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Purple Lounge To File For Liquidation

Fate Of Player Balances Looks Grim

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Purple Lounge, the online poker room and casino, is to go into liquidation.

The troubled site, owned by Media Corp plc, closed suddenly last month trapping many poker bankrolls with no warning. The company was cut adrift by its regulator, Malta’s Lotteries and Gaming Authority, and despite the subsequent agreement to buy Intabet for £1.53 million, Media Corp says it can do noting more to save its blighted subsidiary.

“It has become clear… that the financial and trading position of the Purple Lounge division is no longer tenable due to historic operational and financial failings within the business,” said the company.

“Accordingly, it is with regret that the Board announces that it has made all of the staff within that division redundant and will be instructing lawyers to file the relevant documentation to put the relevant companies into liquidation.”

As a result of this move, the fate of player balances at the site is cloaked in uncertainlty with the company giving little hope that money stranded on the site will be returned. Indications that the company would move players and their balances to Devilfish Poker look wide of the mark.

“The Board will specifically request that the appointed liquidators look into the financial arrangements within the Purple Lounge group of companies and to review the position as to player funds.”

Media Corp has loaned over £1 million to Purple Lounge since 2009 and the recent resignations of executive chairman Justin Drummond and MD of Purple Lounge and Interim CEO of Media Corporation Sara Vincent suggest the company’s trouble only came to light in the last few weeks.