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RIP Brian
THE GUARANTEE THAT WASN'T
Poker Room.com remains silent in the face of mounting criticism over a tournament that went wrong
For the past two weeks online poker message boards like Winneronline, 2 + 2 and Poker Room's own message board facility have been clouded by growing condemnation of an online poker tournament that appears to have gone horribly wrong.
The issue centres on a $20 + 2 buy-in Christmas tournament that took place on December 16 and promised a guaranteed prize pool of $19 000. An Australian player using the handle Mvzander subsequently won the tournament and was paid out $3 829.06 and a HD television worth $2 000.
Things seemed to go downhill from there, as Mvzander's wide postings on major fora indicate:
"[The morning of Dec. 18] I received an email from Pokerroom informing me that they had overpaid me for the tournament and were taking $3 400 out of my account," the player said.
"I logged in to find out that, while I slept, a major online poker site had indeed simply swiped several thousand dollars from my account."
"There is no way that the winner of a 265 player, $20+2 tournament receives only $400," the angry player argued.
Unfortunately, Poker Room.com, which is owned by the Ongame Network, a subsidiary of Austrian public company Bwin, has remained apparently indifferent to the mounting volume of condemnation. The company has remained silent, exacerbating an already difficult situation on the fora and angering players who perceive the issue as wrongdoing or inefficiency on the part of the poker room.
The authoritative poker portal PokerSource.com commented this week:
"Some people may argue that PokerRoom.com made an honest mistake and should not have to pay for it. In fact, a company representative initially tried to compare the situation to one where a bank accidentally double deposited into a customers account. Of course, the bank would have the right to take back money that did not rightfully belong to the customer.
"Unfortunately, this is not an accurate analogy.
"In the bank example, a customer would not reasonably expect to be able to keep the duplicate deposit. The customer knows it is not his. Same applies if a store has a typo in an advertisement. Say, this same $2 000 television was advertised by a local store for $20 because two zeroes were accidentally omitted from the price. No reasonable person would think that the store was actually offering the item for $20 and would not be entitled to purchase the television for such an insanely low price.
"In the PokerRoom.com case, while a $19 000 guaranteed prize pool is rather high for a $20 buy-in, it is not by any means unbelievable, especially for a special Christmas promotion.
"The prize information was displayed for days leading up to the tournament, during the tournament, and is even still displayed on PokerRoom.coms website to this day."
Poker Room.com remains silent in the face of mounting criticism over a tournament that went wrong
For the past two weeks online poker message boards like Winneronline, 2 + 2 and Poker Room's own message board facility have been clouded by growing condemnation of an online poker tournament that appears to have gone horribly wrong.
The issue centres on a $20 + 2 buy-in Christmas tournament that took place on December 16 and promised a guaranteed prize pool of $19 000. An Australian player using the handle Mvzander subsequently won the tournament and was paid out $3 829.06 and a HD television worth $2 000.
Things seemed to go downhill from there, as Mvzander's wide postings on major fora indicate:
"[The morning of Dec. 18] I received an email from Pokerroom informing me that they had overpaid me for the tournament and were taking $3 400 out of my account," the player said.
"I logged in to find out that, while I slept, a major online poker site had indeed simply swiped several thousand dollars from my account."
"There is no way that the winner of a 265 player, $20+2 tournament receives only $400," the angry player argued.
Unfortunately, Poker Room.com, which is owned by the Ongame Network, a subsidiary of Austrian public company Bwin, has remained apparently indifferent to the mounting volume of condemnation. The company has remained silent, exacerbating an already difficult situation on the fora and angering players who perceive the issue as wrongdoing or inefficiency on the part of the poker room.
The authoritative poker portal PokerSource.com commented this week:
"Some people may argue that PokerRoom.com made an honest mistake and should not have to pay for it. In fact, a company representative initially tried to compare the situation to one where a bank accidentally double deposited into a customers account. Of course, the bank would have the right to take back money that did not rightfully belong to the customer.
"Unfortunately, this is not an accurate analogy.
"In the bank example, a customer would not reasonably expect to be able to keep the duplicate deposit. The customer knows it is not his. Same applies if a store has a typo in an advertisement. Say, this same $2 000 television was advertised by a local store for $20 because two zeroes were accidentally omitted from the price. No reasonable person would think that the store was actually offering the item for $20 and would not be entitled to purchase the television for such an insanely low price.
"In the PokerRoom.com case, while a $19 000 guaranteed prize pool is rather high for a $20 buy-in, it is not by any means unbelievable, especially for a special Christmas promotion.
"The prize information was displayed for days leading up to the tournament, during the tournament, and is even still displayed on PokerRoom.coms website to this day."
