There's a lot of evidence to indicate that Lock is broke.

- Segregation of cash game players
- Segregation of tournaments
- Cancellations of cashouts, especially large ones
- Extremely slow non-US payouts, despite all other sites being able to pay quickly
- Non-payment of skins
- Refusal to allow their finances to be audited, even if someone else pays for the audit

However, there is one piece of evidence that is arguably bigger than all of the above combined, and I don't feel it's getting enough discussion:

- Lock has been almost completely silent about the situation, and is willfully allowing its reputation to hit rock bottom.

This is the strongest piece of evidence that all -- or at least most -- of the assumptions about Lock are 100% true.

Lock has spent a LOT of money on marketing. Let me count the ways:

- They've taken out lots of expensive print ads in poker magazines

- They've paid for a lot of expensive spots on 2+2 and other high-traffic websites

- They have hired a LOT of pros, paid them well, and have taken them on expensive yearly retreats

Needless to say, Lock has put a lot of money into growing their site.

In just a matter of weeks, Lock has gone from a shady-looking but still viable site into a spiraling mess of scandal, controversy, innuendo, and hatred.

Not surprisingly, their traffic is rapidly dwindling, and their loyal players are leaving in droves. Two site pros have already quit due to the ongoing scandals, and I'm sure more will follow.

If all of the allegations are true, this makes sense. If Lock is broke, they can't just invent money where it doesn't exist. If they can't process cashouts right now (due to having no money), they can't just reinstate the unfairly-canceled payouts, as they will have no money to pay these people. If they can't reinstate the payouts, they also can't communicate a clear transfer/cashout policy, as it would immediately raise questions as to why the canceled cashouts have not been reinstated. If they are insolvent, they cannot agree to an audit that will show they are healthy. If they are busto or close to it, they can't talk about their expensive Portugal trip without looking even worse than they already do.

Lock CEO Jennifer Larson might not be cut out to run a medium-sized online poker room, but she's not an idiot. She sees what's happening to her company. She sees the walls crashing down around her. She sees that all of the money spent on marketing, lavish pro retreats, and everywhere else is about to go down the toilet. If there were a rational explanation to put a stop to all of this, she would have presented that long ago.

It is said that an innocent man wants to shout his innocence from the mountaintops and wants all circumstances closely examined, while a guilty man stays quiet and tries to find ways to suppress the ability to investigate.

This is definitely the case here. Lock has no reason to stay quiet. They have no reason to be unable to communicate a simple policy regarding transferred money. They have no reason to leave cashouts canceled for weeks that should rightfully be reinstated. They have no reason to not bend over backwards to pay non-US players in any way possible, even if they are supposedly having problems with one payout method.

But they do have a reason. That reason is insolvency.

To all Lock defenders, please answer the following:

1) WHY has Lock been unable to directly state the cashout policy regarding transfers, and WHY have they not been able to communicate this policy to the 5 or so customer service reps answering e-mail. You might say, "Lock is incompetent with customer service", but do you really believe that incompetence is the answer for 3 weeks of failing to address this simple, while the site literally burns to the ground? Do you really think your boss Jennifer is that stupid?

2) WHY have the canceled cashouts not been reinstated? It takes about 5 minutes per account to do this. It has been 3 weeks. Given the importance of this issue, why wouldn't Lock invest a few hours and solve this?

3) WHY are all cashout methods for non-US players so slow? We heard the excuse about Skrill and their supposed limits. But why is every single method of payout so slow? If you want to blame it on the "backlog" caused by these supposed mass cashouts by shady affiliates, have you seen a single piece of evidence to support this?

4) WHY did Lock promise a new 2+2 rep to replace Shane, but this individual dropped one terrible and useless post, and completely vanished? Does your company not care to address all of these very serious matters on the world's biggest poker forum? How can you explain this other than an inability to answer questions truthfully, and a further inability to sell convincing lies?

5) WHY is the Portugal trip still being covered up? We all know it happened. There can no longer be excuses about "unwanted guests" crashing the event, since it's finished. Yet every single attendee of the event is under strict orders not to talk about it. Why is that, if the trip was not taken with player funds? What is there to hide?

6) WHY have we not heard any statements yet from Jennifer Larson herself? It seems that Lock only communicates through low-level slugs, so this way they can blame the messenger if their statements are proven to be untrue. Can you explain why Jennifer has not agreed to any interviews by an unbiased third party?

7) WHY does Lock refuse to answer questions about the Girah scandal, two years after-the-fact? They were caught being complicit in one of their own pros cheating a major contest. We have never received sufficient answers about this. There is no lawsuit filed anywhere. WHY can't we get closure here?

8) WHY doesn't Lock attempt to satisfy the 2+2 community, in order to get their high-producing ads back on the site? Does Lock hate money? Or do they realize they can't satisfy the community with lies and obfuscation?


The answer is simple.

Lock realizes that it is impossible to answer the tough questions. Their lies have been taken apart and destroyed. There is no way out of this mess other than to stay silent for a few weeks, gather a few bucks together, start paying a few cashouts in June, and hope that Father Time heals all of the wounds.

They know that we can't go on discussing this forever. Eventually, we will lose interest. Eventually, there won't be anything new. Sure, there will be a few diehards that won't let it drop, but much like UB, most people will move past it and forget about it.

Lock is trying to get a few cashouts going, by way of robbing Peter to pay Paul, to give the impression that everything is A-OK, and hopes everything else will fall into place.

Even the pros posting here seem to have the same message: "Wait a few weeks, cashouts will start again, and all will be good! You'll see!"

