Gaming Club responds to dako et al (LONG) - Round 2

[Gaming Club]

Ding ding, seconds out … time for round 2 [img]/images/graemlins/smile.gif[/img]

It's taken us longer than anticipated to post a follow-up re this subject primarily because we have been engaged in much discussion with Prima regarding the matter of independent review of accounts that are locked and where funds are withheld for reasons of fraudulent misconduct. We held off posting in the hope of being able to present a conclusive response in this regard, but unfortunately we can't just yet, altho this doesn't mean the answer is no - see below for more.

Apologies nonetheless to the doubting Thomases among you who had possibly hoped that we would try to quietly slip away from this forum when the going got too tough.

So here's our feedback on what we believe are the two most substantive issues raised thus far, along with comments on a few others items as well.

Would we / Prima be prepared to have an independent body or person evaluate this case to determine whether or not Prima’s actions are justified?

We raised this with Prima as an option before making our original post, as whether or not this could happen is their call and not ours. We didn't mention this possibility in our original post because we did not want to create any expectations that might possibly not be fulfilled, but since it has been independently suggested we are happy to address it.

In principle we (Gaming Club, and as always we should state that we speak only for ourselves, not for Prima) are very much in favour of this route, and our proposal to Prima had been in respect of an ongoing mechanism for conducting such reviews and not just a one-off for dako's sake only.

We’re still awaiting a final response from Prima on this suggestion, so we can’t promise anything at this point. We expect that they will have to weigh up a number of factors in coming to a decision, and if that decision is positive it will no doubt take a while to put appropriate logistical arrangements in place (see below for why just emailing Mason isn't going to work).

Given the time of year we've now reached, we're not going to promise a speedy turnaround on this matter. All that we can promise is that this is an approach that we do believe in, and that we will therefore continue to motivate strongly for it. We will return here with feedback as and when we receive it.

As to whether or not someone like Mason could do the job, certainly in theory this makes sense given his presumed impartiality and unquestionable experience. Although the nuances of fraudulent behaviour in an online environment are substantially different from B&M, no doubt he’s a smart chap and would learn fast.

In practice tho the following problems present themselves:
[*] As Mason (presumably) lives in the USA, providing this sort of sensitive information to him essentially puts it squarely within the reach of a jurisdiction that is at best very unfriendly towards our industry (and in some states to players as well). If some gung-ho A-G reads this and goes knocking on his door Mason will have no choice but to hand everything over. Aside of the implications for us and / or Prima, potential risks also present themselves for any player (even an innocent one) that was playing in any of the hands under review.
[*] The volume of evidence in this matter is very substantial, but even if a practical method could be found of delivering it to Mason and the jurisdictional issue didn’t exist we would still see a problem since handing evidence over to someone else introduces substantial risk of even accidental leakage to third parties. Prima could tie Mason into a tight NDA, but this is not complete protection and anyway why would he want to put himself on the line for liability for any damages that Prima / we / any innocent player might suffer if such a leak were to happen?

To sum up, we’re in favour of independent review provided that certain minimum conditions are imposed. The following is a brief and not necessarily exhaustive list (again we point out that all of this is ultimately Prima’s call tho):
[*] The review must take place in a jurisdiction that at the very least is not aggressively anti-online gaming. This doesn’t have to mean some banana republic tho – off the top of our heads and subject to proper legal opinion we’d guess that the UK would be fine
[*] The review must not involve the removal of any evidence from our / Prima’s possession (and of course this does not mean that access to relevant evidence will be limited or withheld – it just means that confidentiality of it must receive the very highest protection, for obvious reasons)
[*] The reviewer(s) must be fully aware of and accept appropriate legal liability for any actions on their part that result in financial damages to Prima and / or its licensees and / or players (if we didn’t insist on this then a player who suffers damages would come after us or Prima and we’d be up a creek without a paddle). And in case anyone thinks that this condition is just a way of making sure that nobody will want to take the job, bear in mind that this is pretty standard stuff for the kind of people that do this sort of work (we expect that professional indemnity insurance will provide appropriate cover).

