It is with deep regret that after sending out a mailer earlier this month suggesting Lock Poker as an option for you guys, I have to retract that statement. Not only that, but I have to advise you against playing at Lock Poker.

There are many reasons you should not be playing at Lock Poker. At this time, the room is a disaster. Horrendous customer support, player admin not working, very slow withdrawals etc – however a lot of this could be put down to the network change, and I’d be willing to give them the benefit of the doubt.

Unfortunately, there are 3 major reasons as to why I am no longer willing to work with Lock Poker, and why I am recommending you stay the hell away from this room:

#1: Bad Communication

If you’ve ever e-mailed me, you’ll know I pride myself on fast communication, and fast resolutions. One of my friends became an affiliate manager at Lock Poker, which was one of the deciding factors in working with Lock, despite some prior reservations. I assumed that with him working with Lock, I would be able to get any problems resolved in a prompt fashion.

Unfortunately, over the last 4 weeks that has not proven to be the case. It took me 3 days just to be able to log into my affiliate account as my password wasn’t working, and Lock don’t have a “forgot password” ability. The CEO had to retrieve my password for me. Think about that one.

On top of that, it took over 3 weeks for me to get a rakeback tracker. I had to e-mail my friend the players I wanted to get attached to rakeback – and even then I was never getting a reply. I had to follow up with him on Skype, and if he wasn’t on then I was SOL.

If any of you guys had a problem with Lock, I would not feel confident that I could get it resolved in a prompt fashion, which is always a major factor I take into consideration when deciding to work with a room.

#2: Screwing Another Affiliate

A fellow affiliate, who is a friend of mine, got severely screwed by Lock. I’ll try and sum it up short and sweet:

– Affiliate worked on CPA. This means that every time you bring a real money player, you receive a flat payment(ie: $75 every time you bring in a real money player) then you don’t get a share of their rake.
– One of the players did a chargeback. When this happens, the poker room should simply withold or take back the CPA Payment for that player. This is 100% standard in the industry.
– Lock Poker didn’t do that. They broke their own terms and conditions, by effectively “fining” the affiliate to the tune of 11x the CPA payment.
– As if that wasn’t bad enough, when the affiliate made this public, Lock contacted the affiliate and told him they no longer want to work with him and closed his account.

In essence, Lock screwed over an affiliate. When he went public with this, they closed their affiliate account. In this industry, sometimes you NEED to make things public before an affiliate program acts. Lock Affiliates are attempting to scare affiliates from saying anything negative or bad about them(even if it is truthful), by closing their accounts.

I’m not going to work with a room like that, because I would never want to jeopardize your rakeback in that manner.

#3: Bad Terms and Conditions

Lock have some very bad terms and conditions, both for the player and affiliate front. I won’t bother to break them all down, but look at this one for players:

If, in the Company’s sole determination, you are found to have cheated or attempted to defraud the Games, Lock Poker, other players, or the Company in any way including but not limited to game manipulation or payment fraud, or if you make untrue and/or malicious comments with regard to the Company’s operation in any media or forum, the Company reserves the right (and you authorize the Company) to publicize your actions together with your identity and e-mail address, as well as to circulate this information to other online gaming sites, banks, credit card companies, law enforcement departments and other appropriate agencies. The Company may close any accounts, and forfeit account balances, that you have at Lock Poker or at any other Company website, casino and/or business.

What this means – is that if you say one bad thing about Lock Poker, be it on Twitter, on a forum, on Facebook or anything – they have the right to not only close your account, but STEAL YOUR MONEY.

I apologize wholeheartedly for suggesting Lock Poker to you guys. In the month prior to them purchasing the Revolution Network, they had been receiving some good PR that made me think about promoting them. When my friend joined as an affiliate manager – well, I trust my friend, so I felt I could trust Lock Poker. Over the last 3 weeks that trust has evaporated, and has been replaced by disgust.

I highly recommend if you have money at Lock Poker, to get it out ASAP.