Another Fred Khalilian Tale: The Lost Virtual-Reality Poker Site
Rolling on with our continuing exposés regarding serial fraudster and online-gambling wannabe Fereidoun “Fred” Khalilian, the founder of Universal Entertainment Group and the would-be marketing power behind such con-job projects as PokerTribes.com, PokerTribe.com, or the utterly and completely laughable inskycasino.com. InSkyCasino.com, as peddled to investors, was supposed to link together thousands of would-be online poker players and gamblers looking for something to do while on international flights — as if there were thousands of such players simultaneously waiting to gamble, and as is said gamblers couldn’t just connect to their existing online-gambling accounts via the plane’s wi-fi, anyway.
There remain about 20 million questions as to why not one, but two, Oklahoma tribal nations partnered up with Khalilian, UEG, and these ludicrous no-market projects, and that’s despite the fact that the original pokertribe.com thing still continues today over at Grey Snow Poker, a site duly licensed by Isle of Man regulators that still appears nowhere anywhere near some type of real-money launch. Grey Snow, owned by the Iowa Tribe of Oklahoma, has yet to come forward about who’s providing the gaming software that will eventually power the site.
We previously published conflicting statements as to whether that software was in-house, as Grey Snow Poker claims, or from a third party, as inferred from the response to an inquiry made to IOM regulators some months ago. Given that none of the parties involved have detailed the four special conditions that the Iowas were forced to adhere to in order to receive IOM approval, the situation remains murky. We’ve previously conjectured that the removal of Khalilian/UEG from anything to do with the Grey Snow Poker and other of the Iowas’ online-gambling projects may have been one of the four, if only because there’s no way on God’s green earth that any legit regulator would greenlight a project involving Khalilian, given his previous legal issues.
There’s also the presumptive perp walk that Monster, Inc. made Khalilian perform in May, which we reported on recently. That’s the firm to which Khalilian and his UEG partners sold the firm to last year, but from which he was fired and served with a restraining order after making violent threats to other Monster Products staff. It’s astonishing to see a corporate press release which provides links to previous sins of the COO that they’ve just walked out the door, but that’s what Monster issued, with links therein:
https://www.irishexaminer.com/breakingnews/entertainment/hiltons-ex-partner-arrested-a-second-time-in-two-days-336723.html
https://www.casino.org/news/universal-entertainment-group-sued-by-former-tribal-business-partners-for-alleged-fraud
https://newsok.com/article/5566076/oklahoma-tribes-sue-over-failed-poker-website-venture
https://www.ftc.gov/news-events/press-releases/2016/07/ftc-providing-4-million-full-refunds-people-tricked-buying-bogus
https://www.cbsnews.com/news/a-robocallers-scam-is-finished-for-now/
https://www.mlexwatch.com/articles/308/print?section=ftcwatch
http://articles.orlandosentinel.com/2007-11-15/news/rape15_1_diplomatic-immunity-club-paris-lake-eola
https://www.leagle.com/decision/inadvfdco100726000141
http://www.tmz.com/2007/11/15/more-women-accuse-club-paris-owner-of-assault/
https://www.ftc.gov/sites/default/files/documents/cases/2001/06/ltmistipkhal.htm
https://myeclerk.myorangeclerk.com/CaseDetails?caseId=5888662&caseIdEnc=A5dmqmoONTQD2ew0xdPB2cXIPgNav0nNB2dSXZKj6UvCCrCCZsQbKekSsXd1znOK3J9kgIMlJTmbKA%2B8O0AZfK%2FSPEwLWnKHnyjK03DId0c%3D
https://myeclerk.myorangeclerk.com/CaseDetails?caseId=5837141&caseIdEnc=%2BIxL5Doytj6GrQ1PqYjYPGPasy7By4BTVAxk5R%2B2bREOg6w7qFUGvmsduapPNX0Mu7ODoufAK7L6ZJ1hojjt1CEum6xaTQTUKM6s8HNZQuM%3D
