WINGOWS POKER ACQUIRED BY WALKER POKER

Another casualty in the DGN debacle

Online poker venue Wingows Poker has been taken over by Colkom Inc., owners of the Walker Poker.com website in what appears to be a 'white knight' arrangement to limit financial prejudice to players. Walker Poker is a member of the Merge Poker network.

According to a press release from Colkom this week, the takeover was effective June 6 and involves the company acquiring all of the assets of Wingows Gaming, including the player database. Players will be migrated across to the Walker Poker operation in stages.

Colkom advises that Wingows Poker has been online since 2006, operating on the Dobrosoft network. At the end of 2006, Dobrosoft was sold to the Panama/Canadian based company Digital Gaming Network (DGN).

This apparently did not work out, and Dobrosoft took the company back again in 2007. This was followed a few weeks later with the discovery of what appeared to be fraudulent activity and embezzlement of monies held in escrow, originally deposited to ensure player funds. This is alleged to have caused significant personal losses for the owners of Wingows, driving the company to pay outstanding obligations from its own resources. It is believed that several other poker rooms found themselves in similar straits.

The press release quotes an unidentified member of Wingows management as saying: "We tried to recover as much as possible but the loss was too big to handle at a short period of time. Most of the people got their money back from private company resources."

Wingows Poker is believed to have lost around $500 000 over the period DGN operated the network, not including loss of rakes for that period.

"We have come to a point where the network lacks the liquidity to recover itself and player's money. Walker Poker ensured that it will do its best to help in recovering old funds," said the Wingows spokesman.

Walker Poker officials stated that the move will speed its growth and will help Wingows Poker players who lost money to get it back.

"We have decided to contribute 25 percent of the income from Wingows Poker back to the players and affiliates who didn't get their money. We believe most of the players and affiliates will get their money back in the first couple of months," commented a Walker Poker spokesman, adding: "Walker Poker team will contact Wingows Poker affiliates to make sure they don't lose their players from the migration and will offer them a highly attractive deal to facilitate in the transition".

Players at Wingows will also be contacted by Walker Poker personnel to work out the best way to recover individual account balances.funds.

"We promise that all Wingows Poker players who have funds in their accounts will receive special bonuses and incentives to join Walker Poker and help them get their money back and of course a better poker environment," said the spokesman.

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News Added: 18 June, 2008

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