Lock Poker Scam Reaches "God Level" In Mistreatment of its Poker Players
Lock Poker is a well known Ponzi Scheme in the online gaming industry, help us spread the word to other players by tweeting, sharing this article cataloguing their misdeeds.
Lock Poker surpasses 380 players in recorded owed payouts, totaling over $962,000; over 20% of whom have waited 400 days or more.
Any opinions expressed in this article are those of the person known as "IHasTehNutz" and do not reflect those of Professional Rakeback, its players, or associates.
It's surprising when you think about it. What could be more sickening? Ignoring the hundreds, if not thousands of human beings you owe millions to? Or perhaps knowing that their money went to such nobel causes, all of which were not under the "we should pay our players what we owe them" category.
This is the dilemma that Lock Poker CEO Jennifer Larson should be considering. But of course, we know that she, and her company, are not thinking even remotely close to either scenario. What they are doing, aside from continuing to operate Lock Poker despite the amount of publicly available information out there that shows just how horrible they are, is hiding behind the wall of invincibility that they have enjoyed for several years. No one to be accountable to, no one to hold them responsible for their actions. Actions of which had they operated with a license in the United States would quite obviously be criminal.
But instead of waiting to see when any representatives of Lock Poker will appear in a court of law, American and Rest-of-World (ROW) players are left literally holding the bag. They abuse their status as an offshore gaming company, soiling the term like no other before them. Where legitimate offshore companies pay their players what they are owed and do so in a timely manner, Lock Poker has taken the words "owed payout" and has raised it to a stratuspherical level - and not in a good way.
The latest Lock Pending Cashout Report, which I compile and post in the Internet Forums of Twoplustwo and have been since June of 2013, paints a picture worth more than a thousand words. Or, more than a thousand PM's - I've received thousands of messages about Lock Poker and the payouts they refuse to make to players. 380 of them remain on the report at this juncture in time, collectively owed more than $962,000. 155 of these people, these human beings who did nothing wrong except deposit on Lock Poker and trusting their funds were secure, have waited a year or longer since making their withdrawal request.
Let that sink in. 155 people cataloged have waited a year or more for their owed payouts from Lock Poker. And that number grows on a daily basis.
Here's a few more numbers. $492,262.76 - that's the amount owed to North American players. 345 - that's the amount of days, on average, the 175 players waiting for their Western Union payout have had to remain idle, watching their email inbox for a message that is likely never to come. 48 - that's the amount of players from the report that have been paid by Lock Poker since November 1st, 2013. 12 - that's the amount of players on the report paid in 2014.
Zero - that's the amount of ROW players not on the report who have been paid since November of last year.
Players seem to have no recourse. They continue to wait, the frustration growing.
And then the Poker Players Alliance, a group based in the US who is attempting to influence lawmakers in Washington, DC to regulate online poker, made an attempt to influence Lock Poker to disclose information on their operations. Personally I have a lot of opinions on this, and I haven't been shy about voicing them. But I also have said that the PPA, while perhaps naive with the long-answered questions posed in their now infamous letter they sent to Lock Poker, started out with a snippet of the right idea. Where they failed was in having the temerity to deal with the blowback from players that followed. They were rightly upset at the PPA's first volley, knowing that its effectiveness would be akin to throwing a shovel at a tornado and expect it to stop churning.
These players had every right to be upset. They've been screwed over for months on end, berated with endless canned responses to their emails, slapped with the silence that came from Lock when they simply asked where their money was. The PPA could have factored this into their approach. But now it seems they've tossed a rock at Lock and when it didn't break any glass, they walked away instead of looking for a bigger rock.
But this article isn't about the PPA. While some may have issues with the PPA's actions here and there, no one comes close to Lock Poker in terms of the care they lack for players who made them the company they once were. Oh yes, at one time Lock Poker was the number one US-facing online poker site. Whether you agreed with their tactics or not, they took stole the ball from Merge in 2012 and ran with it, taking on endless amounts of US players eager to find somewhere to play in a very small amount of time. And maybe, even for a brief moment, they were able to pay their players and keep them coming back for more.
But the end goal, which at that point only a few speculated on, would be crystal clear as 2013 began. Lock Poker never had a real interest in sustaining their momentum, or being a dependable poker option for American players who were desperate for one. With history to give us the 20/20 vision we need, there's no speculation necessary. Lock Poker made a cash grab and it worked ten times over. There is simply no telling how much money they have robbed from its players over the years.
And the beat goes on. Lock Poker remains in operation, somehow, someway. People with no conscience continue to promote Lock Poker, and still, dozens daily manage to contribute and keep the Ponzi scheme alive. One may surmise that if you could round up every poker player in the country and warn them about Lock Poker, there would still be a thin percentage that would play there. Maybe that's true. It has to be. Lock Poker still exists, stil draining every last penny they can for as long as they can. I've never been surprised that they stay in business - unfortunate as it is, there's people who will play anywhere, for whatever reason.
For 380 people in particular, and the countless hundreds of others who have yet to find the Lock Pending Cashout Report, there appears to be no end to the misery. The misery imposed on a daily basis by Lock Poker, who've toyed with them for a year or more, in many cases, with dead, meaningless words. These soulless, anonymous ones who probably get a good laugh at the daily reminders around them of 'how gullable people can be'. Players trusted Lock Poker to simply live up to its basic responsibility - give me decent poker options and pay me in a reasonable amount of time. They gave them a pass for their various blunders of the past, and their tedious at best customer service that was simply a precursor to the service they 'offer' now.
It's a service of screwing people. And over the past year, they've perfected the craft. It's "God Level", now. No one does it better.
What a thing to be proud of.
H/T to the Poker Players Alliance website, Twoplustwo Forums, and Game Intel
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RELATED CONTENT:
> ProfRB.com's Monthly Poker Cashout Report (May 2014 - Lock Poker scores 0/10)
> Lock Poker Civil War: Player Earns Expedited Payout For High Rake (September 2013)
> Two Players Wait Over A Year For Lock Poker Payouts (December 2013)
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