Microgaming, a leading online gaming software provider, has announced that it will be closing one of its oldest and most popular operations – the Microgaming Poker Network (MPN) sometime next year. The provider has not yet announced a specific date for the pending closure.
According to a statement issued on Microgaming’s official website on Friday, 20th September 2019, it has come to the decision to put MPN to sleep after an extensive internal review of its online poker product portfolio and strategy.
The online poker network was launched by the iGaming provider over 16 years ago and was one of the platforms that shaped poker and online poker. The decision about MPN’s closure has come as very sad news to members of the global poker community.
Alex Scott, Microgaming Managing Director posted a blog on mpn.poker saying that they expect the closure to take place sometime in the second or third quarter of 2020. He added that after an extensive review into their poker product, which included input from industry experts, independent consultants, and Microgaming poker staff around the world, they have decided that ‘for poker to be as successful as possible, they had to adopt a very different strategy and business model’’ and that the pokier network ‘is not part of that vision’.
Scott went on to say that MPN will not cancel any scheduled online tournaments, live events, cash games and promotions, which means that the online Universal Championship of Poker will continue as scheduled, while the MPN Poker Tour will pay its visit to sunny Malta in October for the Battle of Malta Main Event.