https://myeclerk.myorangeclerk.com/CaseDetails?caseId=4902759&caseIdEnc=Hz9AHcOxvMGd%2FVTJf87NW%2Bgzc42woFJNPz1PQ5Bw%2BlEQsV1TMCHgPlPL0Ul2pj2e8oA9cstNeOpW4n7gJcJl21jIGaaR8OiLGoHvBBU2sFc%3D
https://myeclerk.myorangeclerk.com/CaseDetails?caseId=4818306&caseIdEnc=6wD1DnAQpKCgBpSKDud%2BhHZv2VR7QPj94rk6rTA%2BfJbuET15AjX9UaO1mA5EaVS6xmjhvmOcC8PKDjXIAx5AEnoogrLvulvqEIaXEBqe%2Fuo%3D
https://myeclerk.myorangeclerk.com/CaseDetails?caseId=4979896&caseIdEnc=XYFlG%2Bm0pMTKIVeRpKwbne73Yu1uoocxDHUt5DFML5ZR73EdevIHqnr359FJ%2BfskQz1XJZa7BZwfk8aoqBilrTD%2Fuc%2BEOFx2h%2BFSlkC8hOE%3D
There’s the question of how any legit company could make this clown its COO, but that’s beyond our search limits here. And though we’ve gone and buried the lede good and well today, there’s a reason. It’s because the relationship between Khalilian and the Iowas of Oklahoma — and perhaps the Iowas’s tribal chairman, Bobby Walkup — remain as cloudy as everything else in this ongoing farcical tale. Is there still some sort of contractual deal going on between Khalilian and the Iowas of Oklahoma? And what caused the breakup between Khalilian and Monster?
Why is it worth checking into? Because their were other projects that appear to have been part of the online-gambling deal struck between Khalilian’s UEG and Walkup’s tribal nation. Among them, that hapless InSkyCasino.com thing, which as of today still clams to be part of an operation fronted by the Iowas of Oklahoma. Note the overlay that pops up when one visits the site (at right).
Clearing away that overlay shows a preview page for what InSkyCasino’s offerings were touted as including, with all of that being branded by PokerTribe.com. Whether that stuff appears in conjunction with Grey Snow Poker is unknown, though this other domain doesn’t appear to be involved. GreySnowPoker.com is the only domain owned by Ioway Internet Gaming Enterprise Limited currently registered by and with the Isle of Man.
Yet here’s the thing: The Iowas announced their IOM approval last September, when the project was still PokerTribe.com. Here’s another “yet”: InSkyCasino.com’s whois record shows the site still registered to Khalilian’s UEG, and the record was updated as recently as this past June, weeks after Khalilian caught a boot in the ass from Monster Products founder and CEO Kevin Lee.
Let’s toss in one more “yet”, and finally roll in the lede: That domain and project isn’t the only one. As bragged about by Khalilian on his own Instagram page, there’s yet another cheesy virtual-casino project which appears to have been part of the malarkeyfest pitched to the Iowas of Oklahoma. This one’s called VrGamesCasino (VrGamesCasino.com), and it’s more of the no-realistic-end-market, preposterous bullshit huckstered by Khalilian all along.
This project also looks to be dead, though maybe not quite; a whois lookup shows it was also updated a short while ago. And the VrGamesCasino landing page (also its only page) claims: “Coming Soon in 2017 by one of the American Indian Tribe Casino’s” [sic].
That can’t be any other than the Iowas of Oklahoma being blind-referenced, and that whois info for the site shows it being registered to another corporate front of Khalilian’s, Vegas-based Hollywood Production Group LLC. Khalilian also mentions this entity on his Instagram page.
There are, really, two distinct areas of concern. Besides the very real con job pulled by Khalilian against the tribes — and don’t forget, his first Oklahoma tribal partner asked for a federal investigation — there’s this ongoing lack of transparency regarding whatever is behind the Iowas’ Grey Snow Poker project. The hapless nature of the project is almost beside the point. this deep into into it all; one has to wonder if there are any other reasons beyond those already visible as to why the thing is still rumbling forward.
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