Juicy Stakes Acquired by Zagox Management, Players Await Changes
More shakeups within the beleaguered Revolution Poker Network have occurred this week with yesterday’s announcement of the sale of US-facing Revolution skin Juicy Stakes Poker to Curacao-based Zagox Management.
While little is known about the black-box Zagox entity, which does not show up on any Curacao (West Antilles) business registries, the move represents at least a glimmer of hope for desperate Juicy Stakes players, who have watched the functionally bankrupt site fail to honor withdrawal requests for almost all of 2013. The transition to the new ownership also includes some conditions placed upon the site’s players that seem intended to stanch a possible quick flood of withdrawals from the site; among those conditions are the curious cancellation of all existing withdrawal requests, and a return of those phantom funds to players’ accounts.
Juicy Stakes players were notified of Zagox’s acquisition in an e-mail received yesterday. Here’s one such sample e-mail:
Hey, (player,)
For a while now Juicy Stakes has been considering ways of improving its customers‘ all-round gaming experience, as well as our site‘s processing procedures. It has been proven to be a harder task than expected, but we have now found a solution in Zagox Management N.V., a company licensed in Curacao.
Zagox Management N.V., a serious partner for all types of online gaming, has acquired Juicy Stakes and will run the business with immediate effect. They are also determined to prove their commitment to you and all Juicy Stakes players, providing the service and support that everyone deserves.
As a result of the new ownership and the new systems that have been put into place, these following changes have had to be implemented:
All pending cash-outs for players had to be cancelled and have to be requested again. But don‘t worry – all cash-outs will be processed as players request them and in accordance with timeframes given in the Juicy Stakes cashier!
All pending bonuses currently running on players‘ accounts have had to be cancelled. At the start of next week there will be a reload promotion that everyone will be entitled to use.
We would like to apologize for any inconvenience this may cause, but stress that these changes will allow us to start paying your winnings in a very timely manner, thus improving your gaming experience at Juicy Stakes!
To compensate you for your patience in this matter we have set up four $1000 Freerolls over the next four days and the first one is today. Don‘t miss out and make sure you take part and win your share of the money!
October 10th 2013 – 23:30 GMT – $1000 Freeroll – password: X3FK9L
October 11th 2013 – 23:30 GMT – $1000 Freeroll – password: H2MP8T
October 12th 2013 – 23:30 GMT – $1000 Freeroll – password: G5DP7P
October 13th 2013 – 23:30 GMT – $1000 Freeroll – password: W6KN4R
NOTE: Registration starts one hour before tournaments begin!
Kind Regards,
The Juicy Stakes Team
www.juicystakes.euGot questions? Contact us at [email protected]
JuicyStakes.eu is a registered trademark © 2013. All rights reserved.
The very nominal value of the freerolls mentioned in the e-mails aside, the big news therein was the cancellation of all existing Juicy Stakes cashout requests. Juicy, along with fellow Revolution skin Lock Poker, has famously received an “F” cashout rating in the monthly online-poker payout processing reports authored by John “PokerAddict” Mehaffey, due recognition of Juicy cashout times that reached nine months before ceasing altogether this summer.
Not stated in the original e-mail but confirmed by Zagox/Juicy spokespersons in statements on public forums are further measures, including a limiting of withdrawals to a $1,000 (down from a former $3,000 maximum), along with a $100 withdrawal fee that guarantees that 10% of all funds attempted to be withdrawn stays right in Zagox’s pocket.
While other sites and networks also charge withdrawal fees, none are as high as $100, and many such fees go into effect only after the first such withdrawal in a given calendar month. The artificial constraints appear to be an attempt by Zagox to inflict unofficial play-through requirements on existing Juicy players without actually declaring them as requirements. The cancellation of previous withdrawal requests is also a clear move to buy more time, as the site hopes to generate more deposits and liquidity for the site, which the former Juicy owners clearly lacked.
Players noted that existing tournament tickets and other secondary bonuses were also cancelled, which were noted in a follow-up from Zagox:
Hey, (player,)
We would like to answer some frequently asked questions that have been sent to our support.
Where are my tournament tickets?
We still have the ticket information in our database, but you can no longer access them through your client. All tournament tickets will be deleted and the corresponding value will be credited to your account as cash. This should be carried out within the next few days.
Will the user two (“to”, sic) user transfer option still be available?
We will temporarily disable all player to player transactions until further notice.
What are the withdrawal rules now?
Please note that there is a limit of $1,000 per week. The cashier is already set up to deal with the amounts that we plan to make available in the future, but for the time being only requests up to $1,000 per week will be processed.
Kind Regards,
The Juicy Stakes Team
www.juicystakes.euGot questions? Contact us at [email protected]
While Juicy’s players have every reason to question the legitimacy of the new constraints placed upon them, an apparent agreement between new Juicy owner Zagox and another Revolution skin, Intertops, offers at least faint hope that players may get some money off the site. Intertops has already announced that they will once again allow their players to be pooled with Juicy’s players at all stakes and tourneys, which is different than most of the remainder of the Revolution Network, a “network” these days in name only.
The financial problems experienced by Lock Poker and by Juicy Stakes (the US-facing segment of Cake Poker, now known as WinCake to the rest of the world), have resulted in much of Revolution being fractionalized and partitioned. Amid all that mess was Intertops, an old UK sportsbetting firm with a much better track record and payout history than any other Revolution site. The fact that Intertops is willing to allow its players to again be pooled with Juicy Stakes, following the Zagox acquisition, indicates that Intertops either is involved with Zagox or has some knowledge and confidence in Zagox’s ability to right the rotted Juicy Stakes site.
It’s too early to tell if this is another Lock Poker-style shell game, and despite Intertops’ apparent involvement, players still have the right to be concerned. Nonetheless, even though this may be a mediocre solution, with players themselves financing Juicy’s trip out of insolvency, there’s little else to make of it.
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