PokerTribe.com Disappears, GreySnow Poker Replacement Site Emerges
There are new developments in the saga of PokerTribe.com, the hapless wannabe online-gambling operation fronted by the Iowa Tribe of Oklahoma and formerly in partnership with Florida-based game developer Universal Entertainment Group (UEG) and that company’s founder, convicted telemarketing fraudster Fereidoun “Fred” Khalilian. In short, the PokerTribe.com domain has been disconnected, and a new Iowa Tribe of Oklahoma online-poker site, Greysnow Poker, has emerged in its place.
The new site, found at greysnowpoker.com, already exists in a beta-testing phase, and it is duly licensed under the Iowas’ online-gambling parent entity, Ioway Internet Gaming Enterprise Limited, with the Isle of Man (IOM) Gambling Supervision Commission. However, questions remain about the software engine being used to power the online site; the software’s maker is identified nowhere on the site, conflicting information about whether a third-party software manufacturer is involved has emerged. There are some indications that the site may still be powered by UEG’s successor, Monster Inc. (formerly Monster Cable), whose logo appeared briefly on the PokerTribe.com site before that site was yanked.
However, despite the new Greysnow Poker offering supposedly being in a public, beta-test phase, there’s no evidence that the site is actually being used for any gaming, whether for play or real money… or that it even has any real players, despite a download now being offered.
End of PokerTribe.com’s Run?
As with its predecessor PokerTribes.com (a fruitless partnership with a different Oklahoma tribal nation, the Cheyenne and Arapahos), PokerTribe.com has been yanked from public view. Both domains are still owned by anonymous parties but lack public landing pages, rendering the remaining content inaccessible.
PokerTribe.com figured prominently in an October 2017 press release announcing Monster Inc.’s acquisition of UEG’s assets, as the latest in a long line of promised “live” dates was also announced. To onlookers’ nonsurprise, the site didn’t debut in December of 2017 as promised. Perhaps more telling, however, is that there is no formal mention of Greysnow Poker.com’s debut by either Monster, Inc. or by the Iowas of Oklahoma, who maintain a site at http://bahkhoje.com. That site’s last mention of internet gambling issues came last September when the tribe announced its licensing approval by Isle of Man regulators.
The only other mentions or links on the bahkhoke.com site related to online gambling are a link to the “Phase II” PokerTribe.com presser from July 2016, and a link to a another supposed UEG goldmine of a concept, http://www.inskycasino.com/, which was supposed to bring online poker and casino games connectivity to untold thousands of waiting online poker players during international flights. Given that an increasing number of ocean-crossing flights now sell in-flight wifi, which can be used to connect to hundreds of other online-gambling sites if desired, this is an utter non-market as a standalone entity.
Greysnow Poker and the software mystery
It’s only through a check of the lOM’s current online-gaming license holders that the greysnowpoker.com domain appears, while there’s no mention whatsoever on the IOM side of the older pokertribe.com domain. It may well be that IOM’s gaming regulators ordered the abandonment of the domain’s use for online gambling purposes as one of the four conditions it gave the Iowas for licensing approval. Those four conditions were announced in general terms but never made public, but the generalized involvement of the domain within a NIGC (National Indian Gaming Counsel) investigation into the prior PokerTribes.com / Oklahoma and Arapahos situation may have made the domain a no-go for the IOM.
Yet whose software is powering the new GreySnow Poker site remains unclear. An inquiry made to the Isle of Man’s gaming regulators about the lack of software identification on the site produced this response: “Unfortunately, [we] cannot disclose third-party agreements of our licenced operators. However, if you contact the licence holder directly, they may be happy to give you this information. [We] can however confirm that the software has been tested to a sufficient standard.”
This indicates that Greysnow Poker indeed uses third-party software, even if the provider isn’t identified. However, a similar inquiry to Greysnow Poker’s listed customer-service contacts elicited a different response: “We use our own internal software to power the games that are running on our site.”
One of the two statements can’t be correct, and given that the NIGC inquiry and other issues offered plenty of reasons for UEG to seek public cover (such as the sale to Monster, Inc. might provide), the betting line is that the GreySnow Poker is still being powered through Khalilian’s Florida operations. The domain’s server is indeed in Florida as well, though in Jacksonville, hundreds of miles up the coast from UEG’s former Miami-area location.
COMMENTS