The silence is really the key here. Lock isn't answering us because they can't answer.

Remember that when a few people start receiving payouts next month.

how can this site be profitable when they pay all these pros, ridiculous rakeback (which I think kills poker), the 2 weekly 50 seat freerolls to the 100k, the overlays in tournies, the advertising, cashout processing costs, and im sure im missing other things as well

Kilowatt is a straight up boss.

+1

My fear isn't for lock i know what's happening at lock, my fear is them taking skins like intertops down with them.

Great post Kilowatt

Lock wont take Intertops down, but you have to assume Intertops is already looking closely into shutting down US poker. Or, moving to another platform, OR Something! Not trying to misdirect this thread, big fan of Kilo as well.

But as to your point about Lock's taking down others;

http://www.4flush.com/online-poker-n...industry/13843

The Bovada's & Intertops of the world don't need this. You know they are already planning moves. They may actually have an opportunity to come back one day, but not if this crap sticks to them after it hits the fan.

+1K

The fact that 2 pros have left is giving hope that not everyone is scummy in the world.

yes, 2 pros out of 30 or so showing that not everyone is scummy in the world......just almost everyone

It's like you expect people who gamble for a living to be good upstanding people. Basically they live by taking money from people in a game, why wouldn't they take money from people in real life. I think you all expect too much of these poker pro's.

I completely separate my poker from my social life. I am an upstanding guy, I have a wife, I have lots of friends, and I'm not a scumbag that screws people at every chance I get.

There are scumbags everywhere... I mean Hell, look at government and religion, two entities that are supposed to be models for our lives. They are full of corruption. Its everywhere, and its kind of shortsighted to say that poker players are the culprits.

As far as us taking money from people for a living.. Isn't that what everyone who makes money does? Giving money and taking money is all about personal value of expenditure. If people enjoy playing poker regardless of personal outcome, how is it immoral or shady of me to take what they are essentially giving?

XenuAA,
I'm sure you're an outstanding guy but let's face it. Poker and specially the online poker industry is full of scumbags or people with low moral.

Here are two of the best scams since black friday:

BetSharks - They came, they took the money and told the players to get lost. Site is still around today and when a player asked on their fb page where his money was the official reply was "gone".

PokerPlayerAcademy
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-KfzCQtOovg

Total classic of a pyramid scheme. pre-launch promos were pretty sick and a few of us signed up but the PPA never took off.

Big names put their faces on the website including MagicAntonio, Kathy Liebert, Scotty Nguyen and Chris Levick got signed as CEO.

From everybody involved Chris was the only one to ever speak up and was first to resign when it became obvious that it was a scam. None of the other players ever felt the need to comment on it.

Online poker is full of scumbags but there is also a good number of very decent people in the community... guess it's like with everything else too. Just seems that in poker the scammers get away with it easier.

The notion of a "backlog" has bothered me a lot. Even if you suddenly have a LOT of people requesting withdrawals and it essentially forms a huge line of people who have to wait, the people at the front of the line should STILL be getting paid. A backlog might cause you to not be able to payout everyone suddenly, but again, you should still have money continually going out 1 by 1 to each player in line. You don't suddenly say, "Well since the number of people that are waiting has hit X amount of people, we should stop paying out altogether." It would be impossible to ever build up enough revenue to suddenly pay out an entire line of overdue backlogged withdrawal requests, especially since the longer you wait, and the larger that line becomes.

If you can't keep up with a standard amount of withdrawal requests and pay that out timely enough, what would ever make Lock think they could HALT paying out players (creating complete chaos and causing an exponential amount of MORE withdrawal requests) and then suddenly get back on track by paying them all out at once? Even if they were still trying to make it work as a legitimate business, it makes absolutely zero sense as to why they wouldn't continually trickle the payouts to the oldest requests (paying in order). Since when did their logic become "well if we can't pay all these backlogged requests right now, let's pay none".

By watching them pay out a few players (completely out of order, and small amounts I believe) who requested in like March or April (only a couple posted in various threads, and assuming those are actual people and not fakes), they've only created even more agitation to the long-waiting players who have made up Lock's loyal customer base to begin with.

All common sense to me points in the direction of the Peter to Paul - Ponzi Scheme. Lock must have concluded that paying out those of us waiting 4 months or so wouldn't result in re-gaining our trust, nor in us depositing more. They probably assumed paying us out would be dead-money to them, money they would never see again on their site. They must figure if they payout newer players, those players are still naive enough to continue to deposit, as Lock hasn't done anything to personally give those players a reason to distrust or question.

If this goes under, I truly hope something is seriously done to prosecute SOMEONE at Lock (not a processor, but an Exec. or two). Otherwise, what the hell is stopping this from happening again and again with other sites? If a CEO doesn't fear legal recourse, that's a scary amount of power REGARDLESS of what type of business you're running. I sure as hell wouldn't eat food from a company whose CEO has zero fear of consequences other than no longer making money from a scam.

Couldn't have, nor did I say it better myself....but you've hit the nail on the head.....this doesn't add up.

No matter how badly one may want to believe the BS coming from Lock, there is just too much evidence pointing to:

Pros that are well off and have money should seriously consider dropping lock for sake of their reputation. Some less known pros who dont have any income besides lock are stuck between a rock and a hard place. I know if it was me i like to think i would do the moraly right thing and walk away. But if thats my only income it would be hard, i have a family to feed and provide for and ultimately i care more what my family thinks and needs more so than public perception. Im sure a lot of people would agree, and im sure a lot will post and tell me im an idiot lol.