Please read the following important information about Lock Poker
The following is our honest review of the online poker site: Lock Poker. This is one of the sites that we do not recommend to use because of the payout issues user have faced when using Lock Poker. If you are looking to play on a trusted poker site please find the best ones on our review page.
Lock Poker Scam
Unfortunately, the online casino marketplace isn’t immune to fraudulent operators and Lock Poker appears to fall within this category. Despite its longstanding existence on the Internet, reports surrounding its unethical activity when it comes to paying players promptly has a traceable history dating back to November 2012. This isn’t something that appears to be resolving itself anytime soon either. Let’s take a look at what’s happening:
Betonline Poker - #1 in the U.S
Banking Methods
- Accepts U.S. customers with large player pool
- 10+ years with a strong reputation
- $2,500 deposit bonus
About Lock Poker
Lock Poker first came into existence during mid-2011 when it was developed and released by the Merge Gaming Network. Its initial success was credited to the collapse of the online poker scene during Black Friday, where many longstanding and ethical operators left the United States to establish themselves in stable European markets that welcomed online poker.
Lock Poker sought to combat the stigma that online poker was experiencing at the time and was willing to put itself at a slight financial disadvantage partly thanks due to the strong revenue streams from other products on the Merge Game Network.
However, this in itself was causing tension between the operators behind Lock Poker and the Merge Gaming Network. Because they were imposing such a financial burden, Merge Gaming Network decided to pull the plug on the online poker platform and this resulted in several disputes. In an effort to migrate away from the platform and retain its identity as one of the industry leaders for online bonuses, Lock Poker reported purchased the Cake Poker Network and rebranded it as the Revolution Gaming Network. This, however, turned out to be false.
Cake Poker had its own issues to contend with before Lock Poker came into their world. During the time of this seeming merger, Cake Poker was nearly six months behind on payments to American players and the merger just made things a lot worse thanks to Lock Poker’s powerful promotions, which further increased the financial strain on Cake Poker.
Fortunately, this merger did not last as Lock Poker exists as its own standalone platform. It didn’t resolve payout issues. In fact, all payments have stopped as of April 2014 and players simply haven’t been able to touch base with anyone from management. It doesn’t appear that anyone involved in a payout issue will receive their funds. At least, anytime soon.
Lock Poker Scandals
Lock Poker is a platform that’s been involved with various scandalous and fraudulent reports from the earliest days of its migration away from the Merge Game Network. One of the earliest instances dates back to its own website tournaments, known as the Bluff Pro Challenges. Jose Macedo, who was acting on behalf of Lock Poker as a professional poker player, repeatedly won these challenges after receiving obvious balances in his favor and this caused quite an understandable uproar. Lock Poker later admitted to these irregularities and “disqualified” Macedo’s win. Whether this had any true backlash is unknown.
Lock Poker has also been involved in fraudulent activity with its affiliates, too. The platform would contract promoters to work on a CPA basis where paying leads would generate some commission for the affiliates. While some payments were made to affiliates, which were often late or incomplete, one promoter reported a total deduction and chargeback of all payments made due to a fraudulent player signing up under their lead. This is an online poker first – no other card room has ever taken such a drastic action.
Lock Poker Today
Once the major names in online poker left the US market due to Black Friday, Lock Poker offered incredible promotions to snag US-based players before they migrated elsewhere. They did so at rates that were both unrealistic and beyond the means that any provider was able to support. Neither Merge Gaming, Cake Poker, or Revolution Gaming were able to support their promotions and couldn’t process payments to players with any degree of honesty or intention.
It was soon apparent to Lock that they were facing a major financial crisis and they then decided to change the terms of their promotions retroactively. While players were credited with their extravagant bonuses, they were forced to bet them in wagering and rollback requirements that made it impossible for them to ever be paid these bonuses. This is an issue that’s still going on to this very day and players are almost guaranteed to lose their bonus.
Lock Poker currently exists as its own freestanding poker platform “separated” from the Revolution Gaming Network. They did this without any notice. Players who attempt to use an out of date version of Lock Poker will be redirected to Pure Poker, where Pure Poker openly states Lock Poker is no longer a part of the Revolution Gaming Network due to ongoing financial issues.
The biggest problem is, of course, Lock Poker fails to honor any cash out requests and outright refuses to pay players their winnings. Any attempts to make contact with management or even customer service personnel is impossible and e-mails, telephone calls, and letters will go without reply. Therefore, any funds deposited onto the platform should be consider stolen and irrecoverable. This is an issue that has plagued the platform for many years and it’s surprising that players still seem to buy into their bonus scheme, but they’ve still made it as con artists in the online poker scene.