With reaction in the player community building following Friday's news that the Linx Media Group is insolvent, an online poker marketing expert suggested possible solutions to safeguarding player funds from debacles such as this.
The former Vice President of Marketing for PokerStars, Dan Goldman, told Poker News Daily that online poker sites must change their views toward player deposits moving forward: “Online sites have the same responsibility to their players as banks have to their depositors," he said. "All too often, they treat player bankrolls like their own money.”
Goldman suggests that player funds should be segregated into entirely separate, independently audited accounts.
"This is a simple step that, in addition to bolstering confidence in the site, helps to avoid the temptation to use player funds for operations,” Goldman opined.
It's the sort of commonsense requirement that licensing jurisdictions should perhaps demand as a non-negotiable component of any licensing agreement...and software providers could insist on as well.
Bringing the issue into sharp focus was a comment by a poster at the 2plus2 forum, who claimed that he had spoken to Eurolinx managing director Jo Remme before coming to the conclusion that: “What was clear for me about his story was that they have been trading with our funds and that went extremely wrong. The word ‘trading’ he used himself.”
And a Norwegian poster on the Casinomeister forum noted:
"One of\if not the main guy, is called "Jo Arild Remme", before going on to claim: "He has been in 'trouble' before, with pyramid schemes and other projects going bust", before quoting several Norwegian language websites in support of his allegations.
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