Last week Lock Poker announced it is leaving the Revolution network immediately to become an independent room. The slow paying / no paying Lock has put the blame for the split firmly in the lap of the network. Lock players who have been waiting months for their money should know better than to believe the hype spouted by the Lock PR machine.
Lock has stated that players moving to the new stand alone Lock Poker version 2 site will have their money available and payment times will be restored. Common sense and previous experience should tell players otherwise.
Lock have been sighting issues of downtime and connections as the reason Lock have terminated their contract with the network. However it’s far more likely other sites have had enough of Lock failing to make their reconciliation payments to the network, believed to be in the region of $10 million owing. That and small matter of not paying their players for upwards of 7 months.
In a twist it seems the Revolution Network (whoever they are this week) are directing Lock players to Pure Poker (believed to be one of the new / old owners “in-house” Revolution skins). This is a bold attempt to encourage them away from transferring to Lock V2 and off the network.
WTF is going on at Lock / Revolution ?
All this may sound somewhat confusing to many players who will be thinking “hang on – didn’t Lock actually buy the Cake Poker Network and rename it Revolution ?”
Well yes and no apparently
Back in May 2012 Lock Poker fell out with the Merge Network and planned to move to the Cake Poker Network. Shockingly they announced in addition they were buying the network and would be re-naming it Revolution.
Hang on a minute …
Now you would be forgiven for thinking how the hell can Lock (the poker room) fall out with itself (Revolution the network) – aren’t they one and the same company ?
Well apparently in Lock’s recently re-written version of history they never in fact completed the deal to buy Cake.
It was mentioned very quietly a short while ago that the “deal hadn’t gone through” without much fuss or fanfare and it certainly wasn’t picked up by most people.
What ? So now Lock want players to believe that they never actually went through with the deal and never had any control of the network. This conveniently enables them to suggest all the blame rests with a network they suddenly never owned.
Bullshi*t
AFAIKS Cake Network actually was handed over to one of Lock’s shell companies (Cipaco N.V) around the time of the original re-brand announcement.
What is far more likely is the deal to hand over control was done as announced but Lock failed to actually fully pay up when it came to the payment deadline(s).
Now that IMHO is very different to “not completing the deal”.
It’s more a case of “thanks for handing over the company, we promise to pay you sometime never and when you get sick of waiting for all of your cash we’ll have thought of something”.
This is yet more Lock spin – I have absolutely no doubt that while Lock may not have fully or properly paid for the purchase of the Cake network (which they renamed Revolution) they had for some period control of it and ran the network, held in one of their known shell companies Cipaco N.V.
Cake not in great health even before Lock
It’s worth remembering that Cake Poker Network wasn’t exactly in the best of health even before Lock joined. CPN already needed a lifeline after Doylesroom left owing money. When PokerListings bought a 50% interest in the network around April 2011 it was thought this would help get them back on track.
Lock Poker v Revolution
Fast forward to the current mess and Lock players appear to have two options, neither are great –
1) Complete migration from Lock to Lock Version 2 on their new stand alone software.
IMHO there is next to no chance of ever getting a completed cashout – They are almost certainly broke.
2) Remain on the Revolution Network by moving the “value” of your bankroll to Pure Poker where they are offering the value of your old Lock balance with $50 instant + rakeback bonuses. However players will need to clear rake requirements to withdrawal money.
ON the face of it this is the better option even with a rake requirement. The network can’t have been in great shape as a result of Lock not paying network dues but it will be better than Lock on their own.
It looks like InterTops (one of the good solvent sites on the network) and Juicy Stakes are now working closely together. They now share games which were segregated from Lock and the rest of the network, suggesting if they are backing things the network may recover.
3) DO BOTH – This is smart move, just download Lock 2 and demand your money from them and resubmit your cash-out request. It’s Lock that actual owe you your balance and it’s them that have it spent it.
AND then also open a Pure Poker account and tell them how much your Lock balance is and that you want to play on Pure. They will nominally give you the value of your old Lock balance as bonus to clear, it seems with $50 to start instantly and then your remaining balance up to $200 within a few days. Player’s with bankroll’s over this need to chat with support on Pure so they can set something up.
It is important to say this again – Pure do NOT have access to your funds on Lock or a means to actually transfer them. They are purely trying to give players a chance to reclaim the value of their “lost” Lock funds by way of a pending balance that can be cleared by raking on games.
Yes it’s confusing but this is not claiming the same money twice. Lock owe you and probably won’t pay you, but don’t let them off the hook. While Pure isn’t giving you your actual Lock money that is still in Lock’s pockets or spent on luxury jollies for them.
This effectively Revolutions best solution to trying to help players re-create their lost balance on the Revolution network.
If Revolution / Cake Network have got screwed for close to $10m and the payment of a network they for all intents and purposes handed over never happened – You can be sure your not going to see real money from Lock in you hand for a long time if ever.
This might all sound cr*p, and it is but truth is Lock have been nothing but bullsh*t and empty promises the chances of ever seeing them pay you are slim.
NB. There is one slight issue with this – at the moment it’s not 100% clear if depositing at Pure is a requirement. Some players have been getting an unconditional $50 credited to their account and the remaining balance credited to clear others not yet.
How Can Lock Afford New Software Platform ?
With many players now waiting over 7 months (and some close to a year) for cash-outs where have Lock got the money to buy and develop a new software platform ?
It seems all the while Lock were (still are) failing to pay out players and failing to process withdrawal requests in a timely manner they have been planning their exit from Revolution for at least 6 months.
During this time their mouthpiece Shane has been “assuring” players and forums like 2+2 that they have no intention of moving away from the network – Yet more bull.
Players on 2+2 have in-fact now built a list of close to 500 players waiting for cashouts and owed a total of nearly $500,000 by Lock.
A Choice Between Two Stinking Barrels
Make no mistake Lock is a pit of bullsh*tting pathological liars who are probably incapabile of differentiating the truth from the lies themselves anymore.
However Cake Network recent history and latterly Revolutions entire history are far from a stella example of how to run a network. With increasingly poor payment times on Cake even before Lock came alone.
The only real exception with decent service and withdrawal times has been InterTops who maintain a separate cashier. They have been segregated themselves from all the other sites in the network for sometime to avoid players chip dumping worthless Lock money accross to Intertops for speedy withdrawals.
Recently Intertops opening up sharing player pools with Juicy Stakes following their recent sale, suggesting some credibility for the new owners of Juicy Stakes.
Bottom line the whole thing is one big long sorry story and players with funds in Lock are stuck between the devil and the deep blue sea. For those that are not stuck I would strongly urge (as I have been for a good while) that you always stay away from Lock and for the moment you stay away from Cake / Revolution sites – Play on bodog, play on Carbon but don’t commit any fresh funds to any Revolution sites.
