Is there light at the end of the tunnel for Lock Poker?

On Thursday the saga that has gripped 2+2 and the poker community took a new turn, as Lock Poker clearly communicated their Player-to-Player transfer policy, as well as CEO Jennifer Larson speaking for the first time regarding the lengthy backlog of player withdrawals. While the announcement and statement haven’t eased concerns about the site’s overall solvency, it does appear to have bought the site a little more time as forum chatter has lessened and has been far less vitriolic overnight.

So, just when things were at their bleakest (imagine the end of Lord of the Rings where Aragorn, Gandalf, and company are surrounded by tens of thousands of angry orcs); it seems Lock Poker has somewhat righted the ship (imagine the next scene with gargantuan eagles screeching in and temporarily saving the day); but there is still a long way to go for the beleaguered site before they actually throw the Ring of Power into the fires of Mount Doom.

On Thursday evening the following statement regarding the new P2P policy was posted on the Lock Poker website:

Lock Poker Clarifies P2P Transfer Withdrawal Policy

A large amount of mis-information has been spread recently on various poker news sites and forum postings about player funds being lost in recent banking scandals; none of this is true.

Soon after Lock Poker CEO Jennifer Larson sat-down/spoke-to Gambling911.com, a large online gaming affiliate which has been extremely sympathetic towards Lock Poker and defended the site throughout the current situation. In the “interview” Larson addressed the lengthy withdrawal delays the site has been experiencing (some unprocessed withdrawals date back to December 2012) telling G911 that “you will see improvement in this [payout times] over the coming weeks.” Larson added that there were a number of reasons for the slow payouts: “There was a group of people who were buying and cashing out players bankrolls and not playing at all – this was a large volume and was causing legitimate players’ cash outs to be delayed… The other main reason is that Lock one of the largest poker sites that continues to serve players in most States in the US.  This means that all Lock payments processors must be discreet as the DOJ has shown repeatedly that it likes to seize the players funds.”

It’s unclear what these “improvements” will mean for Lock Poker moving forward, or just how much the recent negative press will affect the company. It should also be noted that these statements do not speak to the site’s solvency as several vocal Lock critics have pointed out. While Lock Poker’s traffic has dropped off considerably in recent months, most of the decline was due to the lengthy withdrawal times and not the current situation which began a few weeks ago and really only gained steam over the past seven days; according to PokerScout.com Lock Traffic has held steady during the entire fiasco, with peak traffic numbers basically unchanged over the past month –However, now that withdrawal times are said to have improved there may be a run on the bank at the site.