Cryptologic Update: Don't They Know That Crime Never Pays? Andrew Rivkin And Mark Rivkin Were The Original Founders Of Cryptologic. Andrew Rivkin and Mark Rivkin were the original founders of Cryptologic. Others joined the company included Jenny and Harvey Solursh, Anatoly Plotkin, and Jean Noelting, with Robert Stikeman as Cryptologic's lawyer and company secretary.
Jenny Solursh is the daughter of Harvey Solursh (and the wife of Mark Rivkin, a well-kept secret). The company had not been running long before senior staff began deserting it, or moving on for "safety" reasons. There had been some investigations into tie-ups between online casinos and money-launderers.
Andrew and Mark Rivkin, the company's "official" founders, left in a hurry. Harvey Solursh departed next in January 2002, for "personal reasons."
When our magazine researched Cryptologic's background, we uncovered an astonishing story. A convicted criminal helped Cryptologic set up in business. The money used to finance Cryptologic's start-up operation and intercasino.com came from Bill Scott, a heroin trafficker on a large scale.
There had been other news that aroused our suspicions about the bona fides of the company. The magazine received tons of complaints from players and from licensees.
Anatoly Plotkin is the Russian brain behind much of the software; in fact, we think he is responsible for the famous "$ 5,000 lockout." When a player wins $ 5,000 or more, his account is frozen for a few days.
Organized crime has a way of making the software work to their advantage. The more we looked into Cryptologic's background, the more apparent it was that this was a criminal maze of an intricate nature -- on two levels.
On the first, higher level are the top company executives engaged all the time in a series of crooked deals.
It started when their rotten company lawyer Robert Stikeman and the Rivkin brothers did a deal whereby some 22 patented mining claims were sold for peanuts, without any disclosure to shareholders. The assets of a company named Biroco Kirkland Mines Ltd had been sold for only $ 1,500 but their net value had previously been conservatively appraised at over $ 3,071,000. Shareholders in the mining company got badly ripped off.
The only way these people can do business is to cheat the next sucker who comes along; that's how they stay in business, by cheating others with one crooked deal after another. It's also certain that they never bother investigating the background of would-be licensees; that costs time and money. They just want the business and don’t care if the licensee is a heroin trafficker, a money launderer, a crook, a liar, or a thief or all of these at the same time as with intercasino.com and Bill Scott.
The second level is the cheating of licensees and players. Wee mentioned the lockout example above but there are many others, contrived and masterminded by the cunning Russian intellect of Anatoly Plotkin.
After careful consideration, we decided that we could never recommend any site "powered by Cryptologic software" because too many players had complained of anomalies and irregularities. We felt some regret for the honest licensees too, because they would lose business, but standards in the industry have to be maintained by someone or a free for all will be next, with the sharks, crooks and greedy conmen grinning over the easy money.
It takes quite a lot to move a lawyer from a well-paid job. Lawyers like to earn premium fees for opening and closing a few dusty old law books. However, more disturbing news came later when it was revealed that Cryptologic's in-house counsel resigned because she did not wish to be associated with a company that had so much serious ties with organized crime.
Cryptologic's underhand tactics have meanwhile not gone unnoticed by the markets. There is above all the overhanging threat of the licensee who is actually suing Cryptologic for the massive sum of $ 800 million, which should terminally dent the balance sheet if the courts find for the licensee.
Cryptologic's board of directors is displeased with the performance of the company's stock in recent months. A quick glance back to March of this year shows a relentless decline, like water wearing away soft limestone.
This month the company's balance sheet took a major hit when a write-down for over $ 9.5 million had to be arranged. That was caused by the recent demise of Sports.com, a company that Cryptologic had invested in, which went into receivership in May 2002.
It must be bad waking up each morning to find your stock is down yet again. The fact is that organized crime means trouble. Why else would a lawyer in a good job ever resign? Don’t they know that crime never pays?
Cryptologic has been busy this month with second quarter updates reflecting their revised opinions for the rest of the year. Revenues will be lower than expected, and the company is to institute a restructuring plan, to "reduce costs in line with revenue," a polite way of saying that there is less money to spread around and fill up the directors' pockets.
We know that readers do take notice of our articles, and while Cryptologic might say that revenues have been falling because of new and more restrictive policies for credit card payments, instituted by some banks, we'd like to think that many of our readers are heeding our advice, and dipping into their pockets less at intercasino.com, so as not to fund and finance some very crooked companies.
