Lock Poker Malaise Deepens as Trade Values Crash, More P2P Restrictions Allegedly Introduced
The deep problems we’ve reported on at Lock Poker as recently as Tuesday have continued to take a turn for the worse with each passing day. A handful of developments within the last 72 hours add plenty of grist to the rumor mill suggesting Lock is spiraling toward a near-future demise.
This is a sad situation for the affected players, but the news this week continues to be all bad. Just since Tuesday, we’ve seen:
- The trading market of Lock Poker dollars on the secondary market dip below .30/$1.000;
- A second reported change to the cashout terms (or lack thereof) regarding P2P (“Player to Player”) cash transfers on the site;
- The “voluntary” removal of Lock’s paid advertising from the world’s largest online poker forum, 2+2, in light of recent developments;
- Lock Poker pro Melanie “Callisto” Weisner assailed for selling pieces of herself in tournaments and accepting dollars via other site such as PokerStars, but not accept funds on Lock Poker;
- Lock Poker boss Jen Larson go ahead with a lavish, four-day retreat held in Portugal, to which many of the site’s top pros were invites.
All this in just a few days’ time. Let’s go down the list and tick off the latest roster of sins against online-poker humanity.
The secondary-market crash. Some observers had predicted a couple of weeks ago, whe n the first changes to the P2P were retroactively introduced, that the value of Lock dollars would drop to .20/$1.00 by Sunday (tomorrow). It looks like those predictions were right on the mark.
The quick collapse may prove that what Lock spokesman Shane Bridges claimed about those secondary values is nonsense, but it’s of little consolation to players. The story may be even worse: There are tons of people offering to sell their funds at thirty cents on the dollar, but buyers are virtually impossible to find.
On to the latest change in the P2P terms, which amounts to disgusting thievery on the part of Lock. (And, in an interesting aside, a piece I wrote for another site drew a complaint from Lock’s Bridges himself, though he didn’t contact me, instead going to my editor at the other site. I don’t respect that, for the most part, though it happens quite a bit.)
As for the latest change, here’s what the first form letter from Lock security stated, regarding the ability to cash out transferred funds:
Hello,
Thank you for your reply, there are no wagering requirements; player transfers are ineligible for payouts. Should you require any further assistance please do not hesitate to contact us.
All our best,
Steven
—
CSR, Lock Security
And as reported on Thursday, a slight change:
Hello,
Thank you for your reply, please note that player transfers and winnings derived from player transfers are not eligible for payouts. if you require any further assistance please do not hesitate to contact us.
All our best,
Steven
This is terrible news, and means that Lock is instituting an outright seizure/theft of millions of dollars of transferred funds. I’d like to see the above post confirmed by other posters, but if true, to me it represents the surest sign yet that Lock is done. Remember that these changes were applied retroactively to withdrawals already in Lock’s system, in some case for several months.
Moving on. 2+2. where Lock maintains a paid poker forum, has agreed after speaking with Lock officials that all advertising of Lock will cease until the situation is resolved to the satisfaction of all involved. Obviously, it means that as of now, it hasn’t been resolved.
Then there’s the matter of Lock pros continuing to pimp the site even as it’s clear there are other, deeper problems. Even though Weisner is far from Lock’s most famous pro, it’s such a laughable, special case that it deserves a special call-out. Weisner sells pieces of herself in plenty of events, and she’ll accept payment via Stars or Full Tilt’s P2P system, but not via Lock, the site she represents?
That’s hilarious, and one more log on the funeral pyre. Tell ya what: If I was Stars, I’d boot Weisner’s ass off that site and tell her she couldn’t use P2P on Stars or Tilt for that purpose.
Weisner’s not alone among Lock pros continuing to shill, which is starting to turn ugly in a way akin to the way Joe Sebok destroyed his poker reputation by continuing to accept checks from UB.com when that site was clearly defrauding other players. Several Lock pros continue to actively promote Lock on their own social pages, in addition to sporting Lock gear; examples include Michael Mizrachi, Eric “Rizen” Lynch, Annette Obrestad, Casey Jarzabek, Chris Moorman and others.
Several of these players, including Mizrachi for sure, were guests of Lock at a no-expenses spared retreat this week in Portugal. In the light of the massive liquidity problems at the site, this gives the Nero-like appearance of fiddling while virtual Rome burns.
Lock CEO Jennifer Larson is said to be a huge fan of such extravagant retreats, with secondary reports claiming she likes to do 2-3 of them a year, which are just fine as long as you have the money. What this could be is a case of spending the last of the liquid funds before the credit line gets turned off, and for a certain type of self-indulgent, self-styled business “exec”, such prolific spending in the face of dire finances is more typical than you might think.
It’s pretty easy these days to harken back to CalvinAyre.com’s repeated attacks on Larson and Lock Poker cohort Bryce Vincent Geoffrey. The attacks were often humorous, but did a good job of highlighting just how sketchy Lock’s existence has been, being tossed off multiple networks before taking over a good chunk of one of its own… and doing a fine job, it seems, of bankrupting it. It’s not good news for the players, but in this case the Bodog/Bovada mouthpiece may well be right on the mark.
Lock gives all indications right now of being a site that has exhausted both its liquid reserves and its supposedly segregated player funds, and has nothing with which to repay players. At the very least, the site is immersed in a crisis of confidence.
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