Lock Poker Owes Its Players More Than $3 Million

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Tuesday, October 21st, 2014 | Written by Shane Larson

Back in 2011, Lock Poker appeared to be the toast of the industry, with the site employing a full roster of sponsored pros including an exciting new Portuguese poker prodigy by the name of José “Triple P” Macedo. Unfortunately, the site subsequently attracted a whole host of criticism after the 18 year-old was found to be cheating, and soon after players started complaining about slow cash outs, leading to an exodus of sponsored pros keen to have their names disassociated from the poker room.

In the latest twist on the saga, TwoPlusTwo forum poster ‘IHasTehNutz’ has been compiling a list of all the unpaid money and account balances owed to Lock players and the scale of the scandal is even worse than initially believed. Whereas previously the site was thought to owe around $1 million to its customers, according to ‘IHasTehNutz’ that figure is closer to $3.2 million when the $2.2 million currently languishing in player accounts is included.

Millions owed to players

IHasTehNutz recently posted his findings on www.everythingpokernj.com showing that while 394 players have been waiting for more than $941,000 in unprocessed cashouts, 205 of those players have a further $2.2 million in their Lock accounts which they may never see again.

Interestingly, more than $1.7 million of the $2.2 million languishing idly in Lock player accounts belongs to players living outside of the USA, with the last ROW (Rest Of the World) player to receive a payout having occurred back in November 2013.

A deposit only “Ponzi scheme”

Such is the tattered reputation of Lock Poker that most believe the online poker room is currently operating as a deposit only “Ponzi scheme” which allows players to get money onto the site, but who will subsequently have little chance of seeing their money again.

Case in point, according to IHasTehNutz the last payout to be received by a Lock customer took place in April 2014, with the majority of players currently waiting between 365 days and 600+ days for their Lock Poker payouts to no avail. Furthermore, it is also believed that the former flagship room of the Revolution Network also owes the network “a significant amount” of money, and as a Revolution Gaming Network statement explained last year:

“Due to lack of payment to the Network and a large growing debt, the Network had no choice but to eventually segregate Lock players almost entirely from Network cash games. The Network issued an official final demand notice to Lock in October and unfortunately must now pursue Lock to the full extent possible by law to recover all monies owed and damages caused.”

Lock Poker traffic continues slide

When Lock Poker was in its heyday it could boasts several thousand cash game players over a week’s period, but now the site seems practically dead and is ranked 55 on PokerScout‘s Online Poker Traffic Report with a 7 day average of just 34 players.

In addition, most of those players counted by tracking site PokerScout are likely only there to use up their near worthless funds frozen on the poker room, and as John Mehaffey from 4flush.com, explained recently:

“The cash game quality is extremely high. Chips are thrown around the tables like they are worthless. That is, of course, because they just about are. Players have been swapping Lock Poker chips for cash at a rate of about $.06-$.07 on the dollar for months. That means a player at a $200 NL table is really at a $12 or $14 game.”

Most likely insolvent

Naturally, with little money being deposited on the poker room and little action taking place at the tables, many industry experts now believe the site is most likely insolvent. The worrying situation even compelled the Poker Players Alliance (PPA) to write to Lock Poker requesting clarity on its financial situation but just like Lock’s customers, the PPA also received no response.

As a result, the PPA issued a warning to anyone considering playing on the site, which should be well heeded by the poker community as a whole. Namely that: “..we encourage extreme caution when depositing on Lock Poker. We also strongly encourage affiliates to remove Lock Poker ads and positive reviews. In the current state, these are at best misleading.”