Communications is a title that pertains to marketing. It has nothing to do with customer service.

leave a dummy laptop on a table and put a hide a camcorder and record the room

Your an idiot, if you are paying for a 5 stars hotel then you shouldnt be worried about security
And jean´s case is even worse cause they invaded his privacy

LOL

This is a perfect representation of the incompetence of Pokerstars in this entire matter. The mistake likely isn't yours. You were given bad information by th same idiots from your company who bungled this in the first place, right?

How could a major detail like police involvement be a subject of confusion here?

Unbelievable. If this isn't a huge red flag that you guys handled this matter terribly, I don't know what is.


If your head of live events spent 48 hours on this and did little else, he isn't very good at his job, because the results have been beyond poor. Jens' report in the OP clearly indicates that Pokerstars was clueless and misled the entire time. Pokerstars virtually abandoned common sense and sought to blame this guy's roommate, despite tons of evidence to the contrary.


Why refer to a completely different, unrelated situation in order to exonerate hotel security here? That's like saying that UB didn't have any superusing because none of the cheating on Pokerstars ever occurred from the inside. The hotel staff was very likely involved, and if they weren't, they were either covering up what happened or displaying a comic level of incompetence.


Is Pokerstars going to pull out of all association with Arts unless this is fully resolved?


Would you say that Pokerstars handled this matter properly thus far?

If not, what changes can people expect to see in the future regarding your protocol in these situations?

I am 45 years of age & have stopped in many 5 star hotels & lower rated hotels throughout the world. This is my first experience of theft within a hotel.

Maybe i suck at googling, but I'm amazed that i cannot find a product that combines a laptop lock cable with an apparatus that prevents the lid from being opened. Pokerstars might want to look into putting one of these into the goodie bags of the next ept's participants.

The troublesome part of the story is that if they weren't unlucky/incomepetant, the OP wouldn't have had the experience either. If this hotel is a major convention centre, i could see how they'd want to get this sorted out: business travellers could have far more valuable information on their laptop than any highstakes poker player...

It seems obvious that the hotel has been incompetent and or malicious in their handling/covering up this matter but I don't get how people can be so sure it was an "inside job" when it sounds like this has happened at other EPT stops as well.

even if it was someone who travels the circuit / various EPT stops there is a high probability that they bribed parts of the hotel staff. just consider the weird minibar refill in the logs (as someone already pointed out that is usually done for a whole floor and not single rooms... and the timing of the refill looks also extremely suspicious). additionally the hotel security manager who really has disappointed in the whole matter could be involved aswell.

so even if it was no pure "inside job" there is a high likelihood that parts of the hotel staff were involved in the scam attempt

Don't be naive -- they are neither incompetent, nor are they being malicious. When any one of Marriott International's 127,000 employees does something shady, it is dealt with internally. When security says, "The cameras are broken," what they mean is, "We really are sorry, but we are not required to show you what is going on and we don't want to. So please read between the lines."

Take the free stuff/upgrades they give you and lock up your laptop more securely in the future. And if you have a problem with this happening at other EPT stops, then the solution is, obviously, don't go to those tournaments. If you show that, whether or not there is a major crackdown, you'll be giving them your business anyway, then they have no major incentive to take any steps beyond telling YOU what you should do (see: Lee Jones' email).

A €200 note slipped into a receptionist's hand will surely make her forget the need to see ID before issuing a duplicate key.

I doubt it's an inside job, but obviously the security manager is going to deny all responsibility because if he admits anything, the hotel might be liable to be sued.

yeah sure ... CNN and every TV-Station would rush to the hotel, because a major company cancels a contract ... i don't say that PS played it perfectly, but seriously, you're behaving irrational and you try way too hard, to blame PS for the incident.

if you think you're soooooo smart, just tell us, what would you have done ... gone to the management and say "if you don't give me full control over all your video material, than we'll never come back!" ... or would you've called the spanish police, because you think, that maybe 2 laptops were infected w/ trojans and it seems that the hotel security is involved?

seriously ... did you watch too much M Squad?

the keys aren't the reason most ppl think it's an inside job ... it's the fact, that the robbers/hackers seem to know which cameras don't work (or the security guys lie, which would implicate, that's an inside job) ... also more than one rooms were visited, so it must be a group w/ good information and coordination, which makes an inside job very likely

are there any official updates ?

