So many people seem absolutely convinced that MNW has gone over to the Dark Side. However, I saw his "facebook" youtube video, and it reinforces my conviction that he was just doing an epic prank for the betterment of the community. Even if he was being immature, reckless, thoughtless, or whatever, my gut tells me he's got a good soul - hence the net benefit that this debacle will result in. Besides, if you've got a community with a gambling addiction as bad as this one has, mere 'talking' won't help.
You have no idea how much I want to believe that, but I can't. All the evidence suggests that Matthew, at least initially, believed that there was a good chance that Pirate would pay up by acquiring his own debt at a discount or arranging partial settlements. And, unfortunately, I firmly believe that he fully intended to try to collect every penny had he won and aggressively pursue scammer tags for anyone who didn't pay up.
I will vouch for this. He mentioned in IRC several times that we should be afraid of losing to the case of a Pirate payout. He talked about what he would do with his winnings from time-to-time. There is even a thread about it. His behavior points to him never considering the idea of losing but happily winning. When he did lose, he took the sociopathic route of trying to save face through weasel words.
When I challenged him on his inability to pay on IRC, he put me on ignore. He has never ignored me once in our months of bickering. That to me was only a testament of stress and insecurity. He felt shame for what was about to happen. In the remaining integrity of his mind, he knew what was to be done.
I am confident this was not created as a prank but a way for him to win easy money. However, he never considered the desires of the other parties in his scheme.