Eurolinx Busto - Marc Karam Ripped Off Bad
Did anyone get caught up in this? I see Marc Karam got ripped off pretty bad as he posted on 2+2:
This is going to be a very long post, and will probably be all over the place as I am very angry right now.
The reason I am starting a new thread is because I saw that my name was mentioned in the previous thread as possibly being involved/linked to Jo Remme and I needed to clear a few things up. If it doesn't deserve it's own thread then a mod can just merge it into the old topic.
My name is Marc "myst" Karam and I'm a poker player from Canada. I was sponsored by Eurolinx for the past three years, 100% rakeback + ~$100k in tourneys/year. The last year they pretty much cut off the paid tourneys and I was only getting my rakeback/affiliate rakeback. I referred over 1000 players to them through my forum, blog, and local bar league poker tour I run. When I first got sponsored we were a team of 9 players, the rest Norwegians and me the lone Canadian, but they slowly dropped them one by one. I'm guessing they kept me because I was raking a ton for them. My affiliate cheques were ~$20k some months including the casino profit.
Last June, 2008, the owner, Jo Remme, asked me to borrow money. They said they were tight on funds and wanted to do an advertising campaign at last year's WSOP, including a $30k full page ad in Bluff Magazine, and also to buy BetOnBet, another skin on the MG network. Now that I mention it, I remember I posted about the acquisition on my forum, and Jo quickly called me and asked me to remove the comment, because he didn't want anyone to know Eurolinx now owned BetOnBet for some reason.
I had over $1MM at one point before that in my Eurolinx account and things were going well for me. I wasn't too keen on the idea of lending money, so since I wasn't getting paid tourneys anymore, he offered to completely cover the costs of launching my own "white label" skin for my brand (mystpoker.com), with me keeping all of my referred players, and taking 25% of my net profit for running the site. He told me the site would be up and running in three to four months. A few months earlier, I was contemplating buying a decent piece of Eurolinx, but I didn't like the fact that I wouldn't have control of anything. With the skin he promised me full control of everything from my player information to separate banking and that at any time I could break off from them and run the site on my own, this was included in the contract. I agreed to lend him $200k and in return he would also pay me $30k in interest over six months along with the skin. I knew it was a risky loan, and I did it against the advice of my financial advisor and most trusted advisor/friend. I just looked at it as having a bad session at $200/$400 if it went sour, and potentially a huge profit with the $30k interest and cost of launching a skin. I was also very excited about the idea of having my own poker room. I thought a site that was raking $50k/day had no chance of going under, even if they were in current financial difficulties.
After six months of constantly asking if my site was ready and being given the runaround (I'm almost positive there were never any plans to launch my skin in the first place), he told me that Microgaming was a terrible network and that he was in talks to move to the Cake Network. He apparently traveled to Cake's HQ and had meetings with them and had also got the approval for my skin and they were going to develop both at the same time. Jo said he gave Microgaming a three month notice that they were leaving, but he made me promise not to mention a word to anyone (on my blog or forum) about the network change and I didn't. Not even his staff knew about the trips to Cake HQ (if they even happened). The staff had no idea about any of this, I am also close to quite a few of them, and they have all been screwed by Jo, and they have no reason to cover for him anymore, they are also victims of this.
Then around two months ago, Jo tells me they are having some financial difficulties and that they will have to grind their way through it before moving to Cake because they had to have a certain amount of available money first before Cake would accept them. I made a pretty large withdrawal two weeks ago after reading the 2+2 thread here, and Jo said it would be in my account this week. I talked to him on the phone last week and he seemed very upbeat about being able to get through this. I had visited him and the Eurolinx offices in Malta multiple times and met the crew. I felt like I pretty much knew most of what was going on. I never had any withdrawal problems before this, during the 2007 WSOP Jo even wired me $250k cash to the Bellagio cage and deducted it from my Eurolinx account (back when you could do 3rd party wire transfers to Vegas casinos).
Anyone who knows me knows that I lived and breathed Eurolinx for the past three years. All the work and loyalty was to support a bunch of scammers? Even up until last week I was still defending them to my own friends. I even rejected a very good sponsorship deal with a well known site after one of my big FTs. I have a lot of money in Eurolinx... I also probably shouldn't have tried to withdraw, the withdrawal money doesn't show in my account anymore.
Jo called me 3 days ago after repeated texts and emails from me. The final text was "Jo, I'm writing a long post to 2+2 and you're not going to like it." He called me 2 minutes later. He said he can't stop me from posting but that he was very sorry. He said he went and had a meeting with Microgaming and that they had devised a plan to work everything out. The next day MG sent their auditors to the Eurolinx office and after realizing how bad it was they just immediately shut them down. I asked him what the hell happened to all the money, he said "Oh, it's a long story, I'm sure the details will slowly come out, everything I tell people on the phone gets posted on 2+2". I asked him what he was going to do now and he said he doesn't know but that he will be getting beat up in the streets surely. He said he's in big trouble with the law in Malta and that I shouldn't expect to get much at all through the liquidators because all the money is gone. He repeatedly apologized and I was just pretty much speechless throughout the conversation. I felt stabbed in the back by someone I was so loyal to, I just couldn't say a word.
I know for a fact there was also a silent partner with Jo. I have a picture with him that's still at my parents' house. During the 2006 WSOP they both came to Vegas with their wives and we all went on a helicopter tour of the Grand Canyon and we got a picture as a souvenir.
If anyone needs help with anything, post here and I'll answer to the best of my knowledge. I'll also join and help any lawsuits etc. if that's what is going to happen, but for now I want to put this behind me as a bad life beat and move on to bigger and better things.
Comments
Guess this is the gamble when you go with smaller online sites.
Met Marc at last years WPT Fallsview and you couldnt really talk to a nicer guy. Feel horrible for him, heres hoping another site picks up a top quality player like him.