We hope that the above does illustrate that we have indeed given this issue a lot of thought. We are motivating hard for a process such as this to be put in place as a permanent facility, if only so as to assure honest players that extreme action is justified in cases such as this, and will let you all know once some progress is made. If we do succeed in getting this off the ground (even if it takes a while, as it no doubt would since everything in life takes longer than you would like and usually costs more than you thought it would), we are fairly certain that we would be able to have dako’s case considered by the review body regardless of how much time has elapsed.

Is Neteller opening its kimono to online gaming sites in violation of its stated policies and / or legal obligations?

We can knock this one on the head pretty quickly. We do not have the ability to monitor your Neteller transactions, and in the ordinary course of events, we get no information from Neteller beyond the minimum required to complete a transaction (and this certainly doesn't include your SSN or other such sensitive details).

In all good faith we can firmly state that we are not aware of any circumstance in which Neteller is breaching their terms of service or privacy policy in any of their dealings with us or anybody else.

Other miscellaneous comments / posts / questions

[ QUOTE ]

MJS
I only wish that TGC and Prima were as concerned with protecting their customers from being cheated as they are concerned with protecting themselves.


[/ QUOTE ]
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Pensive Gerbil
I doubt Prima understands or cares about the issue of collusion between players to cheat other players.


[/ QUOTE ]
Michael, we know you'll only believe that we are as concerned about this as you are once we show proof of AAP abuse being properly addressed, so we won't try convince you otherwise until then. But then you've got to be nice to us once we do [img]/images/graemlins/smile.gif[/img]

PG, you'll be heartened to hear that you are very much wrong. We are aware of a number of players caught and blocked by Prima for sometimes blatant collusion. You'd be astounded at what some people think they can get away with.

[ QUOTE ]

Mackas
Having read all of the posts on the original thread and on TGC's reply i must admit i am inclined to believe what TGC say, mainly because my overall impression of them based on their dealings in this forum is good, my (admittedly limited) experience with them has been fine including cashing out issues


[/ QUOTE ]
Thanks for the vote of confidence. To us this is what really counts - does the average, honest player have a good experience with us, win or lose and regardless of amount? If not, well we're here to fix that, and hopefully we have succeeded in at least some of the more important respects in this regard.

[ QUOTE ]

Dako himself should be given some idea of the allegations against him and their specifics and have his opportunity to respond even if all such communication remains private.


[/ QUOTE ]
Nice idea, but again not much more than coaching him on how to do it better next time.

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It is the only sure fire way for TGC to assure themsleves of his guilt.


[/ QUOTE ]
You're assuming that the evidence isn't ironclad already and that we actually need further assurance. We respect the fact that many players feel that they need further assurance, but this doesn't mean that we do.

[ QUOTE ]

Redman
All I can say is that I have watched him play and he is a good enough player to win those amounts without resorting to cheating


[/ QUOTE ]
We have never posted anything regarding his skill level or our judgment thereof. And no doubt there are people (probably all from Cincinnati) who will tell you that the Reds were good enough to win the 1919 World Series without cheating, but that doesn't mean it wasn't fixed.

[ QUOTE ]

eugeneel
I will not stop playing at your site but I will cash out more often than I normally would just in case until you let an unbiased 3rd party examine these hands.


[/ QUOTE ]
For anyone who remains unconvinced by our arguments we think that this is a perfectly sensible idea. Lots of zoo'ers have banked their winnings from our site with no problems, and we're more than happy that this should be the means whereby honest players satisfy themselves that neither Prima nor we have any intention of randomly seizing their funds.

[ QUOTE ]

Sherriff
The response also seems pretty deliberate to me. It doesn't shy away from its accusations (which are not the sort to be made lightly).


[/ QUOTE ]
Indeed. We wouldn't be putting ourselves through all this pain and suffering if we felt that Prima's case wasn't watertight. If all we really wanted to do was siphon off player funds then we'd just save ourselves the trouble of trying to prove our bone fides and ignore all of the noise on this issue.

[ QUOTE ]

dako
If I was guilty of what TGC says I am, I'd just say "oh well, you caught me" and move on.


