Major upheaval at the Revolution Gaming Network

It’s hard to find the right word to describe the current situation at the Revolution Gaming Network: Chaos, disorder, turmoil, disarray, confusion, anxiety panic, and hysteria, all come to mind, as the network has watched their withdrawal times grind to a near-halt, causing Lock Poker funds to trade for about $.30 on the dollar, while the network hemorrhages players. Another word that is a fitting descriptive for the network right now is in-fighting, considering there has been some serious allegations leveled by a number of the network’s poker rooms at one another.

At the center of the controversy is Lock Poker.  The site has been a lightning rod for controversies in their short-term in the online poker industry, and their reluctance to communicate openly and honestly with the poker community has led to one of the worst reputations in online poker. The site is notorious for vague explanations, half-truths, and sometimes outright falsehoods. Even their announced purchase of the Cake Poker Network wasn’t an honest assessment of the situation; as we later learned they only purchased a percentage (still unknown) of the network, and not as was first reported the entire network.

Without rehashing older scandals/debates regarding the site and network, the latest issues are between Intertops Poker and Lock Poker. Intertops –long considered one of the best US-facing poker rooms for withdrawal times—has decided to segregate all of its mid-stakes and higher games (cash-games, S&G’s, and tournaments) from the rest of the network, in a move apparently meant to cut-down on chip-dumping from other Revolution skins. Several possibilities as to why they took this extraordinary step include:

1)      Lock Poker and other Revolution skins may have asked for audits on certain Intertops accounts to look for chip-dumping, which Intertops recently performed.

2)      Revolution Gaming may have fallen behind on reconciliation payments to Intertops.

An Intertops representative wrote the following on the 2+2 forums regarding the segregation:

Dear 2+2 members and Intertops users!

Ever since Intertops accepted the world’s first ever online sports bet in 1996 we have built a reputation as a dependable and serious partner for all types of online gaming. We can already look back upon a long tradition of integrity and satisfied customers around the world.

We want to keep our reputation and continue providing our customers with the service and support that they deserve. Furthermore, we want to be able to continue to guarantee our players their funds and remain one of the most trusted and safe places to play.

In order to achieve the above we have been forced, due to circumstances beyond our control, to make some changes to our segregation.

We know we haven’t been very open with various segregation changes in the past, but this will now change.

So what kind of segregation is in place now? Well, for Intertops the following applies:

Cash Games: All cash games, including and above $2/$4, are segregated from the rest of the network.

Sit n Gos: All Sit n Gos above a $20 buy-in are segregated from the rest of the network, this also includes the double up SnGs.

MTTs: From this weekend on we have also been forced to opt out from all guaranteed tournaments higher than $1000.

We apologize for any inconvenience this might cause. We hope we can clear up a few of the issues over the next coming weeks and get back to where we know we can be. One thing is for sure – we have finished paying for the mistakes of others.

It is important for you to keep in mind that we are in this for the long-run and we will not abandon our players! This will allow us to continue paying your winnings in a very timely manner as we have been doing for the past 17 years!

Best regards,

The Intertops Poker Team

Whatever the reason, it doesn’t appear that Lock Poker was behind the Intertops decision, considering they slashed their tournament guarantees in direct response to the segregation by Intertops:

The network has advised us that starting from this Sunday the guaranteed prize pools of the two major Sunday tournaments have been reduced. The network took this step despite our protests after another network partner asked to have their players excluded from these events.

Starting this Sunday the guaranteed prize for the the Superstack will change from $25,000 to $20,000 and the $75,000 Guaranteed will change to become the $60,000 Guaranteed.

We fought both these changes but were unable to sway the networks mind, we will continue to support these tournaments hard including continuing our 50 Seats freeroll for the $60,0000 GTD and we will continue to lobby the network to raise the guaranteed prizes of both of these tournaments.