Which skin do you mean specifically?

Every skin, it doesn't matter since it is the NETWORK that's banning people and stealing their money. I know many affiliates will claim that it won't happen under their skin, but that's simply not true. Be careful.

This.

It is in the affiliates interest to tell you the sites will be safe and secure and anything else you want to hear before signing up because if you sign up through them they will receive a cut of your rakeback. If anything goes wrong the affiliate can simply say it is the fault of the site and so his reputation remains relatively unblemished. The situation is win win for the affiliate, either it goes well and he gets a steady cut of your rb, or it goes badly and he takes a cut while he can without any risk to his own money or reputation.

In the end, you should realise no matter what anyone tells you, no poker site is truly safe and just like you risk losing money every time you sit at the table you also risk losing money every time you place it on a poker site. Some sites are far safer and more secure than others. Sites like the skins on GGNetwork, along with all other Asian networks are near the bottom of my list in terms of safety.

Can you trust a site that could ban you and steal your money at any moment based on an extremely vague and unclear definition of "predatory behaviour"? After all the horror stories I have heard that have not been made public in addition to the ones that have I made the decision to cash out my bankroll. The risk is too big to be worth the potential reward. I also don't want to support (by playing there) a site that acts in such a scummy manner. I am all for clamping down on things like bum hunting, seat scripting and so on but GGNetwork are clearly going about it the wrong way. In addition, rather than having the best interest of the players at heart they seem to simply abuse this policy to ban regs who are winning "too much" based off flimsy or non existent evidence and then refuse to provide this evidence or any further justification.

Do your research, be cynical of affiliates promising you the moon and use common sense and logic to give yourself the best chance of avoiding getting your hands burnt.

What about the ones run by EU national governments?

"But we would like to inform you that moving tables to avoid playing against specific players or moving tables to target specific players can be regarded as acts of bum hunting."

Eh what? Avoiding great players is not bum hunting. They're just giving themselves carte blanche to ban players for any reason. Love the use of the verb "can" at the end. Suggests they'll ban you if they feel like it, maybe not.

They would be at the very top of my list in terms of safety. I still would not say they are 100 percent safe. Even banks within the EU are not a completely safe, just look at Northern Rock. Things can still go wrong, superusers, your account getting hacked, getting wrongfully banned, just to name a few possibilities. The risk is obviously far smaller with sites like these and I am willing to put money on them, but to think they are risk free is naive. Sorry for the slight derail.

Even if you sit at tables and never leave them until you end your session like I did they'll ban you and take your money
I don't think they even give a **** about the wording and creating a loophole, they are china based, they don't need one.

I'm not sure if I'm the most unlucky guy in the world or if the Fish Buffet system is rigged. My last 9 spins at the VIP level for the Fish Buffet are as follows: Reward / Rakeback % / Rake Generated

1250 / 41.7% / 3000
750 / 25% / 3000
300 / 10% / 3000
750 / 25% / 3000
300 / 10% / 3000
750 / 25% / 3000
750 / 25% / 3000
750 / 25% / 3000
300 / 10% / 3000

The Fish Buffet Reward Structure is as follows: Prize / Cashback / Frequency

$3000 / 100% / 15,345 in 100,000
$2250 / 75% / 15,848 in 100,000
$1750 / 58.3% / 16,372 in 100,000
$1250 / 41.7% / 16,913 in 100,000
$750 / 25% / 17,472 in 100,000
$300 / 10% / 18,050 in 100,000

In 9 spins I've never gotten one of the prizes in the top half and besides the 1st spin the last 8 have been bottom 2...like what are the odds of that happening? Anyone with similar experiences?

What was the 10th last one? Why pick a run of 9?

Also, to answer your question, the chance that there is someone in the player pool who runs like that and feels hard done by is almost exactly 100 percent.

Do not make an account at GGpoker. I did so a few weeks ago through a promotion from Pocketfives. Today I got the following email:

"We regret to inform you that your withdrawal request for the total amount of USD xxx.xx has been rejected. The amount has been credited back to your balance.
Reason: Not enough game records"

They didn't even specify what they mean by "not enough game records" so I wanted to check their built-in tracker to see how many hands I've played so far. Keep in mind, I had already verified my account before starting to play and I had already generated enough rake ($25) to be eligible for Pocketfives' promotion. So, I tried signing in to my account and I see this:

"Your account has been blocked for security reasons. If you have any questions regarding this matter, please contact us at security@ggnetwork.com"

I can't say exactly how many hands I've played because they decided to block my account for whatever reason without saying a thing, but it's probably a few thousand hands. I only played at 10NL (and few hands at PLO10) and generated more than $30 in rake from what I recall, so it's not like I've only played a couple hundred hands. Additionally, in their Withdrawal Policy page I don't see anything mentioning that you have to play X amount of games to be allowed to withdraw (or anything along these lines).

