured, the bank had a charge against all the assets of Tusk therefore they were a secured creditor and as such were not even in the unsecured queue.

The loan was secured, by all the assets of Tusk. The bank would not have allowed Tusk to move the player's purse because then the loan would have been unsecured.

By the time Tusk was getting into the poker business bigtime, they were already $1.4M in the red cash wise so the player's purse was already in jeopardy.

Had Tusk set up a segregated account in a different financial institution we would not be having this discussion as they would have been in liquidation on the day they moved the account.

The way Tusk was set up as a shell company with the majority shareholder and operating entity being Fuze Media, Tusk effectively removed the liquidators ability to actually see the operation and what was really happening.

From my analysis of the available data Tusk was never intended to make money but used legal loopholes to siphon off the player's purse.

Okay, the overdraft being secured by all the assets pretty much clears up the bank's actions from both a legal and ethical pov. Thanks.

Does the MGS licence require a segregated account for player funds? If it does, does it not further require that this account not be used to secure a loan? Does anybody have a copy of the MGS licence?

I'm going to have to think/read about this shell company business. It seems like such an easy loophole on the face of it. Particularly you mentioned them changing the director of the company just before liquidation, thus denying the liquidators the ability to question people involved in the real director company. It seems like this loophole is too obvious to be legal!

Ya I'd like to understand this too. One year ago you claim to have 600k tied up but never post again.

BTW just looked through my message history. I messaged nano almost one year to this day when he posted that he lost 600k trying to get info for him and offer help. He never reponded... make of that what you will...

FTR every single person other than him who i messaged did respond.

Are you really a Unibet representative?

I waited over a year before I contacted my lawyer in my case against you and still you claim Unibet is keen to sort out players' financial situations?

Ref Accountnr.: 9458764 – 2009-00340

Please explain why you give me so much crap over a problem that couldn't even exist at any other pokerroom.

I thought the liquidation was governed by Vanuatu law which is based on the old UK Insolvency Acts and English common law?

I'm a UK corporate and banking lawyer - under UK law I'm sure that if the TOS states a player's funds are held in trust the Bank can't get at them if it has notice of such trading terms - as the Company using them for general purposes would mean it would be in breach of trust and the Bank would be fixed with knowledge of that.

Even without actual notice of a trust, if there was a separate account called 'player funds' or something similar that should be enough to put the Bank on notice that those may well be trust funds and it couldn't expect to safely take a charge over such an account without carrying out due diligence to make sure they weren't trust funds...

I am actually very surprised that a pooled trust account (so identified) doesn't work under Ozzie law as it's usually very close to UK law if such matters (I did briefly work as a lawyer in Oz - corporate litigation though, not banking/insolvency).

From the liquidator's lawyers off the record: Microgaming have 5x the amount of money than what is laid out in the liquidators report and they are not letting on about it. Microgaming has repeatedly refused to give any information out to the liquidators, but recently the liquidators got a court order for Microgaming to share information with them. The liquidators are pursuing this money and eventually will pursue legal action against Microgaming if they do not release the funds which roughy equates to $4 million (not sure if it is usd or AUS).

As you can see Microgaming is 100% legally responsible and is attempting to scam the players, therefore the odds of them doing the right thing and voluntarily reimbursing the players is 0, but there is good news as Microgaming is filled with idiots and the courts should agree.

bigt what in you and/or your lawyers opinion are the chances of getting your 400k back?

I wish more players did the same. Kudos, sir!

If this is true, then this is the first GOOD NEWS post since the story broke so long ago.

On the liquidator's report it mentioned all the debt that they were owed and then listed what had been paid and what hadn't. Why would the $4M from MGS be off the books? Why would they not let on about it?

The whole point of having skins is to lessen the risk for a smaller piece of the revenue. If Microgaming should assume the risk here, what would be the point of having skins?

There is every reason to be critical that Microgaming didn't control Tusk better. The business model with tonnes of skins who compete with extremely high rakeback isn't healthy and probably means too much risk for the players.

Hope they learned a lesson. Hope players did too. Sometimes bigger is better.

Is it though? Or did you just make that up?

I don't even know point you are trying to make. Please clarify.

Do you not view the skins (and Tusk) as separate financial entities with full responsibility for their operations? If not, elaborate on their legal relation to Microgaming here.

You're saying that the reason that MGS has skins is to mitigate risk. I'm questioning that.

Obviously they are separate companies. Their legal relation to MGS? Well, that's obviously going to depend on the licensing agreement that they have, which I'm not privy to. You're also not ackowledging the interdependency of the entire network, with funds being transferred around it on a daily basis and MGS in the centre.

I'm being overcritical of you here, as to be honest I pretty much agree with you. However, you have to understand that the only reason I'm involved in this is because tusk have an MGS licence. I, obviously foolishly, took this to mean something.

I am not suggesting Microgaming is without fault here. They let a 'subcontractor' get out of control which resulted in unacceptable risk for the players. Their brand have been severely damaged. But the jump to them being responsible for the debt of Tusk is very far.

Legally I agree (barring bigt2k4's being correct or something else coming to light). However, I see no reason not to put pressure on them to sort this mess out. Which is what I believe this thread is about.

We should of done this ages ago its strating to get into the affiliate forums

http://www.gpwa.org/forum/microgamin...tml#post536474

I was advised not to post anymore about the issue. The reason Im posting now is because I see my chances of recovering the money as almost negligible.