Sunday February 22,2015 : A NEW TAKE ON THE SEALSWITHCLUBS STORY
Could the cause of the break with Bryan Micon have been trouble in Romania?
Bitcoin poker players who sensed internal troubles when online poker operator Seals With Clubs.com suffered extensive downtime and then announced its demise last week were on the mark; in a rather bitter and meandering Youtube vid which appeared over the weekend more information was given by part-owner and chairman Bryan Micon.
In silhouette against a tropical Antiguan background, Micon revealed in the vid that in the same timeframe as the "technical difficulties" drama at Seals With Clubs was unfolding, his home in Nevada was raided by armed Nevada Gaming Commission officials who presented a search warrant.
Micon does not say what the search warrant specified in terms of its scope, although he comments that the agents seemed familiar with his social media and other output.
He alleges that he was treated like a criminal, handcuffed and led out of his family home in his underwear whilst officials embarked on an allegedly eight hour "police state" style search of his home and "stole" most of his electronics – presumably a reference to items of suspected evidential value seized in terms of the search warrant.
But, he has stressed, he was not charged or convicted of any crime, and was allowed to leave with his family to a new base in Antigua.
Micon makes the point that he has done nothing wrong, and that all financial (Bitcoin) obligations to Seals With Clubs players are safe and are being honoured.
But he does make an almost passing reference to an unspecified technical "irregularity" which apparently took place on one of the company servers located in Romania.
Reading between the lines it would appear that this "irregularity" and subsequently the raid were enough for the Seals With Clubs management team to conclude the company was at risk and distance themselves from Micon, halting all operations other than withdrawal services.
In response, and as indicated in the Seals With Clubs communication to players last Friday, Micon says he has assembled a new operational team, is updating the software, and plans to start up under a new swcpoker.eu brand and domain at some future point.
View the Micon vid here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BaD8ion8iGI