Players and marketing affiliates alike are scratching their heads over the reasons for a decision by Interpoker owners WagerLogic to withdraw gambling services from Canada.
Advising affiliates of its decision by email this week, the company failed to explain the justification for the move, simply advising that it would accept no new signups from Canada…and no deposits from existing Canadian players – effectively a shutdown.
It’s not the first mystifying business decision regarding Canada in recent weeks. Earlier this year EuroPartners, which runs various Playtech-powered operations said it was withdrawing from Canada, again without giving a reason.
Then another Playtech-powered operation – Titan Poker – played the hokey-pokey with Canadians, first telling them it was departing to comply with mysterious government laws that it had apparently been the only one to see, but then reversing its decision without explanation just weeks later…again without explaining why.
Left to speculate in the absence of rational explanations by the operating companies, players and affiliates have surmised that perhaps the operators have been influenced by the growing number of Canadian provincial governments that have become active in the online gambling sector…but there have been no legal or other developments that could support such a scenario and the mystery remains.
WagerLogic, which held the InterPoker, Intercasino and VIP Casino interests, was a subsidiary of the pioneering and once-mighty Canadian online gambling group CryptoLogic. The group fell on hard times and was eventually acquired back in 2011 by the up-and-coming Montreal-based online gambling group Amaya Gaming (see previous reports).
The takeover eventually resulted in InterPoker switching from its traditional Boss Media-International Poker Network to Amaya’s formerly Ongame platform, and the withdrawal of WagerLogic brands from a number of the more vigorously enforced European national regulatory jurisdictions.
Having done all that, Amaya then made an announcement in October this year that it was offloading WagerLogic Malta Holdings Ltd. and its three online gambling brands for a consideration of Cdn$70 million to a little known Canadian company apparently formed for the purpose titled GoldStar Acquisitionco Inc.
At the time Amaya CEO David Baazov explained:
“The proposed sale of these business-to-consumer assets is consistent with our strategy of focusing primarily on being a single source business-to-business supplier of diversified gaming solutions to gaming operators. We anticipate this divestiture will allow us to expand our existing relationships and cultivate new ones with online gaming operators.”
Goldstar is closely associated with the Toronto listed Capital Pool company Aumento Capital II Corporation.