Playwize Goes Down

Playwize, the online casino company that previously had the rights to the 3-D online poker software has been in the industry for years. Unfortunately for them, they announced at the end of November that their losses for the year had grown further than their expectations. Their numbers for 2008 at the end of September were at GBP 46,000 as opposed to their last year’s numbers which were at GBP 32,000. Now, that does sound like they had an improvement, but they actually had a dramatic increase in their pre tax losses. Their pre tax losses for last year were GBP 66,000 and this year was a hefty GBP 915,000.

The people of Playwize say that the anti online casino legislations that were passed in the United States had a very negative impact on their business. They have been in the gaming industry since 2000 and have not only worked for online casinos but also as developers for video games and PC games. Playwize also designed for consoles such as PSP, PS2, XBOX and Nintendo GameCube. Their knowledge of gaming and technology seemed to be a perfect match for the online casino industry and they had a desire to change the face of internet gambling by introducing better graphics and realistic 3-D environments. Their poker division, Pokerwize, was to offer new features exclusively for the world of online poker.

Pokerwize was to introduce new technologies to the online casino industry. They even promised to have a full statistics calculator, real-time voice chats, a 3-D tutorial with the famous Helen Chamberlain. The company announced in late October that all employees had been made ‘redundant’ and that their stock had been haulted. It is sad to see companies with such great promise and talent, go down. The company’s Chairman, John Corre, released a statement for the fans and players of their online casinos. He stated: "Due to very disappointing trading results, and the substantial losses incurred as a result, the Playwize group has ceased all trading operations and made all of its employees redundant. In order to raise sufficient funds to pay creditors, the board of directors of the Company has decided to seek shareholder approval for the sale of the proprietary software technology and other assets owned by the Company and its subsidiaries, and contracts have been signed for the sale of these assets subject to the aforementioned approval being granted in a general meeting of the Company.”