There is more bad news for those with chips stuck on Lock Poker. We reported last week that players that received player to player transfers were seeing their cashout requests reversed by Lock Poker security when it came time to process them a month later. Some of these issues were reported by smaller players or those that had won more than they had received in transfers. Many had even met the previously advertised wager requirement on transfers. That caused Lock Poker chip prices to fall to $.50 on the dollar.
Prices held at that level over the weekend until Two Plus Two member kilowatt made a post in the Lock Poker sponsored forum. The post starts with this:
Lock Poker is broke. Player funds are gone.
Kilowatt goes on to state that an inside source had confirmed that Lock Poker had lost a substantial sum of money in the Cyprus bank debacle. Some individuals and companies that invested and deposited in Cyprus banks lost as much as 60% of their deposits due to the Greek banking crisis, which is where many Cypriot banks invested their money.
Funds were locked by the banks for 12 days and large depositors were the ones that took most of the losses. Many banks in other countries sell bonds to generate cash to make investments. Banks in Cyprus used customer deposits so there was nobody left to pay the losses besides those that had perhaps unknowingly made a risky investment. This situation contributed to the run up of Bitcoin prices.
Lock Poker was not the only online poker room affected by the Cyprus banking scandal. Other online poker rooms experienced delays while the country’s banking system was shut down. The difference is that no other poker room was already in a dire cashout situation before the crisis.
To put the value of Lock Poker chips into perspective, Absolute Poker and Ultimate Bet chips were trading at around $.50 on the dollar in the weeks after Black Friday when US players could not cashout and rest of world players could only cashout about $1,000 each month. The price of Cereus chips did not fall into the $.30’s until about 6 weeks after Black Friday. It appears that the market is trying to compare today’s Lock Poker situation to the Cereus implosion. The fact that buyers of Lock Poker chips will have few or no ways to withdraw their money could put further pressure on Lock Poker chip values. This may affect the entire network, even financially strong skins, due to the possibility of chip dumping.
4Flush has been unable to independently verify this rumor. We are simply reporting the further collapse of Lock Poker chip values. Lock Poker has not responded to the accusation made 24 hours ago. They have posted in other threads within their forum since that time.
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I don’t know much about the story itself, and I don’t know if it’s true or not, but it should be pointed out that Kilowatt is Todd Witteles who has been crusading against Lock Poker for at least a year. Would have been better coming from a different source: Todd’s pretty hit or miss with his “inside sources”.
That said, Lock’s current cashier problems are extremely troubling
Crusade or not, it’s deeply troubling that Lock Poker and reps like Shane Bridges have continually dodged giving real answers and provide some type of transparency when its come to the troubles the site has experienced over the last several months.
The cashout times aside, Lock Poker was supposed to be the saving grace for USA poker players especially – and look at what they’ve become. They have squandered the trust of players both in the states and abroad with the way they do business. The time for zero accountability is getting old from them lately.
We as players deserve better than that….
I said it was extremely troubling. While I’ve played Devil’s Advocate for the site in the past (basically pointing out conjecture vs. facts) I’ve been very pessemistic of Lock Poker over the past 6 months or so. Still, I’ve always said no player should leave any amount of money they cannot afford to lose on any of these sites.
So anyone who trusted ANY US-facing poker site post-Black Friday (and to a certain extent pre-Black Friday) doesn’t really deserve better. We knew what to expect from these sites and what potential outcomes were likely. I feel bad for players who lose money, but to some extent it’s all a risk. Putting money on a US-facing poker room post-Black Friday is akin to buying a volatile stock.
I can’t recall Lock Poker being described as the saving grace for US players, it was simply the best available option based on player pool and promotions.
I was nervous about Lock Poker too but have recently received a WU cashout and MB cashout plus they still have a lot of players. You would think that with all the negative press the poker room/network gets the active players would be pretty far down the list approaching BetOnline.
Its not and that is why I don’t think they are going to go broke any time soon (Granted that didn’t stop Full Tilt). If you remember when Lock split Merge was in just as much if not worse trouble.
US players have limited options right now and I think its just starting to frustrate everyone. It could be a lot worse and I would love to promote Lock more if they could get their act together.