Anthony Tailor, Chief Executive Officer of Merge Gaming, has resigned from his position, pokerfuse has learned.
The reason for Tailor’s departure is unknown, although it is understood that companies with a business relationship with the network have been reassured that his resignation is not cause for concern.
No press release from Merge Gaming has yet been issued, and no one was available to talk to pokerfuse before publication of this article.
According to his public profiles, Taylor took the CEO role at Merge in April 2007. Prior to this appointment, he worked in various gambling related roles, including positions at the Racing Post and The Sportsman, a brief stint as Poker Room Manager at Wagerworks until its acquisition by IGT in 2005, and a consultancy position at BSkyB. He is listed as residing near Brisbane, Australia.
Merge Gaming, also based in Australia, rose to prominence as one of the few remaining networks accepting US players following Black Friday and the closures of its many competitors.
It saw strong growth and dominated the US market for some time, until the departure of one of its largest skins, Lock Poker, who acquired the Cake Poker Network and rebranded it as Revolution. When relaunched it overtook Merge to take the top spot, but Merge maintains a strong second position today.
Concerned over its US-facing activities following the domain name seizures of Blue Monday which affected two Merge skins, the network blocked account signups in specific states of the US and soon after blocked all new US account signups. The block was lifted after two months.
A month later, a news article on poker news site Subject: Poker reported that the US Government planned more payment processor seizures specifically targeted at Merge Gaming. Referred to as “baseless speculation” by a skin representative, it nevertheless led to a temporary drop in traffic.
However, there has been no further known payment processor seizures or action against US-facing sites, and service has continued apparently unhindered.
