Intrade discovers a $700k cash shortfall

Reminds me of the time I worked for one company and prior to going public, we called in some Sarbanes-Oxley consultants to vet us. After a thorough SOX compliance effort (which was ridiculous - one recommendation was "print out all source code and file it"), I showed up one day and an accountant in the corner had disappeared.

Seems that he had a gambling problem, but was allowed to both cut checks and sign them (fall into the GAAP). He embezzled, IIRC, close to one million dollars and was only found due to the SOX compliance effort.

Re: Intrade discovers a $700k cash shortfall

#8

Post by johnw » Sat, Apr 06, 2013, 6:33 AM UTC

Sounds like the writings been on the wall for a while now. They were fined by the CFTC in late 2012 and had to withdraw from the US market for not being a licensed exchange [1].

Most of their customers were in the US so this was a major blow to their business.

I wonder if there's an opportunity here for a Bitcoin based predictions market?

[1] http://motherboard.vice.com/blog/how-the-us-killed-intrade

Re: Intrade discovers a $700k cash shortfall

#9

Post by stuhood » Sat, Apr 06, 2013, 6:35 AM UTC

johnw wrote: post #8

Sounds like the writings been on the wall for a while now. They were fined by the CFTC in late 2012 and had to withdraw from the US market for not being a licensed exchange [1]. Most of their customers were in the US so this was a major blow to their business. I wonder if there's an opportunity here for a Bitcoin based predictions market? [1] http://motherboard.vice.com/blog/how-the-us-killed-intrade

Haven't used it, but http://betsofbitco.in/ seems to have some traction.

Re: Intrade discovers a $700k cash shortfall

#10

Post by nhaehnle » Sat, Apr 06, 2013, 6:56 AM UTC

Ovid wrote: post #7

Reminds me of the time I worked for one company and prior to going public, we called in some Sarbanes-Oxley consultants to vet us. After a thorough SOX compliance effort (which was ridiculous - one recommendation was "print out all source code and file it"), I showed up one day and an accountant in the corner had disappeared. Seems that he had a gambling problem, but was allowed to both cut checks and sign them ( fal…

Are you able to discuss in more detail what exactly helped find him?