Who protect the poker player?

Over the last year I have become very critical in my approach to new poker rooms - after I lost money in the crashes of JetSet Poker, Spades Lounge and jungle poker.

Today I see poker rooms with very few players – but still they offer lots of freerolls and multi tournaments with overlay.

I would like to participate in these tournaments but I am not happy about making a deposit when it is obviously, that the poker room is loosing money.
Is anyone aware of a group/union/organisation that, on behalf of the poker players, investigate the financial backgrounds of new poker rooms?


Probably all countries have a sort of consumer organisation that controls and approves new online shopping websites that fulfil specific standards.
In this way the consumers are able to sort definitive secure shopping websites from other websites.

Are our national poker unions members of an international union? If so, is this union doing any activities in terms of securing poker players against unreliable poker rooms?

(Somebody would say – “just use the well known poker rooms” – yes, but the greater the competition is between the poker rooms – the greater the offers to the players must be)

come on guys!


somebody must have an opion on this.

Is no one in here a member of a natinal poker union?

Unless I am mistaken, which is very possible as I am not familiar with international laws. Privately held organizations are under no obligation to divulge thier financial information, so there is no way that is possible.

I would never deposit money on a poker site I didn't fully trust. And at the moment, that's only Full Tilt and Poker Stars.

I agree with you fully. I have heard of stories from friends who play on those small day in day out sites and they have had all kinds of trouble getting paid out, if they did at all. No way for me.

...but that is exactly the point. If some organization could verify new poker rooms you wouldn't have to think like that.

Personally I like to play at different poker software -and by supporting other pokerrooms than the big ones not only will it keep different kinds of software available to poker players you also force the big ones to step up their promotions or at least not to get greedy and at the same time enjoy the free money that comes with the overlay of money when minor poker networks step up their tournaments.

...................
To me it is so sad to see that a network like the one poker.com, pokernordica.com and others use is stagnant and probably even experiencing a fall-off. They have a software that beats pokerstars and FT with several lengths.

I don't understand why people don't join some of these networks - because at Pokerstars and FT it is impossible to find a tournament with overlay - that is free money you often find on minor networks

IMHO ur nuts to play realmoney, much deposit your own money, on any one of these small, fly-by-nite sites. ur just asking for trouble.

if ppl still didnt learn their lesson with all the jetsets et al out there, they never will...

i think that the key here is being absolutely cautious..Period.

Avoid all the small rooms and concentrate over 3-4 big rooms such as Stars,Tilt,Carbon and Bodog.Just follow the flow of thousands of players that prefer those rooms

A good tool in trying to find a new site to play on is PokerListings.com's Market-Pulse app, MarketPulse - Online Poker Traffic Report - PokerListings.com . It shows how many people there are on a per day/month/year and such so you can find the best one for your needs. The more people might mean that there are harder opponents, but there will also be SNGs and MTTs starting all the time, whereas if you want a limited player pool you could go with one of the smaller sites.

I beleive that a poker room that have multiple tournaments and freerolls don't lose money.. Poker rooms are so much profitable .. thats becouse of the rake..

A exemple of the rake to you see that better, if a avarage stack in a board is $150 and the rake is $0.5 ph .. so in a board with a mean of 70 hands per hour.. in one day (24h) all the money of the board has gone to the rake.
Looks like hard to lose money that way no ??

bottom line is NOONE's protecting the online poker player. except the online poker player him/herself. use your best judgment, be cautious. if something sounds too good to be true, it is...
stick to PS, FTP, UB/AP and if non-US, party, pokerroom...

There is the Poker Players Alliance but they're more of a lobbyist group pushing for player's rights in America. Not exactly a solution.. but.. if they make any gains with the legality of the money transfer issues within the US, their could be a day when you don't have to worry about getting paid out from a place like Myanmar or the Caymans...

There is no international or national legislation to govern online poker rooms, they are accountable to nobody legally.
Any site can close at any time and take your money and you have no recourse. As a matter of fact, they can take your account any time they like for whatever reason they like, and you have no legal recourse.
So be careful who you choose to trust.

just use common sense - if lots of players are playing should be ok but if numbers drop then get out.

only make small deposits at the lesser known sites and withdraw regularly if you build your balance

+1

You gotta watch out for yourself and make use of Poker Forums to see which sites are causing trouble

There is a site that tries to resolve reasonable complaints from customers

Best idea is to stay AWAY from BRAND NEW POKER SITES..dont even think about it

There are plenty of established ones to play

well that is not the case because a lot of poker rooms that launch themselves with freerolls and MTT's with overlay - so you can't use these judgments as reliability criteria.

My point is:

I just love to see a poker future that consists of other poker software than Pokerstars, Full Tilt, ongame and iPoker.

Look at the network that poker.com, pokerNordica, Carbon use (Merge poker i think it's called). This software outclasses the software of Pokerstars and Full Tilt and Absolute in every aspect - but still they have for the last year experienced stagnation and probably a fall-off

You can see the various rooms rated (apparently objectively, as some get [very] poor marks; also note AP and UB's downgrade due to the superuser scandle) here.

They can also help mitigate any dispute you might have.

You really have to use caution and commensense when depositing money onto anysite. Wether large or small. You never can tell when one is going to crash or just disappear. If you dont think it is ligit then it probably isnt. If it walks and quacks like a duck it just might be a duck.

I know I am quoting a banned player, but I didn't want anybody to read his post and think everything is kosher at Bodog right now.

For anyone thinking about depositing on Bodog, I would read the thread about the length of time it is taking for people (in the US at least) to get paid from the site. Maybe this issue will be cleared up soon, but I just read about 2-3 month waiting periods.

For me - Poker Stars and Full-Tilt...for now.

As for bodog I don't play much poker there anymore and about getting paid, I had know problem depositing useing ewallet, but they would not let me withdraw my money back to ewallet, now that's bs. I did get my cash, but they sent me a check.