Internet Poker site PokerRoom.com has Players Fuming

The internet poker community in recent days have been lashing out at PokerRoom.com following a complaint filed by one player who feels he was duped during a "Christmas Tournament".

From the Two Plus Two Press website:

"On the 16th of December Pokerroom.com held a $20+2 Christmas tournament. When I went to the lobby of this tournament, it was listed as a 19k guarantee. As there were slightly over 200 players registered a few minutes before start, I, along with several other players, decided this overlay was much too good to pass up. The tournament also offered an HDTV for first and pokerroom goods for the rest of the final table.

"I won the tournament, which paid out $3,829.06 plus a $2000 HDTV. I then proceeded to run around the internet and my family telling everyone about my biggest score to this point. Two days later, I woke up.

"Monday morning 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. 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."

PokerSource.com has since followed up:

"Perhaps the most mind-boggling sub-fiasco in this entire fiasco involves that of the winner, who goes by the screen name “mvzander.” He won $3,829.81 and the television. PokerRoom.com removed $3,400 from his account. After posting his displeasure in PokerRoom.com’s message forum, a representative had the gall to say that he should be happy with a $2,000 television and $400. He continued to complain and PokerRoom.com finally made a bit of a concession, privately telling him that they would deposit $2,000 into his account. They did, and mvzander cashed out immediately.

"As an interesting side note, they made no concessions, except for a measly $10 + $1 tournament ticket, to any other player who won money and had it taken away. In fact, those who referenced the deposit of $2,000 into mvzander’s account (he, himself, had made this information public knowledge) were told by PokerRoom.com that this never happened.

"Over the last two days, mvzander has inquired with PokerRoom.com as to how he would go about receiving the television. They finally told him on December 22 that the $2,000 they returned to him was actually for the television, as opposed to a concession to try to appease him. So, now they are making him go buy his own television.

"Again, to this point, no other players have received their prizes or any sort of cash concession."

And this may not be an isolated case either.  In response to the complaint posted on the Two Plus Two forums, another internet poker player shared his experience with PokerRoom.com.

"I had a tournament ticket to their "Poker Classic Stage 2," worth $73 (nothing compared with the theft they committed against you, I realize), and was told that all unused, unexpired tickets would be refunded by them, but that it would take time with the backlog they had. The "Important message to US players" page, the first page we see when we open our account page, states "Valid tournament tickets are as good as cash and will be refunded to your account. It may take some days for all tickets to be processed into cash, and only valid tickets (not expired) will be refunded." Now those thieves are telling me that the Poker Classic satellite tickets are the ONLY ones that are expired (despite the 31 January, 2007 expiration date that shows on the site), and I would have had to request a refund prior to October 29th!! That little tidbit is stated NOWHERE on that page! So, add $73 to the tally of theft, if anyone's keeping track."

The internet poker community is urging players to write to the Kahnawake Gaming Commission where PokerRoom.com is licensed (outside of Montreal).  They are also suggesting letters go to eCOGRA, which asserts itself as an impartial "watchdog" of the online gambling industry.

PokerRoom was one of the first online poker rooms. It launched in 1999 with play money tables only, but has served up real money games since 2001 and is now one of the largest online poker rooms. PokerRoom.com currently ranks as the number 4 largest internet poker room as part of the OnGame Network, though it is now running neck and neck with Bodog Poker and UltimateBet. 

PokerSource.com does not see any grey area here:

"Some people may argue that PokerRoom.com made an honest mistake and should not have to pay for it. In fact, a company representative tried to compare the situation to if a bank accidentally double deposited into a customer’s 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 reasonable expect to be able to keep the duplicate deposit. The customer knows it is not his. Same goes for 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.com’s website to this day."

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Christopher Costigan, www.gambling911.com

Originally published December 30, 2006 9:13 pm ET