Just stay away, it's pretty obvious what they're trying to accomplish with these actions.

Only generated enough points for 9 spins at the VIP level so far. Working on the 10th one. If I get bottom 2 prize again I'm done.

be careful bros

I would like to jump in and share my experience with GG network.

Intro
I have played there about 4-5 months in 2017. Username: Paggrato.
Signed up through the affiliate. At that point skin (AIA) was promoted everywhere so I felt relatively secure.
Games looked good, rake was high so I decided to focus on 2/4 and 5/10 games. I honestly doubt that there is a merit playing lower stakes there with such a high rake.

My behaviour at the tables.
I have played midstakes on a number of networks/sites before and never been contacted or punished due to my behaviour at the tables. I have not used any forbidden software: no hud, scripts,etc. Never table camped (which btw is pretty stupid thing to do because software gives X amount of total sit-out time per table and once it stops running you lose your seat. So if you waste it and table starts you have no time for WC breaks).
I was usually open sitting and almost no one gave me action (which is natural with that high rake).
Occasions I LEFT the table were:
*If it was clear it is going to break and I had enough of full seated tables running (so not smart to distract myself playing 5 hands 3 handed/HU until everyone sit-outs anyway.
*I got seated at new table and I needed to leave one of the existing ones because number of tables I can handle is limited.
*End of the session.
*I was open seating and reg willing to battle joined but I had already enough tables running so I couldn't focus playing a number of 6max and HU table (almost never happens).

What happened
I have deposited there somewhere around May 2017. First two months I was constantly depositing because of the terrible run. Mostly against Yippeeki-yay who was in my eyes worst reg on the site but somehow always getting those pots lol. Hope you are banned too, mother******
After that I hit the upswing, during of period of like one month won everything back, made some on top (which result in winning a lot of money in very short period of time, because I was down a lot.)
My affiliate gets informed by AIA that GG Network is going to ban my account since GG sent out skins the list for players who are going to be banned. List contained "players bumhunting and those WHO are not good for the Networks ecology" as quoted from e-mail which was sent out to my affiliate. Since I was informed about upcoming ban I was able to move my funds from GG Poker to AIA wallet (they are separate cashiers, GG does not control AIA's wallet. So my funds were safe before they banned my account and I cashed out.
GG Network NEVER been contacted me directly regarding to my behaviour at the tables and I haven't been directly informed about upcoming ban. I have just been lucky that AIA has been informed and they contacted my affiliate so he could warn me as fast as possible. I am grateful AIA and my affiliate for doing that.

Cliffs
-deposited, been losing player for some months, no problem having me playing high volume on the site.
-months later won it all back, made profit on top, suddenly I am bad for the network, got added to list of players who are going to get banned.
-I received no warnings or complaints from the network.
-Skin informs my affiliate that I am on the ban list, tells that I should move my funds from GG network wallet ASAP. Affiliate contacts me and redirects the message.
-I do as advised and later withdraw my funds from skin wallet.
-My account on GG Network gets banned.

Mine are:

300 / 10% / 3000
750 / 25% / 3000
300 / 10% / 3000
300 / 10% / 3000
300 / 10% / 3000
300 / 10% / 3000

In total i paid over the period of two month 28.373$ in Rake an got 7473,50$ back(26,34%)! And bear in mind that there is the "Free 1k" + the money won at the December Rake Race included as well!
Fish Buffet alone gave me about 21% RB, which is a joke when promoting 50%+ "possible 100% RB"!
I quitted the site for goods, yeah the regs suck mostly and the competition is really bad etc. but i don´t think that makes up for the super high rake and safety issues!

Twitch streamer who is sponsored by one of GG network skins explains what's going on.
https://forumserver.twoplustwo.com/s...4&postcount=44

Did anyone notice the part about being banned for winning too much in T&C's?

That was me that asked questions of Henri on YT, and I think he's replies are more than reasonable. He made his opinion clear, he doesn't agree with banning winning players and while it sucks for you (and others) to cop a ban there is nothing he can do about it as it's a network decision. He says he has talked with the skin he represents to confirm no balances are withheld when a ban is issued so it seems he has done about as much as he can.