[/ QUOTE ]
Option 1: "oh well, you caught me", move on
Option 2: Protest innocence very loudly

EV(1) = $0.00
EV(2) = p(noise = embarrassment = maybe they'll give me something to shut me up) * $25,000

EV(2) > EV(1), even if not by much.
QED.

[ QUOTE ]

'Mez
Just my thoughts... even though some of them may not be completely well-thought out and represented, but I think you can all get the hint.


[/ QUOTE ]
From where we stand, your thoughts were very well considered. Thanks for the support.

[ QUOTE ]

Redman
I just got my cashout in neteller about an hour ago, I'm guessing in response to my posting my story on this site and others ... I am glad to have my cashout, however, my account is still locked


[/ QUOTE ]
Actually, we still don't know who you are, so we haven't been able to speak with Prima about your situation at all (we offered to do so in a previous thread, but you never sent us your details). Possibly they saw your post independently, but we can confidently state that the mere act of posting here doesn't make a difference in these situations (it certainly hasn’t helped dako).

You got your funds but remain locked out because whatever you did (and again we stress that we have no idea what that is) was presumably sufficient to make you undesirable to the network, but it did not constitute out and out fraud.

[ QUOTE ]

sirdogstar
3) It seems counterintuitive to me for a growing site that is spending a lot of money to acquire new players, to just steal Dako's 25k. (e.g. a) They took in around 35K on the Aussie Millions promotion and are spending around 130K to send 10 people. b) They also look like they are going to be far in the red for the WSOP promotion. And since it's only December, I expect that they'll go farther into the red to have more WSOP promotions. c) They've run 2 100K tournaments, both with large overlays)


[/ QUOTE ]
Thank you – this sums up the commercial imperatives of this situation very well.

[ QUOTE ]

7) I mainly posted to give Prima a nod of confidence (I'm convinced it is not a scam, and I feel that my $$$ are safe there) without bashing Dako.


[/ QUOTE ]
Much appreciated.

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Alobar
I think TGC has done alot of cool things in regard to promotions and posting on this board. But I also get the feeling we get told what we want to hear by TGC.


[/ QUOTE ]
We understand your scepticism, but in truth we suspect that it arises because we’re the only online poker room that makes any consistent effort to honestly and openly address the issues that players raise on this board. Maybe this seems too good to be true, but it’s not.

The skeptics among you may say that we're part of the only network that locks players out without giving reasons, but as others have posted this simply isn't true. If anything, our recent growth has raised our profile, thus attracting to us the fraudsters who have already been locked out at our competitors previously.

Nonetheless, read our posts and then consider how our service and product have already improved since we started posting here (and yes we know it still has a long way to go), and then keep an eye out for future improvements – if that doesn’t prove our bone fides then nothing will.

[ QUOTE ]

krazyace5
"dako's $25,000 pales into insignificance next to the very much larger sums at stake for us and Prima in this business, and he flatters himself unduly if he believes that we or Prima see the theft of his funds as a line item in either of our income statements."
It seems odd that you consider this theft of Dako's money.
Didn't anyone else notice this in the origional post?


[/ QUOTE ]
krazy, you’ve misunderstood what we wrote. We’ll spell it out for you:
[*] dako alleges theft on our or Prima’s part[*] he further alleges that we or Prima think that theft is part of our business model, (i.e. hence the comment about income statements)[*] the sums of money at risk for us in this business are much, much more than $25k[*] we think he’s flattering himself if he thinks that his $25k is worth so much to us that we would steal it from him despite the obvious risks that doing so would have for our business

In case you still don’t get it, we’ll spell it out some more: We do not consider the withholding of funds that are not rightly his to be theft. We do not in any way consider theft of anybody's money to be part of our business model. Apologies if we didn't make this clear enough previously.

