.

This whole story is getting more and more bizarre. Lock pros discounting the market and Shanes' Laissez Faire attitude about the situation. I would have expected that he would have given a non response on the whole issue if this had upset management. Maybe he is triple range merging the issue?

1- Lock Pros need money, have no belief cashout times will improve, and are willing to pay steep price to get money off site. Dont give a F---- what management thinks. Lock busto.

2- Lock Pros pawns in a larger scheme to drive down price of Lock $ so insiders can buy up pieces at huge discount knowing Lock will turnaround.

3- Lock Pros pawns in a larger scheme to drive down price of Lock $ so site can solve possible insolvency issue.

Somehow I smell a rat. I can't believe that management would not have addressed this issue of Pros/employees selling of Lock $ either formally or informally. If they are teetering on insolvency, you would still want to take care of the pros and insiders with the available funds first to give a semblance of financial viability. This is capitulation.

There is no problem with people selling their Lock money at a discount. The problem is when someone is actively encouraging people to play on the site without mentioning that its in bad enough shape that they are selling their own funds at 33 cents on the dollar. Obv anyone with any rep at all can get a better deal than that borrowing money if its just a case of needing a little money fast, so to say that's all that's going on is pretty ridiculous.

Absolutely.

And they would also likely not be promoting the site via twitter or promising others that cashout times will improve "soon"...

Yep, there is more going on, but it's not new information: the cashout times are horrid, and they don't see it improving significantly any time soon probably.

Really, just imagine being in their situation with an account with lots of $ on it and maybe they're not all as rich IRL as u think they are. In this case, borrowing $ somewhere vs selling Lock $ is putting yourself into a situation where you're down even MORE real $'s just because in the very very long term you may or may not get your value on your Lock $'s. I mean really, there's a point where if you have a certain amount of Lock $'s it becomes very very ridiculous to just hold onto them, especially if you have the prospect of earning more Lock $'s anyway because you plan to keep playing and winning. In that case, holding onto the Lock $'s pretty much makes them worth close to 0.00$ and selling off is really the only reasonable thing to do in this messy situation.

But it doesn't change anything about the situation, this is just a consequence from Lock's poor cashout times, I'm really baffled why people are so surprised time and time again. Nothing changed, the chances of Lock going busto altogether are equally much now as they were before imo.

This is spot on

This is pretty bad. There is a difference between an employee and a Lock Pro, but for either to sell funds at LESS than current market value is basically the same thing as devaluing their own company's money.

I can just hear the few buyers of Lock money now: "Why would I pay you 38% when Lock's own pros only think it's worth 33%?"

Everyone understands this. Everyone understands why someone would sell Lock funds. The part that you don't seem to understand is that if someone holds that opinion and thinks this is the correct course of action, then they shouldn't be promoting the site as if nothing was wrong.

+1

This.

I don't give a rats ass if a pro sells his roll for X amount of money. But to sell it at so low of a value AND try to convince people to deposit/play is scummy. You know people have ludicrous cashout times and lose .65c on the dollar as soon as they deposit, have some balls and cut ties with them.

For the record, no reported value trades of Lock in the P2P thread today as of now.

Yep, ethically I completely agree.. obviously just a case of pure greed which is common in this world. Again doesn't change much about the core issue people have which is whether or not Lock is or isn't going busto.. or do u find personal greed of a few people more important altogether?

Well, it's sad, but not very surprising to me. Maybe I'm a pessimist though.

Lock funds have been trading in the HSNL transfer thread for ~0.35 for weeks. I can understand the outrage when looking at the price in absolute terms, but that is the market value and that is what they listed it at. If they absolutely need the money, they dont have other options. Im not saying this is good for Lock or not, but they didnt just create some super low price to **** with everybody, they are selling basically at market.

If your argument is that they shouldnt represent a site that's currency is trading at such a weak value, then this sale has no bearing on that argument because that is where Lock money has been trading for weeks if not months.

I have to agree with that. It´s pretty stupid putting more alarm bells on something that is market price for months. I bought Lock $ 6 weeks ago at 0.35$ in 2+2, I made a offer and got several sellers willing to sell at 0.35$. Someone want to sell $10k fast is super standard to sell 0.02$ bellow last transactions price!

I easy put myself in a Lock Pro position, if I were receiving 100% rakeback + monthly Wage plus winnings on my Lock account and need money to buy something, will I withdraw $ from my PokerStars account or I would sell some Lock $ at market current/last bid price ?

