Hi all,

firstly, I would like to start by saying, that the last few months playing with PartyPoker (=PP) have been fantastic before this incident. As a micro-stakes grinder, the leaderboard system has been very nice and the games have been great for me. Withdrawals and deposits work well, although PP withdrawal approval time can easily be at times +48 hours.

A little bit about my self;

I am a 26-year-old male who has been grinding poker for the last +8 years. Last 2,5 years I have lived abroad working in the iGaming industry as a Payments and Security analyst with different companies who also offer poker. I am also an avid 2+2 forums reader .

I started playing again with PartyPoker after +4year break from there, the 18th of March, around the time I arrived back to my home country, Finland (due to Corona). I have been crushing the plo10/25 games since and getting into the top of the leaderboard rankings for 5ish times. I was also able to win few tournaments here and there, making my history with PP around 5k€ in deposits, 18k€ in withdrawals within the last 3 months.

A very close friend of mine, who is also a hardcore grinder, offered me to move in with him for one month as I needed a place to stay, the whole of May, and grind with him. He had never played with PartyPoker before and I was able to convince him to try it out and the leaderboard. He then deposited and tried for one week plo25 leaderboard, with a really bad result. Leaderboard 'war' without PokerTracker was not for him and he finished 3rd on the week 11th-17th of May of the leaderboard. He lost almost the whole deposit of 1.5k€ and after the week was done, he got back 800$ from the leaderboard 3rd place and around 800$ in Rakeback. He was done with PP, too dependant on software, and not able to play so many hours as me. So he withdrew back 1450€ and got the money back, losing around 50€ on the deposit and got back to the old sites he was grinding. He raked around 2000$ that week.

I was having a few weeks break from the leaderboards, grinding on other sites, and was ready to continue with PP on the new week. I did refer him as a friend to PP and got around 180€ to my balance from the week he played. At this time I was going to make a bigger deposit to start a new week in the plo25 streets, but I made a prop bet with my friend, that I was able to win with the 180€ I got from 'refer a friend' promotion in the PLO10 leaderboards and we make a small prop bet.

I played the following week 18th-24th of May on the same internet, successfully beating the plo10 streets turning 180€ into 1750€ with the plo10 leaderboard win (1000$), total Rakeback around (330$) and winning in the games around 65 buy-ins. I was playing 5 fast forward tables + 4 normal tables at the same time. I played around 70-80 hours of poker that week. I also played a few tournaments during the week without any success.

I withdrew 400€ without any issues during the week and it was approved and sent to me. After getting the whole win from the leaderboard and Rakeback, I withdrew the whole balance of 1350€ on Monday the 25th of May. The withdrawal was rejected the same evening and I contacted Customer Support. They told me that they had no idea why the withdrawal was rejected, so I requested a new withdrawal.

On Wednesday, the withdrawal was rejected again and my PP account was closed for a 'Standard security review'. At this point, I knew it was because of the 'Refer a friend' promotions that I took part in with my friend and playing on the same internet or 'household'. Since the 27th of May, I have tried to contact them a lot explaining the situation, but my attempts to try to explain the situation have been ignored completely by the 'Poker team' and no dialogue has been made with them. Customer Support replied to me only that the 'Poker Team' is looking into this.

On the 13th of June, I get this email from PP:

**Dear Akseli,

We are contacting you regarding your partypoker account “KingTommy123”.

An investigation into your account has highlighted suspicious activity related to your account.

More specifically, your account “KingTommy123” was found to have been involved with the following behaviour:

• One user having access to multiple accounts on partypoker
• One user playing on multiple accounts on partypoker
• Creation of new partypoker accounts with the purpose of taking advantage of partypoker's promotional offering

These actions are in breach of points 4, 6, 9, 12, 13 and 16 of the general terms and conditions, as well as the standard promotional terms and conditions, of partypoker.

