EUROLINX & BETONBET SCANDAL
Eurolinx was once one of biggest skins on the Microgaming network. Based in Malta and licensed in the Netherlands Antilles, they attracted hordes of players and numerous high rollers within and beyond the borders of Europe.
The owner of Eurolinx, Norwegian national Jo Arild Remme, was also in charge of BetonBet and Linx Casino, but the success did not last for long for neither of his three sites that were incorporated under the mother company Linx Media Group.
Linx Media Group went into sudden liquidation in August 2009. Shortly after the liquidation plans were announced, the Microgaming Network ended their contract with the company and asked their customers to contact the relevant liquidator once the information would come available.1 Around the same time, the following announcement was posted on the Eurolinx website:
“The Linx Media Group has today announced that it is seeking to put its businesses into liquidation and will cease trading with immediate effect. As yet, the Linx Media Group does not know how long this process will take, but it will provide updates on the situation as and when information becomes available and when liquidators are appointed.”
The liquidation took many by surprise, and in similar cases there are usually rumors of missing payments on poker forums long before the actual problems are officially admitted. Linx Media Management even ordered the Linx Casino website translated into 12 languages just months before the company was shut down. The translations were delivered by Malta-based gaming translation provider All-In Translations, but the bill was never paid.
“We had a good relationship with Eurolinx but just after we had delivered the translation of Linx Casino they stopped responding to our requests for payment. We needed the money to pay our translators, but since we never heard from Eurolinx apart from a few vague emails from Jo Remme in July 2009, we had to take out a bank loan in order to keep our promises. It almost broke us at that time, but we managed, and subsequently we gained a solid reputation amongst translators which helped us to turn things around”, said Roy Pedersen, CEO of All-In Translations.
Players never received their outstanding funds either, and the Malta Lotteries and Gaming Authority (LGA) confirmed that they had finalized their own investigation and forwarded the case to the police due to unspecified pending criminal charges. The Maltese LGA were very clear to point out the fact that the companies of Remme never gained a Maltese gaming license. On the website of LGA it said:
“The company Eurolinx Ltd is not and has never been a licensed operator with the LGA. The LGA also notifies that the sportsbooks of Alpine Malta Ltd. (BetonBet and Eurolinx) are not and never were licensed by the LGA.”
As far as pokerhistory.eu is aware, nothing ever came of the police investigation. Posts on various poker forums stated that suing the former Eurolinx manager was not feasible as he was reported to be bankrupt. This is not confirmed, but it remains no secret that Remme was a frequent visitor on the high stakes tables in the brick & mortar casinos in Malta while his company was still up and running.
Rumors has it that Remme ran away with a lot of money that in fact belonged to players and service providers, and he has remained far away from the spotlight since the liquidation in 2009. He has a sole proprietorship company registered in Haram in Norway called Eurolink Remme.2
1 maltabusinessweekly.com.mt (link broken)