Poker 5050 goes into insolvency
- by Josef Rantamaki
After months of wrangling with the Microgaming Network, Poker 5050 has finally been forced to cease trading after hopes of finding a buyer for the online poker room fell through.
The beleaguered poker room had tried until the last minute to search for a purchaser but had to admit defeat and go into liquidation.
It was listed on the Swedish stock Exchange but it decided to delist itself and in a statement, the site said: “After the application to be delisted by 5050 Poker Holding AB, NASDAQ OMX has decided that trading in the 5050 Poker Holding shares on First North will cease. The last trading day will be Friday the 20th of July 2012.”
In a statement issued only last week, 5050 Poker Holding AB had been hoping to find a buyer and negotiations had begun with a potential purchaser but had fallen through.
All was not lost, however, as the statement continued, “In order to improve the players’ situation there are discussions with other potential stakeholders with an interest in 5050 Poker Ltd. The company hopes that these discussions will result in an improvement of the players’ ability to recover a greater amount of their claims on 5050 Poker Ltd.”
Due to the liquidation process, the best that players on Poker 5050 can expect to recoup is 15 per cent of their funds. Recently, there had been bitter public arguments with Microgaming, Poker 5050’s poker software provider, after it suspended Poker 5050 from its network.
A buy-out would have saved it from bankruptcy and ensured players would have received more, but after Microgaming decided to remove Poker 5050 from its network, and refused to reverse its decision, Poker 5050 announced it would go into insolvency.