Amaya Fires Four Employees for NJ Approval
10 years ago
12 Oct
The decision last week by New Jersey’s Division of Gaming Enforcement (DGE) to approve the Amaya petition to allow online poker in the state was only given the green light after the owners of PokerStars and FullTilt agreed to fire four of their executives.
News of the licence provoked widespread joy in the online poker industry, heralding back the two largest poker sites in the world to US soil, but the 95-page ‘redacted’ version of the DGE’s report included one or two hugely significant parts which was over-looked by many as the feel-good factor took over.
The Division’s report stated – down on page 81 – that they had
“determined that four senior executives who remain with an Amaya subsidiary after the acquisition are not able to establish their good character, honesty and integrity as required by the Act because they were involved in the management or control of companies that violated UIGEA, or had responsibilities related to payment processing, providing legal advice, marketing, compliance, audit or operations at those companies. Consequently, each of those individuals must be separated from any employment relationship with Amaya and its subsidiaries if transactional waivers are to be issued.”
Quite a mouthful –one of many highly legal and technical agreements detailed in the report to which Amaya have acquiesced in order to operate in the state of New Jersey.
The four individuals ‘named and shamed’ were reported as:
- Michael Hazel - PokerStars former CFO (Chief Financial Officer) who was (until the Division’s ruling and Amaya’s agreement) also the CFO and Interim CEO of Amaya Hodings (IoM)
- Charles Fabian - the CTO (Chief Technology Officer) of Amaya NJ, who had previously held several roles in game development for FullTilt and its related companies.
- Israel Rosenthal - the COO (Chief Operating Officer) of Amaya NJ, who has also held various board positons on Amaya entities and continues to receive money based on his shares options with the previous owners of PokerStars and FullTilt, the Oldford Group.
- Serge Bourenkov - the General Manager of Amaya Software, operating as Pyr. Bourenkov has been licensed by the IoM Gambling Supervision Commission since 2003.
All four had been ‘marked for removal’ from Amaya by the DGE if the licence were to be issued, based on their involvement in the post-UIGEA years which saw many poker sites management figures indicted.
Although not named initially by the DGE, they had issued an order to Amaya to
“separate from employment on or before January 30, 2016, four individuals identified by the Division as having failed to establish the requisite good character, honesty and integrity required by the [New Jersey Casino Control] Act due to their involvement in the business activities of the PokerStars Entities between the enactment of UIGEA and Black Friday.”
In addition to the removal of these four, the licence also mentions several other names in the poker world who are disallowed from having any role or business contact with the Amaya Inc. Operations in New Jersey without the Division’s say-so.
“Amaya and any of its subsidiaries and affiliated entities shall not permit Isai Scheinberg, Mark Scheinberg, Pinhas Schapira, Yehuda Nir, Paul Telford, Paul Tate, Nelson Burtnick, Ray Bitar, Rafael Furst, or Chris Ferguson to serve or act as an owner, director, officer, shareholder, security holder, financial source, lender, employee, consultant, lobbyist, intermediary, independent contractor, advisor, agent, or representative of Amaya or its subsidiaries and affiliated entities, in any capacity, whether directly or indirectly, whether by formal contract or by informal arrangement, without prior written approval of the Division.”
The Scheinbergs (father Isai and son Mark) were the two most significant owners and corporate officers of PokerStars, but while Isai is under indictment in the US for his involvement in post-UIGEA poker, Mark –the 75% owner of Rational Group Ltd which sold PokerStars to Amaya - found himself to be a billionaire following the deal which cost Amaya $4.9billion.
As noted by many, the only notable absence from this list is Howard Lederer, whose settlement back in 2013 with the Department of Justice officially precluded his involvement in any way with the ‘gambling industry’ anyway – something which Ferguson’s own settlement did not explicitly state, hence his inclusion in the Transactional Waiver Order which has been granted to Amaya.
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