The full terms and conditions are available at:
https://help.partypoker.com/en/gener...and-conditions

As a result, your partypoker account has been closed and the funds remaining in your account will be confiscated.

Please be aware that you are no longer permitted to create or use any account on the partypoker network.

Please note that this is our final decision and it cannot be disputed further.

Your understanding on the matter is highly appreciated.

Kind Regards,
Poker Operations Team**.

After this, I sent them a long email explaining the situation only to get the same email back as a response that they sent in the first place.

I am reaching out to you dear 2+2 wizards, is there anything I can do in this situation? I have tried reaching out to PP multiple times, but I had no response to anything. I really want to continue on the grind there, but it seems hopeless. I guess I have to contact and present the case to their license holder, but that takes a very long time to get any response out of that.

I am quite shocked by this since as stated before, I worked with a few online casinos that offer Poker as well, and this is really harsh punishment to just confiscate everything even if I was multi-accounting (not playing same time in the tables). I mean if they accuse me of this, shouldn't they return the confiscated money to the players who lost it to me? Why PP is allowed to keep the money?

Any advice would be highly appreciated as a fellow grinder.

Best Regards,

Akseli

Did you and your "friend" ever play at the same time?

Also, tell us more about this prop bet. It seems essential to your story.

Don't know if helps but you could contact the former 2+2 pp rep Colette in partys discord.

Imo they do distribute it to other players. Confiscated doesn't mean party is keeping the cash it means you ain't getting it back.

Rob Yong is surprisingly very responsive to ppoker related issues on twitter, you could try @ing him there

Hey!

We never played at the same time in the PartyPoker tables.

Haha, I and him do prob bets all the time. That is what keeps us motivated and keeps things competitive. The bet was, I cannot do any reloads (if I go bust with 20ish buy-ins I lose), I have to be no. 1 the end of the week of the leaderboard and games have to be profitable. The bet was 500€. And I won!!

And thanks guys, I will try to reach out to her now and Rob if they are interested in looking to this more.

I also tried to ask for evidence from PP so I could try to explain or make them understand that no wrongdoings has been done here, but as stated before, they are not willing to co-operate while trying to communicate direct with them.

Also, it makes me wonder if I were a losing player raking the same I have, would they treat me the same way? I guess we will never find out.

That sounds like a bad situation, not sure I can help but I hope you get your balance back.

It does look extremely suspicious though when you have a friend playing in the same house and playing exactly the same stakes. Didn't you think that might raise some suspicion? Nevertheless, it's been done now, hopefully you get your balance back and don't make this mistake again.

Hey!

Yeah, I thought this a long time back, but I have been grinding on LAN many times before with other friends as well and heard no issues coming out of this. We never play in the same tables when on LAN.

Playing on LAN is much better than grinding alone which can get super lonely.

You should tell Rob now about the prop bet, without that information all that stuff looks like you referred yourself and multicounted.

Well written and argued post but to be honest I still think >50% chance you played on both accounts to abuse the Refer a Friend promotion.

Seems harsh to keep whole balance as I would probably have returned winnings won at table minus the bonus you abused but guess if it is in their T&C you have a hard case to win here.

So you were playing on Party, crushing leaderboards and loving it. You moved in with your friend, insisted he played on PartyPoker, but you decided at that point not to play on PartyPoker and grind on other sites, and your friend played for a while, and then when he finished playing, you started playing again.

Coooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooool.

this is why i think the recruit a friend promos are dangerous and bullshit in poker. moreso if living in the same apt.

at best you make a small fraction of money - at worst you get accused of cheating and your funds seized.

i don't see how it is worth scaming their promos for what, 200$ but people do risk weird things for small profits.

i think they will still be investigating it, they wont fully close your account unless they were 100% sure you were playing on your friends account. as you know, they can use analytics to tell if this is the case.


if you haven't cheated, i think you will get your account back. join the party poker discord and contact an admin on there - they have good customer service and can escalate your case

What Gazzy said, Elements of this story stink. Ofc I don’t know for sure but I’ve got you at 70% not innocent. Care to expand on why u decided to play other sites while he grinded your recommendation?