As for advising his viewers of the ban, that is something I was curious about as he has a pretty big viewer base. He didn't reply to that question directly but he is being open on here and on YT so there's a good chance he has said something on stream, although I don't watch him enough to know one way or another.

He's answered questions that have been asked when he didn't have to so gotta give credit where its due.

You are focussed on Henri here and ignoring key point: GG network bans winning players. I already wrote my opinion about his actions in original thread and have nothing more to add.

Would you be okay if GG Network told you: you are welcome to play here but once you start winning too much (whatever it means) we will ban your account. What do you think would happen to network if they openly would tell players that BEFORE they sign up to site?

Btw back when my account was banned they used to confiscate funds too,they stopped doing it just in late 2017. I was just lucky my funds were not confiscated.
What makes you think they can't change their approach again? Seems like OP of linked thread got his funds confiscated quite recently.

Anyone playing there and knowing what's happening are supporting actions of the network. Driving traffic to them is the same on even higher scale. That and your rake money helps them grow their player pool. That hurts decent sites/networks.
Since later GGN ban better regs player pool is soft.
Enjoy until you get banned.

For some reason I thought that when you quoted his comments you were quoting from YT. I did have a big night and was hungover when I posted so my bad for the misread.

If you go to his latest YT video and read the comments you'll see that I agree with everything you're saying re banning winning players, I also agree promoting this site to his viewers is somewhat questionable (you stated as much in the other thread)

As for your subtile lil dig about being worse than the network because I play and pay rake...just lol. I dont play on the site champ as im in Australia so stick that up your ass.

Once again I AGREE that banning regs is a crappy thing to do, but that decision is up to them. Hopefully you tell everyone you know not to play there just like I have told my family members that are living abroad to stay away.

How about you first get sober and then read/reply instead of writing nonsense like that?
I haven't written about someone being worse than the network and second part clearly was not addressed to you:

Sober up? Being hungover 10 hours ago = being drunk now in your world? Anyways:

No, I guess you weren't having a dig

Not going to derail any further, and have no interest in respnding to a condesending dooshebag like yourself.

Have a nice day.

Why is the discussion about banning winning players while they are stealing funds?
I think that is a much bigger point of concern.

NINzent

On buehlero's stream Thursday he was asked about these threads and he flat out refused to discuss it so I asked about your case specifically on his YT, check out the comments if you want to see his response

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uD3aOi-mUIc&t=889s

What happened to you is shady as hell, I've even used your thread as an example to a few friends as to why they should stay away (as well as the banning winning player issue).

Henri doesn't agree with what the network is doing, but is happy to represent them. That also seems a bit shady to me, and is just as big a concern as your issue imo, especially since he has a pretty big audience on twitch and is potentially influencing these players to sign up to a site where they risk getting the same treatment that you did. As I said earlier I dont watch his stream that much so I guess he may have addressed all this at some point but I doubt it.

He did at least reply on YT, where he gets a lot of views, so any of his viewers that have a read will at least be able to draw their own conclusions. Again, as I said a few posts up, I give him credit for responding to the questions I asked, even if I dont totally agree with all of his reply's.

Personally I wouldn't want to be associated with such a site and I'll just continue to tell any family or friends that live abroad to stay right away from the GG network, and I suggest others do the same.

I just read it
So his excuse is that I was on another skin than Natural8, while the network made all those decisions? Thats funny

A while ago I have asked an affiliate if he heard about more people getting banned and he told me that occasionally it happens but the network does not confiscate funds anymore like it used to do until like Q3 or Q4 of 2017.
The streamer who reached out to help you also notified that the network usually does not confiscate funds, they just ban and let do a withdraw.

While I believe that GG network unrightfully confiscated your funds (wouldn't be a surprise if they went back to old practice or actually never fully stopped doing it), there is a chance that you actually did something which is forbidden. We need more sample size so we could strongly claim "this site bans winning players AND confiscates their funds".
Maybe we already have sufficient sample size, I didn't investigate that in a very deep way, but right now, here, you are the only vocal player with this claim.

But regarding banning of winning players, it is a fact and that's why it is important. And it already is a huge damage for online poker by itself.

Obviously, I understand that unrightfully confiscated funds is even worse action than that. I understand how it feels when your money are gone (I have lost 6-7k$ when EPN went down). Hopefully you will get it back.

isn't Natural8 regulated in UK? if so, is it legal to do this practice to ban winning players and confiscate funds?