At the risk of repeating ourselves, we'll take this opportunity to clarify what we meant a little further, since dako claims he knows our and / or Prima’s finances so well and that $25k is actually material in light of our current revenues and profitability. Again we’ll go for bullet points to try make sure that it’s clear to dako this time around:
[*] We (GC) have spent substantial sums of money developing our business to the point that it is currently at.[*] We know that Prima has also done so, and we are fairly certain that more than a few of Prima’s other licensees have done the same.[*] Collectively this investment amounts to millions of dollars[*] Again speaking for ourselves, we plan to spend substantial additional sums building our business even further. Again, we believe that Prima and more than a few of its other licensees are planning the same.[*] Collectively the amounts already committed to in respect of future investment also amount to millions of dollars[*] We see the future of this industry as being very profitable, and believe that the EV of our investment is high enough to justify the excess risk involved in this specific industry. We know that Prima feel the same way, and we can only assume that their other licensees do too.[*] In case anybody can't fit all the zeros into their calculators, the amount of money at stake here is many millions of dollars, in investment and in profits.[*] Next to this, $25k is insignificant.

In fact, we’ll go one further and state that in the context of this situation our current profitability is actually irrelevant (provided of course that it is acceptable to us in terms of the financial projections of our business plan, which it is).

What really counts is our expectation of future profitability, since if that is substantial, why would we potentially throw it away for the sake of $25k?

Hope the point is clear now.

[ QUOTE ]

Redman
I think the problem here is institutional bias -- there is an attitude internal to the Prima organization that says, if you are winning a lot, there is a good chance you are cheating.


[/ QUOTE ]
This allegation is completely unfounded. You base it on the unsubstantiated claims of a few "winners" whom you have no more reason to trust than you do us, and you also have only limited knowledge of the many more (genuine) winners that continue to play without any problems from Prima whatsoever. Some of these players have posted on this topic, yet you choose to ignore them.

Your statement is also contrary to the business model upon which this industry is based, in terms of which winning players generate the most rake. For any business to bite the hand that feeds it makes no sense at all.

[ QUOTE ]

After all, if you had just locked an account and held the money ... how would it look to say "oops, we messed up?"


[/ QUOTE ]
Actually, we think it looks very good to most people. We're pretty certain that the average player is very forgiving of honest errors, provided that they are appropriately rectified. This is pretty well evidenced by the positive responses that we have received to our own admissions of errors / inadequacies made on this board

[ QUOTE ]

Oski
TCG: Do not fall for the bait and post any of your "proof" - that would establish a terrible precedent. Every time someone has a problem, you will be forced to have a trial in this forum. You have a right to your business decision, it is inherent in any business entity. You have a right to make the decision, these people are not share holders or board members, they are merely potential consumers. Most consumers do not get very far by asking any company for private information - they usually just get a foot in the butt: you need to get your shoe dirty here.

Therefore, discussions like this need to be held (from your standpoint) from a POLICY point of view, not CASE-BY-CASE. As you can already see, its a huge pain in the ass trying to explain the actions for each different case.


[/ QUOTE ]
Thanks for the support and the advice. In matters of this nature we agree with you, altho in certain other cases we have no problem with case-by-case consideration (the TR4RAIDERS1 situation is a case in point, where btw we're happy to agree to disagree with your opinion that we took the wrong decision).

[ QUOTE ]

Terry
I’d like to inform you that casinos in Nevada not only have an absolute right to ban any player at any time without giving any reasons, they are required by law to exclude certain people (the black book, officially know as the List of Excluded Persons)


[/ QUOTE ]
Here's the link (including scary mugshots [img]/images/graemlins/smile.gif[/img] - these guys just look shifty).
http://gaming.state.nv.us/loep_main.htm

[ QUOTE ]

I know quite a few people who play online. I don’t anyone who has been banned. It strikes me as somewhat odd that another common trait of those who have been banned is that they know other people who have also been banned. Coinkydink?


[/ QUOTE ]
Given the exact nature of collusion and chip-dumping, we think this comment bears highlighting. Thanks for saving us the trouble of making it ourselves.

Conclusion
To finish off, thanks to everyone who has contributed constructively to this subject. In posting our responses on the issues raised, we are not naive enough to believe that everyone will side with us, but we would nonetheless hope that the reasonable (wo)man will understand our dilemma thus far in dealing with this situation.

We further hope that our responses thus far give sufficient evidence that we have spent a lot of time examining the details and principles surrounding this matter, and that our actions (and those of Prima) have not been taken lightly or without what we believe to be appropriate cause.

As promised, with regard to the subject of independent review, we will return with further feedback as and when we have more to give.

