Poker Rooms II
I raised $250,000 to get started. I then met with the president from Vancouver, Canada. I handed him a check for $55,000 and then waited a few months in anticipation for the poker website mock-up to be completed.
I also made several customized website requests. They were quite reasonable. I received a call just 3 months later that my site mock-up was almost done. When I viewed the site mock-up, I wasn’t impressed, but it seemed like a good starting point. I noticed that ALL of my customized requests were not complete. I was told that those would take extra time. I was assured they would be done. I was told if I didn’t check off on the site, then I would have to go to the back of the line and wait months for the changes to be made. They said this was due to newer licensees sites still needing to be completed.
I reluctantly agreed and within two days, I referred many people to the new poker site. It wasn’t perfect, but I figured it was good enough to get the ball rolling (oops). On the 12th day of launch I got an email from a player I referred. He had won $22k. He had requested a withdrawal, and after 8 days he got an email explaining that the max payout was $2k per week and he would have to resubmit a withdrawal request and wait 10 weeks total to get all of the money out.
This was just the beginning. I got another phone call explaining I had a large number of deposits (good news), but I had to cover those deposits. The network demanded an additional $15k reserve to be wired within one week or I would risk having my site shut off. I originally paid $5k for the reserve. I sent the money only after drilling them for two days as to why. Their story was convincing. They said they weren’t a bank and I would be responsible for “floating” all deposits and withdrawals from all of the different processors which had up to a 2 week delay.
This was yet another “red flag”. In the back of my head, I kept asking myself why couldn’t or wouldn’t this billion dollar empire float a lousy $20k for a two week period. A few weeks later I received several emails from client/friends of mine who hadn’t received their cash out from our poker site. These cash outs ranged from just a few hundred to a few thousand dollars. I had now provided $20k in reserves to cover these depsoits/withdrawals. this didn’t make sense.
The president of the company gave every reason why these things were happening. I was assured and reassured. Within a few weeks players started giving me feedback that they had finally started receiving some of their withdrawals. The knots in my stomach loosened a bit. Things seemed to go smoothly for a month or so. I then received a phone call from the president again explaining that he had his once a year incredible marketing campaign launching to get new players. It was the most effective marketing they found and could only be done once a year he claimed. If I wanted a piece, I could partake for $12,000. I was guaranteed it would work. I accepted his offer. I sent the money. No players signed up from that false campaign.
The problems never stopped, they only got worse. I started receiving emails from other licensees asking if I had received any revenue payouts from this company. I further questioned this, and come to find out, some of the licensees hadn’t been paid their operating commissions in months. I had never requested a payout from them because I never put much into marketing due to the other major problems. (Thank God) Needless to say I managed to lose over $100,000 with this company. Come to find out, they had lied about many representations that they made. Turns out, you can have a direct relationship with the network without going through this company. Why would the real network even allow this company to represent them? I do have a theory. The network allows this company to exist in order to sabotage and prevent the little guy from growing. By letting this scam continue, they can prevent a lot of companies from ever succeeding thereby securing the networks overall market share of online poker players. The network has allowed this scam to continue for seven years. Prospective Poker site operators beware. Over 200 people have been sucked into this.
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