“You gotta play this site bro, it’s awesome. Not me though uhhhh I’ll play a different one”

This seems like a strange dynamic

Party haven’t just gone “oh same IP must be multi accounting etc”. they have analysed the playing style of the two accounts and deduced it’s the same person

Thank you guys for putting your thoughts and reading my case.

I really was hoping for any contact from partypoker regarding this to open a dialogue with them, since they see my history with them and my +-profits, would not be smart to risk everything for $200 a promotion. And yes, this is extremely harsh to confiscate winnings and ban for life without even discussing the matter with me. And yes, I will escalate this whole case to their license holder within a few days.

Care to expand on why u decided to play other sites while he grinded your recommendation?

Grinding leaderboards are extremely time-consuming and take all your energy for the week. For the time I played with PP, I had 1-2 weeks breaks from the leaderboard to have more 'Chill' weeks, grinding only fewer hours on different games and tournaments. During the time my friend played on Party, I played tournaments at the same time with my own account on PartyPoker.

Yes, I recommended my friend to try out PartyPoker as I know how sick of an animal he is as well on grinding the micros. He is not the type of guy who wants to change to different sites that easily, especially if he has sure income elsewhere. He simply lost his motivation on a downswing / too many hours of playing and couldn't continue after 5 days of playing.

I just really want to continue grinding @PartyPoker and get this sorted somehow. What do you need PartyPoker from us to be convinced to my story?

Please, open a dialogue with me somehow. You know my email and contact information.

contact admin on discord

https://discord.gg/Gpe8CSH

I would second those who suggested getting in touch with Yong if you can. @him on Twitter

Basically you just abused the refer a friend programme. Regardless the fact you werent using your other account at the same time shows at least you werent multi accounting in terms of having two seats at the same time which would be a much worse and deserving of having a lifetime ban and confisication of all funds . All you really did was get a bit greedy wanting an extra 5% rakeback which therefore does not deserve confiscating all your balance. Nevertheless if it says in their terms and conditions that abusing thier promotions can result in a confosication of funds im afraid you probably dont bave a leg to stand on even though i believe the pubishment is unjust.

Also please dont reply that the story was true, ie youve been grinding with no accomodation issues for 8 years then you just happen to move in with a friend who happens to play the exact same format (6 max plo cash) on the exact same stakes and plays the ome week you happen to take off who also happened to not have a partypoker accoint before (needed to use refer a friend) who also playes very simialr volume to you when grinding.

Like i said you deserve the money back and not a lifetime ban but you were a bit naive and greedy

Fact is most are not aware of these things because most do not bother to read the walls of text that comes from typical terms of agreement. Most avoid reading the terms because most expect to see the typical generic terms of service.

Like the poster above stated lifetime ban and confiscation of funds is not something I would give to someone who hasn't done any violation for so many years. This only makes others not feel safe keeping too much funds with certain networks as well as participating in tournaments with big prizes.

They just told me that there's nothing else to do than contact the relevant team. So basically it goes nowhere.

Basically, they took my money and banned for life after years of being their player and raking a lot of money with them without having a discussion with me regarding this matter.

And to you non-believers I completely understand. It's quite hard to believe in it, two guys, happen to play the same games and just micros the way of life. I get it. It happened, he can play, not as well as me without software, but this is why we are here. Wanting to prove that it happened.

The communication link between PartyPoker has to be made regarding this, we will move forward with PartyPoker on proving that he can play and demonstrate his poker abilities are on a professional level. He just was not up to the task to fight the leaderboard and that ****ed his game up.

Is it really that hard to own same ABC statistics on low stakes? + The sample is only what, 40-50k hands during 5 days of play? And he literally lost **** loads on plo25, while I've been winning on all my weeks within the time I've played with PartyPoker on the PLO streets. And sure, the downswings of that size are easy on PLO, but just wanted to mention.