[gabyyyyy]

After reading this post, I am thinking that Prima may be responsible for the bulk of the problems that have arrisen. Moreover it appears that Prima Poker is truly making the decisions. It may be a sad possibility that The Gaming Club, has no real authority in issues such as these.


"Given the time of year we've now reached, we're not going to promise a speedy turnaround on this matter"

I am sure the guy, who is out 25 grand is very pleased with this.

In regards to an independent body, overlooking this matter the TGC said: "We raised this with Prima as an option before making our original post, as whether or not this could happen is their call and not ours"

Why is it Prima's call and not the TGC'S call? Do you guys even own a poker site? What online site owners, would let a seperate, not liked entity (Prima) make buisness decisions for them? Should we really be blaming The Gaming Club instead of Prima?

"Providing this sort of sensitive information to him essentially puts it squarely within the reach of a jurisdiction.. If some gung-ho A-G reads this and goes knocking on his door Mason will have no choice but to hand everything over"

I seriously doubt that the U.S federal government needs any more proof to justify, their theories of online gambling.

"We further hope that our responses thus far give sufficient evidence that we have spent a lot of time examining the details and principles surrounding this matter"


Like I have said before, The Gaming club has the right to ban player accounts, and sieze funds. Nevertheless, your company has posted no evidence whatsoever backing up your actions. I suppose, you would rather everyone just take your word and move on.

Trust me, when I say that it will shine a much better light on The Gaming Club if you guys atleast provide, even a minute amount of evidence.

May your future decisions, be wise.

[dako]

TGC--

To make it even easier as far as some type of "review", if you could send a transcript of just two hands which I won the pot, and the other player(s) was "dumping" chips to me, and that player(s) is/are now also banned, then I'll stop my hollering. Surely there must be dozens, if not hundreds of these hands for me to have received $32,000 of dumped chips. Two should be a piece of cake to provide of independent person.

It doesn't involve any complicated "evidence", just a brief email to independent poker pro to look at and comment on.

There wouldn't be anything in that email that would "teach him (me?) to do it better next time", just a basic hand history.

But you're going to great lengths with very articulate, well thought out posts, replying to every comment, because YOU DON'T HAVE A SINGLE HAND WHERE I RECEIVED DUMPED CHIPS.

I read your post twice, and you didn't say anything new then what you had said previously, just used some different angles.

Surely you don't think the poker playing community will be bamboozeled by that post?

And BTW, as for the Las Vegas black book--yes it's true that casinos go to great lengths to keep undesirables out, but if they happened to miss one and he comes in and hits a slot jackpot for $1,000,000--they might ban him from the casino, but they're going to pay the jackpot. (No parallel between me and any LV blacklisted gamblers).

[MrDannimal]

Are you even living on the same planet as the rest of us? Are you not aware that The Gaming Club is a skin/member of the Prima Network?

I will admit that I don't know the specific details of the Prima/member relationships, but I would imagine it's a lot less like the Gaming Club is unlinked to Prima (which you claim), and a lot more like a franchise relationship (like McDonalds). In a franchise relationship, you pay $X to own something and operate it, but you must run it according to rules set down by the "parent". If someone gets hurt at a McDonalds, does the local chain owner get to decide how the situation is handled? NO. Why would this be any different?

The rest of your post is just nonsense. The Gaming Club doesn't want to open themselves to any possible hassle of the US Gov't trying to set a precedent with online gambling. It has nothing to do with "proof to justify" anything. Especially since you have nothing factual to go on, just the stories provided by Dako and TGC, it's pretty silly to claim that this justifies theories of online gambling.

Here's my suggestion: We all contribute $.25, and pool it to buy Gabyyyyyyyyyyyyyyy a book on grammar and a dictionary for spelling.

[Gaming Club]

[ QUOTE ]

I am sure the guy, who is out 25 grand is very pleased with this.


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About as pleased as we are having to spend all this time and effort convincing all of you that he's not actually out anything that's rightfully his.

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Why is it Prima's call and not the TGC'S call? ... What online site owners, would let a seperate, not liked entity (Prima) make buisness decisions for them?


