Lock Poker has continued to struggle with withdrawal speeds over the past few months. Lock Poker originally left the Merge Gaming Network in June 2012 to create a network model where they would have complete control. Lock Poker bought the Cake Poker Network and renamed it the Revolution Gaming Network.
In the months that have followed Lock has failed to maintain acceptable payment processing speeds and quality support to players. This has been causing problems with Lock Poker’s once-thriving reputation as a solid place for poker players, especially those in the United States.
Lock Poker Deposit Methods Attract Casual US Players
Lock Poker offers excellent deposit methods for U.S. players. This includes a high rate of credit card acceptance. This has helped the network offer consistently higher game quality than other U.S. facing networks. The issues have appeared when players need an issue resolved with support or request a withdrawal.
Lock Poker US Withdrawal Speeds Unsatisfactory
The biggest problem affecting Lock Poker players is that the poker room is unable to process cashouts in a timely manner. U.S. players have only one option available for withdrawals at this time. That option is a paper check with a cashout speed of about three months. Players in the U.S. had Western Union as a withdrawal option but that option was dropped after Lock Poker was unable to process most Western Union requests for weeks which created a backlog.
Some players have been waiting over two months for Western Union withdrawal requests from Lock Poker. These requests were promised in about two weeks originally. Many players planned on using this money for holidays. This has caused anger among players. Most support emails receive a canned response with apologies for the delay.
U.S. withdrawal speeds have been a problem for some poker rooms since Black Friday. This may be a valid excuse if Lock Poker did not also have slow speeds for players outside of the U.S. that have major ewallets like Skrill and Neteller available. These cashout requests to international ewallets often take four weeks or longer to process. This has become a major cause for concern among players. It is one thing to lack the ability to process U.S. cashout requests quickly, it is another to take over a month to pay Moneybookers and Neteller withdrawal requests.
I also write the monthly US payment processing report for PAS. In that report, I graded Lock Poker a D on their U.S. payment processing speeds. This was the first time in the 1.5 years that I have published the report that an online poker room that accepted U.S. players received a lower grade than Cake Poker/Juicy Stakes. There are poker rooms in that report that can process some U.S. withdrawals in a day or two, but yet Lock Poker cannot process these types of payments in less than two months in most cases.
Lock Poker Support
Some players complain about poor Lock Poker support. These players claim that they never receive a reply to their support email or receive a canned response. Players that post in the Lock Poker forum at Two Plus Two request public responses from Lock Poker management to their issues but often there is no response there either. While this is a problem, it is far less of a concern than the late payments.
Not Time to Panic
While there is a lot of concern about Lock Poker’s withdrawal speeds I do not think that they are closing up shop. I do think that players should take these withdrawal speeds into consideration though. U.S. online pros may want to avoid Lock Poker due to their inability to process payments in a timely manner. Players that need their online poker winnings to pay their bills should consider playing elsewhere or at least playing at multiple poker rooms.
Revolution Network Still Has Safe Havens
I also do not think this means that the network is in trouble. There are two Revolution Gaming rooms that still process U.S. payments in a timely manner. Those poker rooms are Red Star Poker and Intertops. Unfortunately, those two rooms do not accept new U.S. players. They do have many players that were grandfathered in before the U.S. player restriction. These poker rooms, as well as others on the network, have their own payment processing and are unaffected by the problems at Lock Poker.
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Great read John — loving your stories here on 4Flush! USA poker would be a lot better off without sites like Lock Poker regardless…..but it seems like they’re sort of a necessary evil right now though I guess when it comes to finding any type of game as a U.S. player….