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WARREN CLOUD CRYSTAL GAMING: wall of silence from the brokers and management

I have now contacted Seymour Pierce, brokers for the Crystal Gaming casino group public flotation, scheduled for November 25th and cancelled, on two occasions:

Pre-float, I emailed two of the analysts with salient information the essence of which can be read in the "promo emails to which the recipient is not entitled" article I wrote earlier this year.

I received no reply from either party.

Post-float, I contacted them by phone, requesting any information that was publically dispensable as to why it had been cancelled. They requested my phone number so that the person in charge of "Crystal" could get back to me.

Again, I have heard nothing.

I will send some email backup, but at this point I can only conclude that nobody is prepared to issue any statement on the reasons behind the failure.

When a flotation of a gambling company on the UK stockmarket is publically announced, is it not reasonable to expect some kind of an explanation when it gets cancelled? Why the secrecy?


Bryan Bailey proferred the following comment in the Crystal Gaming IPO thread at Casinomeister:

"...the IPO has merely been postponed - not cancelled. It's still probably going to happen, but not for a little while."

But again, why are the relevant parties maintaining this wall of silence? Why can they not state this themselves, and not leave it up to third parties to post what seems to amount to conjecture? Why the secrecy?


I also contacted the owner, Warren Cloud, on the matter. I received no response. However, in light of the message I received from him, via the Casinomeister forum software...




...maybe that isn't unexpected.

What extraordinarily unprofessional behaviour on the part of the owner of a company seeking a stock market listing and investment to the tune of $140,000,000.

PriceWaterhouseCooper: references removed from online gambling sites

Casinos that use the audit services of PriceWaterhouseCooper used to display the PWC logo on their home pages - see the example below taken from a previous Microgaming casino page:




"Percentage payouts reviewed by PriceWaterhouseCooper".

This has now been replaced with:




"Payout and RNG reviwed by independent auditors".

I can find no reference to PriceWaterhouseCooper on ANY online casino page beyond the historic "payout verification" reports posted on internal pages, which have not been removed.

This would appear to be a PWC directive, since it would be a remarkable coincidence if all online gambling sites had pulled their PWC logos at the same time and for no apparent reason - but why? Are PWC looking to distance themselves from the online gambling scene?

It isn't limited to casinos, either: Ecogra, the "play it safe" seal-provider for Microgaming and Cassava casinos, have also removed all reference to PriveWaterhouseCooper: their previous independence statement, naming PWC as the official auditors...




...has been re-jigged to remove any specific reference to PWC in the current independence statement:




Again, why is this?

Lacking any official comment, we are left to speculate.

In response to the "Why did Ecogra remove all mention of PWC?" article written by the Gamblog editor, another commentator made the point that PWC may be looking to distance themselves from the online gambling scene. However, in what way does a simple removal of the PWC logo on casino homepages achieve this? The relationship remains.

Could PriceWaterhouseCooper be looking to END the relationship with online gambling?

Hopefully, official comment will be forthcoming in the near future.

WARREN CLOUD CRYSTAL GAMING: the proposed public flotation on the UK stock market cancelled

The public flotation of the Warren Cloud "Crystal Gaming" casino group was due to go ahead on November 25th 2005.

The flotation has now been cancelled - see the very bottom of the Times Online Party gaming article.

"Crystal Gaming has scrapped a planned £140m float. The company was due to list last Friday but that will now not happen until the new year - if at all. "We're looking at the strategic options available," said a source close to the company."

More information to be made available as and when it emerges.

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