Dear Members and Friends,
A few weeks ago we were contacted by a worried poker player who was owed well over $1000 US from a Merge Network poker room. He was worried about his cashout taking a "long time" of 4 weeks plus. At the time, we assured him that most poker rooms and casinos were taking about that length of time due to UIGEA and processing restrictions. His payment did finally arrive, at just over the 4 week period.
We have also been following a huge multi-page thread about Big Daddy Casino and Pimp Your Poker whih dated back almost a year, where there are serious questions about payments even back then. Up to this point, however, the speculations have been varied about what exactly is going on, and how one issue may be tied to another.
There are now major, new developments in this story pouring in from several poker outlets speculating on the financial stability of the Merge Network, and much of it has to do with the accusations leveled by payment processor Pic Club which claims to be owed over $60,000 US in fees.
The APCW does not have enough factual information about the dealings between Merge and PicClub to tell players or webmasters to stay away from one or the other. However, we do feel that the possibility of the stories being true is worrisome enough that we want you all to have the same data we have so that you can reach your own decisions about whether or not to patronize a Merge poker room or use Pic Club.
These are links to some of the stories we have read:Poker News Daily storyRecent Poker storyGambling 911 storyOnline Poker News storyThis is a list of all Merge Network poker rooms:
1Bet 2Bet
365 Bonitas
ACED
Bet On USA
BetED
Big Bet Poker
Big Daddys Casino
Black Chip Poker
Bluff Room
CarbonPoker
Easy Play Poker
Felt Stars
G2Gpoker
Golden Arch Poker
GR88.com
Iron Duke
Its Real Poker
Jam Poker
Kings Club Poker
Oddsmaker
Optimus Poker
PDC Poker
Poker City
Poker Geezers
Poker MVP
Poker Nordica
Poker One
Pokers DNA
RPM Poker
Reefer Poker
Rumble Poker
Spin32Poker
Stinky Fish Poker
Texas Holdem
Tux Poker
Ultimate Game Room
Vip.com
WalkerPoker
Wass Poker
YBET Poker
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I have been contacted by the Merge CEO Anthony Taylor, who has expressed an interest in speaking with us to voice his position. We welcome the input and look forward to adding this to what PicClub has already told us. I hope to have TWO interviews by next week at this time so you can all listen to what each party has to say and draw your own conclusions.
I have been contacted by the Merge CEO Anthony Taylor, who has expressed an interest in speaking with us to voice his position. We welcome the input and look forward to adding this to what PicClub has already told us. I hope to have TWO interviews by next week at this time so you can all listen to what each party has to say and draw your own conclusions.
Ask Chuck what about the money these guys owe people
ApexBets Poker
USA Rounder Poker
Casinounreal Poker
Doms Casino and Poker
Mediterraneobet.com Poker
Pokers DNA
URBetting Poker
Safest Bet Poker
StinkyFishPoker
PaperChasePoker
RioPokerPalace
i-Sportsbook Poker
I met with Chuck in San Jose last week and he had a lot of interesting things to say. I believe this situation will resolve itself within the next week or so, and I think Pic Club will be vindicated. Let's watch and see =0)
Just received a letter from Pic-Club on this matter. Any more news on this from your end JT ?
Dear PICClub Member,
As many of you know we at PICClub have been embroiled with Merge Gaming Network in a dispute over their failure to pay their debt. I want to take this time to help you understand why I felt it was necessary to escalate this issue with Gambling 911. I did not want to take this into a public arena but was forced to when they issued a press release that was an outright lie.
I wasn’t happy to lose the Merge network of rooms as I know many of you played there and I tried to avoid that happening. However when a poker room fails to pay its debt and decides to not pay players it is my responsibility to take the steps necessary to protect our players and to collect the funds rightfully owed.
Since early July I have been trying to get the Merge Network to pay not only the arrears on fees that were owed to PICClub but also the money to fund the Players cash out account. During this time I made many concessions to Merge in an attempt to get them to pay. At every promise they made to pay the arrears and acknowledging that the money was indeed owed they kept stalling and sending me the Checks in the Mail story over and over. One excuse even involved their CFO being caught in a Typhoon in Japan.
It soon became evident that they had no intention of paying their debt and worse they were going to stiff the players.
I sought council with many people I respect in this industry and to a person they agreed that I needed to make this issue known. Not only as a possible means to collect our funds but also to expose that Merge was either financially in trouble or was operating unethically. Either way we weren’t getting funds from them so I decided that Gambling 911 would be the venue that I would supply the documentation to that backed up the facts of the issue.
I knew that PICClub would possibly take a black eye over this and I certainly weighed that against the need for this story to be made public. It wasn’t an easy decision to make and cost me many restless nights of sleep. BUT it had to be told.. Maybe just maybe, Merge would at the very least send the money to pay the players.
Well they finally sent enough money to cover the players cash outs. It is unfortunate that it took shaming them in a Public Arena for them to do what was right by the players and the attacks on PICClub and I personally are still going on. Merge has not presented 1 piece of evidence to refute the story, they have instead decided a campaign of slander, lies and innuendo waged by a group of affiliates and forum owners would be their answer to the issue presented.
