FAMILIAR NAMES AND A CORPORATE CONUNDRUM

12 January 2007

And you thought Fairground Holdings and Evan Hoff was out of the business....

A report on an Internet news site this week posed an intriguing question: Is Fairground Holdings and its erstwhile CEO Evan Hoff really out of the business?

The report went like this:

“Through Zero36 we now have exposure to the rapidly growing mobile-gaming sector, with a partner who is focused exclusively on mobile gaming,” said Evan Hoff, Chief Executive of Fairground Gaming Holdings plc, the owner of Spin Palace."

Whilst it is true that Zero36 is connected to the Palace group (see previous InfoPowa reports) the involvement that the above report suggests of Evan Hoff and Fairground Gaming Holdings plc presents something of a riddle.

In mid-November last year Fairground bowed out of the online gambling scene as a result of the UIEGA. In a public announcement the company revealed that it was "...voluntarily winding up its affairs following the need to halt US-facing online gambling activities in the wake of the enactment of the Unlawful Internet Gambling Enforcement Act."

At the time, CEO Evan Hoff said that the company had "....entered into an agreement, conditional on shareholder approval, to dispose of The Spin Palace Group in its entirety to Seahouses Holdings Limited, the original owner and seller of the business, and a major shareholder in the company."

The announcement also advised that Fairground expected to cease trading on London's AIM exchange on December 18 2006.

The announcement claimed: "Executive Directors of Fairground Gaming will not remain with the operations which are being disposed of, but in any case Seahouses has advised the Fairground that it has no intention to operate the business of the Spin Palace Group in the United States."

From a 2005 biographical note: "Evan Hoff (35), Executive Director, co-founded and served as co-CEO of ForwardSLASH from 1997 to 2000 which was responsible for launching and maintaining some of the world's largest online casinos. From the end of 2000 to 2002, he was the senior executive of Ludus Online, a company involved in the online gaming sector. Since 2003, he has served as co-CEO of Quest Limited, a London-based security and intelligence consultancy."

Online Casino News courtesy of InfoPowa

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