Like the poster above stated lifetime ban and confiscation of funds is not something I would give to someone who hasn't done any violation for so many years. This only makes others not feel safe keeping too much funds with certain networks as well as participating in tournaments with big prizes.

I've certainly never broken any rules according to PartyPoker before this. Thank you for this Dyna85.

I would assume someone would reach out to me from them regarding this in a few days, but we will just see. I will keep this thread updated anyways when something 'happens'.

If there's any other advice you could give me on how to get the communication going, we would be more than thankful. Not a single attempt from PartyPoker yet to help or communicate.

They don't want to bother talking with you anymore because they feel pretty confident you did what they are accusing you of.
If the other account for 50k hands had almost identical stats to your regular account then that is indeed pretty damning too. I only know Holdem. But usually there will be at least some small differences even between strong regs. One guy is 24/17 and another is 22/16. One guy 3B 10% and the other guy 6%. Stuff like that. 50k hands is smallish for win-rate and there will be a lot of variance and swings. But at that volume, many of the stats will converge to your theoretical true rate and there are more smallish differences between strong regs than perhaps you are aware of.

If the numbers are EXACTLY the same, or pretty much close: 24/17/7, then that is even more damning.

But the timing of all this "he played the micros while I played other sites, then he got tired of it and I went back to playing those micros and we made a bet as well" just doesn't pass the smell-test.
And now you have regret because you did it on a bit of a freeroll and didn't think the punishment for being caught would be so harsh.

If you really are somehow 100% clean in this then that's somewhat unfortunate because the way that you went about this is basically the same as trying as hard as you can to make it look like you're snagging an extra bonus out of them.
You were naive either for thinking this wouldn't be caught by them. Or you were naive for thinking that doing all this "he plays now, on the same IP, and then I return a few days later" wouldn't set off any red flags.
There basically is nothing for you to talk about with them. Everything you have said here doesn't really help your case imo. It makes it look like you are probably guilty of what they say you are. And all we are getting is your side of the story and even that doesn't look good enough to me. Obviously we don't have all the info that the site has used.

stop wasting your time. everyone has tried to take advantage of referral programs and we all have heard such stories. these sites have analytic programs that can analyze a game play.... there are many streamers that live together and never have such issues. Sites get triggered when the same gameplay appears on two screenames and then they investigate to see the hands/play. So own up to your screwup and just let it go.. dont waste your time as they will never reopen this account atleast from what you are stating here.

Even though what happened to you is an honest mistake, partypoker has to protect itself from potential collusion as it doesnt just affect the two players it affects everyone they play with and their overall game integrity.

Even though it sounds like this was probably an honest mistake, how do they know that? they deal with degenerates trying to plead their case who got caught cheating or doing something shady on the DAILY. That is why they FORCE YOU to agree to terms of service (a contract), when you deposit and play. Why would they ever go back on confiscating your funds when they have an easy breach of contract? Once you breach their contract, they are LEGALLY allowed to confiscate your money, as you AGREED to this, in the TERMS OF SERVICE. They very clearly explained the breach, and if this was a legal issue with a brick and mortar business, and you sued, the company would win easily as their lawyer would cite breach of contract, they would show the breach, as compared against the terms of service, and It would be an open and shut case. A casino is never going to give you money back they are legally entitled to as a result of a breach of contract by the customer.

Im sorry this happened to you, it sounds terrible. But this very style of case is the reason why terms of service and contracts exist. Its so all they have to do is point to the contract when they have an issue. Im not saying its the most ethical, but its certainly the most efficient (and profitable for them). But its a lesson you learned the hard way and will never happen again im sure as you will be extra cautious from hereon out. It sounds like your ability to play and win is stellar so I say chalk it up as a hard lesson learned and a learning experience and keep going legit to recoup everything you lost and more.