Well my job however is not done. They still owe PICClub 107 thousand dollars and I intend to collect it. Every penny they take from PICClub, they also take from you the members. It is coming up on Christmas time and that means the funds in your CSA account will be available to you plus the interest earned and a % of PICClub profits. For those of you who have been with us for 2 years or more you will recall that we paid 14.25% in our first year and 10.5% in our second. I am not sure where we will be this year as the books haven’t been settled for the CSA yet but I don’t want a 107 thousand dollar loss to be an issue. I INTEND TO COLLECT EVERY PENNY THEY OWE.
I ask that you continue your support of the PICClub and please play at the poker rooms that are operating honestly with us. They too deserve your support. When you see PICClub being slammed in a forum do not hesitate to speak up. There are those out there who’s only agenda is to do harm to PICClub no matter how many lies it takes.
We will be adding more rooms for you to play at and I know that you will enjoy them. So stay tuned for exciting news.
I will speak with you again soon about the CSA payout and I hope to be able to give you great news at that time.
Replies
JTodd said:
JTodd said:
I have been contacted by the Merge CEO Anthony Taylor, who has expressed an interest in speaking with us to voice his position. We welcome the input and look forward to adding this to what PicClub has already told us. I hope to have TWO interviews by next week at this time so you can all listen to what each party has to say and draw your own conclusions.
ApexBets Poker
USA Rounder Poker
Casinounreal Poker
Doms Casino and Poker
Mediterraneobet.com Poker
Pokers DNA
URBetting Poker
Safest Bet Poker
StinkyFishPoker
PaperChasePoker
RioPokerPalace
i-Sportsbook Poker
PICClub work with these sites on the IGS/Futurebet/GameTech Solutions run by Joe Lacascia and Ron Kadarishko aka "Ron Katz"
The assholes that ripped of me and made pimp-your-poker / bigdaddys look soooo bad.
I met with Chuck in San Jose last week and he had a lot of interesting things to say. I believe this situation will resolve itself within the next week or so, and I think Pic Club will be vindicated. Let's watch and see =0)
Dear PICClub Member,
As many of you know we at PICClub have been embroiled with Merge Gaming Network in a dispute over their failure to pay their debt. I want to take this time to help you understand why I felt it was necessary to escalate this issue with Gambling 911. I did not want to take this into a public arena but was forced to when they issued a press release that was an outright lie.
I wasn’t happy to lose the Merge network of rooms as I know many of you played there and I tried to avoid that happening. However when a poker room fails to pay its debt and decides to not pay players it is my responsibility to take the steps necessary to protect our players and to collect the funds rightfully owed.
Since early July I have been trying to get the Merge Network to pay not only the arrears on fees that were owed to PICClub but also the money to fund the Players cash out account. During this time I made many concessions to Merge in an attempt to get them to pay. At every promise they made to pay the arrears and acknowledging that the money was indeed owed they kept stalling and sending me the Checks in the Mail story over and over. One excuse even involved their CFO being caught in a Typhoon in Japan.
It soon became evident that they had no intention of paying their debt and worse they were going to stiff the players.
I sought council with many people I respect in this industry and to a person they agreed that I needed to make this issue known. Not only as a possible means to collect our funds but also to expose that Merge was either financially in trouble or was operating unethically. Either way we weren’t getting funds from them so I decided that Gambling 911 would be the venue that I would supply the documentation to that backed up the facts of the issue.
I knew that PICClub would possibly take a black eye over this and I certainly weighed that against the need for this story to be made public. It wasn’t an easy decision to make and cost me many restless nights of sleep. BUT it had to be told.. Maybe just maybe, Merge would at the very least send the money to pay the players.
Well they finally sent enough money to cover the players cash outs. It is unfortunate that it took shaming them in a Public Arena for them to do what was right by the players and the attacks on PICClub and I personally are still going on. Merge has not presented 1 piece of evidence to refute the story, they have instead decided a campaign of slander, lies and innuendo waged by a group of affiliates and forum owners would be their answer to the issue presented.
Well my job however is not done. They still owe PICClub 107 thousand dollars and I intend to collect it. Every penny they take from PICClub, they also take from you the members. It is coming up on Christmas time and that means the funds in your CSA account will be available to you plus the interest earned and a % of PICClub profits. For those of you who have been with us for 2 years or more you will recall that we paid 14.25% in our first year and 10.5% in our second. I am not sure where we will be this year as the books haven’t been settled for the CSA yet but I don’t want a 107 thousand dollar loss to be an issue. I INTEND TO COLLECT EVERY PENNY THEY OWE.
I ask that you continue your support of the PICClub and please play at the poker rooms that are operating honestly with us. They too deserve your support. When you see PICClub being slammed in a forum do not hesitate to speak up. There are those out there who’s only agenda is to do harm to PICClub no matter how many lies it takes.
We will be adding more rooms for you to play at and I know that you will enjoy them. So stay tuned for exciting news.
I will speak with you again soon about the CSA payout and I hope to be able to give you great news at that time.
Kindest Regards.
Chuck Kidd
CEO
Players Investment Company
I know they've gotten hit hard with their badbeat promo....almost a million bucks just in the month of October this year.