It´s not about not wearing the house shirt, is all about personal money/risk management. At last, I wonder if I were on a downswing at PokerStars or need some extra cash to play live in Vegas during WSOP, what I would do? I guess everyone would go to 0.01$ slot machines day after day trying to hit the jackpot or wait for the Lock $ to arrive until it´s time to go back home

Again, as I said, my issue wasn't the trade so much as where the trade was posted, and the fact that the values were so prominently displayed. It wasn't posted in the HSNL thread - it was posted in the P2P thread. At $10k for .33, it basically said "market value is .38 here? pfft...not any more!" and subsequently will likely cause the value of Lock to drop even further. If a random player does that - fine. They aren't associated with Lock and making money by working for them.

FWIW, there's been a grand total of one reported value trade below .35 made in the month of June in the P2P thread. The current reported value is .3816 and that's down from near .4 at the start of June. Yes, I realize skins are traded at less than value and more than value - but those values aren't always posted. If this guy had posted "Have $10k Lock, priced to move" or something similar - fine and dandy. Keep the vig private so it doesn't effect the going rate for others trying to sell it. But this guy didn't do that.

It's easy to say a skin is trading at such and such value when no values are being reported. That isn't the case in the P2P thread anymore. And of course this doesn't mean you can't trade for less or more - it's just a barometer and it's not the be all end all. But the reason I started the market report in the first place was to make traders aware of what was being traded and for what values. Even Shane the Lock Rep has publicly stated its value as a barometer for players and their general opinions on current cashout timeframes.

The point is - if the guy needed to move money fast, no problem and understandable. I never insinuated the only possible explanation was that it was all a conspiracy and that Lock engineered this whole thing. I believe the guy needed the money. But his position as a Lock Pro compromises the situation because of where he posted the trade. If I'm selling Lock trying to get some money myself in lieu of waiting forever for a cashout, I'm looking at this guy and saying thanks for costing me even more dough than I would have otherwise - with a annoyed look, to be sure.

I've done trades the last couple of days at 0.35 and 0.32, got an offer for 0.29 aswell, all completely unrelated to any Pro's.

*SHRUG*

FWIW, the .38 figure isn't correct. I've posted .35 before on 10K and didn't get a single PM.

I think the point to me is that if a pro from any site sells there funds for 1/3rd there value it raises red flags and questions. Number one why do they rep a site were they have to do this. I mean in the history of online sites its rare or unheard of for site pros to sell funds that low on a site that is still up and running. I know shane and others will give excuses , but the reality is only sites that are broke or run poorly could this happen. No matter how many choices you give this is not how a real site runs, with pros selling at .33 on dollar unless its a promotion to say hey lock funds are worth next to nothing.

Wait a second here.

Remember when everyone's cashouts were canceled a few months ago, and Shane said it was because certain affiliates were buying up Lock $ for cheap on 2+2 and then cashing them out at full value?

People asked Shane why Lock cared about that. (It was a BS story, but let's just assume for argument's sake that this was true.)

Shane responded that this behavior drove down the value of Lock funds in the 2+2 trading thread.

So Lock Poker canceled a bunch of cashouts a few months ago in order to supposedly prevent the value of 2+2 trading of their funds from dropping, and now Shane says it's completely okay that their own pros are causing this to actually happen!

So which one is it, Shane?

Does Lock care if the value of their funds in the 2+2 trading thread drops?

If yes, then why are you letting your own pros sell $35k for below-market value, thus causing the current market value to clearly drop?

If no, then why were those cashouts canceled a few months ago, citing the 2+2 trading thread as the reason?

Actually wouldn't Lock paying him be the fastest way for him to get his hands on the cash he needed?

Someone posted in the NVG thread that Jared Hubbard has been trying to sell 35k in Lock in HS trade here at .33 as of yesterday also. I guess he also just happened to need some quick cash at the exact same time? Lol, gtfo.

Obviously they want to get there money out because they think they will get nothing for there money. Shane's job is to put a positive spin on everything. To be honest if it's get under .30 on the dollar I would buy.

That is called trying to catch a falling knife. Not recommended.

Shane really needs to respond to this imo.

I don't know. Two people got 10k payouts this week. If they were going under in the next few months, they wouldn't be paying out ANY cash outs.