MICROGAMING

Microgaming previously known as Prima Poker was for many years home of the high stake cash games in Europe. Microgaming allowed US players until Black Friday but excluded certain states till then. Micrgaoming was one of the first networks to introduce no-limit tables in Europe and popular among 'nosebleed stake' players.

Microgaming had many casino and sports books licensees which generated a generic flow of traffic.

Traditional poker rooms was also attracted to the network because the software was very popular due to the speed of the software combined with a simple classy design.

Microgaming was one of the worlds most dominant networks back in 2005.

It had many of the biggest poker rooms and sports book on the network and the poker boom at the time certainly benefited the network.

This however did not last long as its biggest poker operator at the time Expekt.com decided to leave Prima Poker (Microgaming) in October 2005 to join Tain Poker Network.³

A switch that  turned out to be a terrible decision by Expekt's management since Tain Network was crashing for 3 months straight only to finally close down and merge into iPoker along with Tribeca Tables.

Microgaming Poker Statistics

Expekt allegedly had 40% of traffic on the Microgaming network so it was a huge blow for Microgaming and they never fully recovered after that  despite Unibet joined a year later in September 2006.

Microgaming got a very important player liquidity boost April 10, 2010, when Unibet and Ladbrokes decided to open their mid-stakes tables which previously had been excluded to the network.

Ladbrokes opened all its tables but Unibet decided only to open €0.5/€1, €1/€2 and €2/€4. Tables below these stakes remained closed by Unibet.⁴

Microgaming had a long devastating rake back war going on on the network. Operators such as NordicBet offered 50% rake back directly to the players and a spokesman from NordicBet said in an interview back in 2006 that they didn't like affiliates which were benefiting from offering rakeback and therefore they decided to outmatch all affiliate rake back deals at the time.  

This led to affiliates had to ask for higher affiliate commission from their partners to compete with NordicBet as well as other operators that started to offer rake back on their home page addressing all its costumers.

The situation only got worse in February 2008. A company called Tusk which was one of the oldest online casino groups in the world decided to make rake back white-labels. The setup was branded as 'Rake City' under Tusk. Battlefield Poker and Raw Poker was some the poker rooms that offered as high as 75% rake back. The skins were all operated by the mother company and all funds were held by Tusk. Tusk went bust and a lot of funds went missing. It is commonly believed that the board of Tusk paid massive bonuses to its board members and drained the company of its cash till it finally had to close down.

Millions of dollars belonging to the players on the network went missing and it caused a lot of turmoil and damaged the integrity of the network. All the players that had lost their bankrolls was no longer playing. A total of 27 skins went bust and $5,300,000 went missing.⁵

Skin owners got greedy and wanted to earn more by violating the network rules. Players got greedy and wanted more in rake back than the network officially allowed so they joined these shady poker sites with no proper track record. The network got greedy as they did not try to effectively stop this because it benefited from the rake being generated.

Over all a textbook example of how not to run a network and how it affects the player liquidity. Some large operators such as bet365 left the network to avoid being further affected by the chaotic issue.

In December 2012 Microgaming Poker Network rebranded itself to MPN and launched the site thempn.eu. The re-launch of the name and website also included a new lobby, re-architecture of the platform, flash client, HMTL5 client, Blaze Poker and other minor changes. The changes were carried out between 2010 and 2013.

From a business perspective it also included a new 'True Value'  patent-pending rake allocation reward scheme that will not affect players. The network also annouced in late 2011 a Network Management Board that was the first operator/network board in the poker industry. The members of the board was the operators themselves shaping the strategies for MPN.

30% rake back paid weekly. Microgaming fine operators €25,000 for violating the network rules.

	Betway is owned by Carmen Media who is believed to hold shares in Microgaming.
	CoolHand Poker is owned by Carmen Media.
	PokerTime is owned and operated by Tower Rock Ltd, a wholly owned subsidiary of Carmen Media Group Ltd.6

	Joined iPoker in October 2007
	Joined Cake in January 2009
	Joined Tain in October 2005 then later moved to iPoker
	Ceased Operations in 2012
	Banned from the network in the summer of 20127 and went bust soon after stating it only had 85% of the player funds.