[/ QUOTE ]
The fraud in question is perpetuated across a network in which we are but one participant (albeit by far the largest, by our estimates). So we don't get to see all the evidence that Prima does. Hence what gets done with it is their call, not ours. We'd be very surprised if it works any different with EmParty / skins -- why should (e.g.) Coral have the right to tell iGlobalMedia how to handle fraud / collusion control when they (Coral) only see one part of the picture?

[ QUOTE ]

"Providing this sort of sensitive information to him essentially puts it squarely within the reach of a jurisdiction.. If some gung-ho A-G reads this and goes knocking on his door Mason will have no choice but to hand everything over"
I seriously doubt that the U.S federal government needs any more proof to justify, their theories of online gambling operations.


[/ QUOTE ]
That's not the point. They'll go after the info in order to grab headlines and (hopefully, in their minds at least) maybe even get enough to mount an actual case against either the site operator or some of the players. And don't forget that it's not just the Feds who would be interested in this - plenty of state A-Gs might see something like this as a way to make a name for themselves. We might argue that online poker isn't illegal, but we see no point in volunteering to be the test case.

[ QUOTE ]

I suppose, you would rather everyone just take your word and move on.


[/ QUOTE ]
Given our previous show of good faith re every other issue ever raised here, that would certainly have been nice. However, if that's what we were after then we would never have motivated for an independent review panel.

[ QUOTE ]

Trust me, when I say that it will shine a much better light on The Gaming Club if you guys atleast provide, even a minute amount of evidence.


[/ QUOTE ]
Amazingly enough, we're not that dumb that we haven't worked this out for ourselves, and if the commercial risks of doing so weren't so great in our estimation then we would certainly already have done so.

[CrackerZack]

[ QUOTE ]
Are you even living on the same planet as the rest of us?

[/ QUOTE ]

This is hilarious because it is so true. Can we set up an argument between gabbyyyyyyy and Wake_up_Call with Ryan_21 mediating? It would certainly be more entertaining than Celebrity Poker.

[dm34]

All I can do here is laugh.

1 - The issue of some AG coming after Mason for info if you sent him evidence is the biggest pile of BS I have ever heard. Do you think we are that stupid?

2 - You can't give examples of specific hands to dako because it would help him do it again - huh? If he already did it, how would seeing the transcript help? Again, do you think we will not actually use out brains when reading your posts?

Like I said before, dako may have cheated. But something is fishy here.

[LaggyLou]

[ QUOTE ]
The reviewer(s) must be fully aware of and accept appropriate legal liability for any actions on their part that result in financial damages to Prima and / or its licensees and / or players (if we didn’t insist on this then a player who suffers damages would come after us or Prima and we’d be up a creek without a paddle). And in case anyone thinks that this condition is just a way of making sure that nobody will want to take the job, bear in mind that this is pretty standard stuff for the kind of people that do this sort of work (we expect that professional indemnity insurance will provide appropriate cover).

[/ QUOTE ]

Can you please explain a bit more what you mean by this? Read literally, you are asking the "reviewer" to take on all of Prima's/TGC's liability in the very matter he is reviewing, which of course can't be right.

I'm also confused by your contention that something like this is "standard". To the contrary, in private dispute resolution both sides typically must release the arbitrator/mediator from liability, not the other way around.

[Terry]

[ QUOTE ]
Las Vegas black book...if they happened to miss one and he comes in and hits a slot jackpot for $1,000,000--they might ban him from the casino, but they're going to pay the jackpot.

[/ QUOTE ]

Wrong. Not only will they not pay the jackpot, they will arrest him. The casino will also be investigated and is subject to penalties up to the permanent loss of their gaming license.

[mongeron]

[ QUOTE ]
2 - You can't give examples of specific hands to dako because it would help him do it again - huh? If he already did it, how would seeing the transcript help? Again, do you think we will not actually use out brains when reading your posts?

[/ QUOTE ]

By seeing the transcript, a cheater would get an idea of the patterns which are detected. This way the cheater can avoid these patterns later on, and that would make detection harder.

On the other hand though, one or two hands are probably not enough to establish a clear pattern.

- mongeron