+1 just left a TripAdvisor report.

FYI, went to EPT Barcelona last year and stayed at Mandarin Oriental which was great! About a 15 Euro cab ride away but great location for exploring the city.

This is exactly what everyone on this thread needs to do, instead of making another post here.

Excellent. Now a few hundred more people....

And perfect -- this also. Stay at a non-partner hotel for EPT events.

Did you guys just get 1 key each at check in? Or could 3EDC24 have been sitting in the room? While the maids are cleaning, the door is wide open and thief could go in say oh i forgot something in here and grab the spare key that couldve been sitting around? That would kindve make sense why security would say it was your roommate (one of keys issued to you guys).

But the minibar entry while you're heading down to the lobby makes it like 99% chance it was all done by hotel staff, right?

A note to Lee Jones from an uninvolved observer:

Pokerstars is the sponsor of this event....which I am guessing is profitable for both Pokerstars and the Hosting Casino/Hotel. This should allow Pokerstars as an organization to apply pressure to the Casino/Hotel to come clean about all this....it's called leverage.

While I agree that high stakes players should be responsible for securing their own laptops....I also think they are right to have a reasonable expectation of strangers NOT having access to their rooms at the host hotel....whether it be 5 star or not.

What else to the players have to worry about? Can they leave money in the room safe? Can they go back to their room and be sure no one is hiding in the bathroom waiting to rob them? I would think not given what we now know.

I think your response as the head communications guy for Pokerstars is inadequate.

This is a very serious security issue which will likely carry over to other european events.

Package winners and high stakes players who pay for travel, rooms and buy ins need to know the contents of their room are safe...and Pokerstars needs to be proactive in making that happen...or they need to find another venue for the event where it will happen.

Just get a secure briefcase with a lock cable attached to THAT, and put the laptop inside it. I wouldn't trust any "apparatus".

You should take to social media to get this more exposed.

Post on twitter with this story link and an @hotel you stayed (Ritz??)

Get as many people as you can to retweet.

Post linked to this or summarize your whole store and try to get it on reddit or gawker or whatever.

The more pressure that is on the luxury hotel and the more out in the open the more motivation they have to pressure police into investigating this.

Any way you can get this into mainstream media sources just helps your case, period.

the laptop was already locked inside something, the hotelroom. If people can get through locked doors in 5 stars hotels without getting caught (twice), how do u really protect yourself or your property?

This is not good for poker at all, the only thing that can and should be done is for Stars to sort this and try and put future plans in place to prevent this from happening again-this goes for both Stars and players tbh, anyway, there have been plenty of decent suggestions so far.

Anyway, sorry to hear OP (and others affected in Barcelona), I hope this incident gets dealt with properly and you get compensated for any potential losses.

If I remember right, across the street was an other good Hotel. Pokerstars might need to think of switching venues for next year, although the tournament was played in the Arts-Ballroom I think(Casino and Hotel are directly connected basically, which will suck when you change venues)

at the very least how did PS not mmediately offer to move the players affected to a neighboringing hotel where they would at least feel safe? cant believe jeans stayed at that hotel after the incident. just makes zero sense.

PS not looking good imo

I'm baffled at why people think their items are somehow secure inside a hotel room. It doesn't matter how many damn stars it has, or how expensive it is.

If I'm not in the room I simply assume that anyone can walk in at any time... because that's pretty damn close to being the actual case.

If I play high-stakes online poker and I'm not in the room, the laptop is getting locked up inside a case, period. If they want to cut the cable and steal the whole thing, fine. I'll get another laptop, but at least I know that nobody's compromised it.