Lock Poker Doomed by Overspending, Employee Claims, While It’s All Over But the Shouting for Player Funds

February 24th, 2015 | by Kaycee James

Lock Poker has allegedly failed to pay out some players for over two years, and many now say their money is gone forever. (Image: pokerupdate.com)

Lock Poker is one of the least-trusted names in the world of online poker these days, thanks mainly to the fact that players have been unable to withdraw funds for well over a year now.

Just about everyone is in agreement that the site owes players millions of dollars at this point, with one estimate posted by Two Plus Two forum’s kahntrutahn rising to “at least $15,000,000.”

Now, one employee for Lock has come forward in an attempt to shed some light on the situation at the company for the poker community.

Former Lock Poker spokesperson Shane Bridges told pokerfuse that “instability and possible overspending” were behind the problems at the beleaguered poker site. Bridges also said that, unfortunately, he just doesn’t see players ever recovering money from their Lock Poker accounts.

“I never had access to any real financials, but with no significant movement on cashouts and promises of the big turnaround now being 12 months old it would be my assumption that player balances won’t be honoured now,” Bridges said.

Lifestyle, Corporate Extravagance Issues Cited

According to Bridges, Lock CEO Jen Larson often made “obvious lifestyle spends” that put into question her claims of reinvesting all of the revenue that came into the company. That, combined with management overspending and issues with payment processors being seized by the US government, doomed the company.

“Lifestyle spends were the classic big business thing of $500 bottles of wine with every single meal, Vintage Dom any time champagne was drunk, and insane overtipping,” Bridges said. “Overspending of management was the business related costs which again was just over the top extravagance. First class flights everywhere for [Larson and programmer Brendan Young], insane boutique 5 star hotels everywhere.”

Bridges added that he didn’t believe that any of Lock’s sponsored pros over the years were aware of just how bad the situation had become while they were still promoting the room. High-volume players may also have been placated with cashouts for some time, though Bridges couldn’t say how long those promises were kept for.

Reports of Unpaid Balances Now Go Back Over Two Years

According to some reports, problems with cashouts at Lock Poker go back to November 2012, meaning that some players have been waiting for more than two years to receive their account balances.

In some rare cases, there are players known to have over $100,000 in their accounts that they cannot access. Such information has led many in the industry to stop mollifying their words and outright refer to Lock Poker as a scam, as the site has continued to operate, despite the fact that no players have appeared to be able to withdraw funds from the poker room for some time now.

Of course, players recognized that there was a problem long before now. In September 2013, there were already reports that players were willing to sell their Lock Poker account balances for 20 cents on the dollar, a sign of the incredibly low confidence that the community had in the site. Today, players couldn’t hope to get even a fraction of that amount.

“Any funds on the site should be considered lost forever,” John Mehaffey wrote on 4flush.com earlier this month. “If you can get one cent on the dollar for it, that should be considered a good deal.”