Originally Posted by
RyPac13
Haley's quote from Sinclair just sums it up so perfectly.
Why anyone would put stock into someone that has such a conflicting interest is beyond me. That doesn't make this Gerry guy a bad person, but good, smart people can be put in places of conflicting interest and not see the light until much too late.
Plus, the nature of online poker rooms, where partial information (much like poker) is heavy, but true facts (like putting a player on one hand) are almost always lacking... it's very easy to gloss over major warning signs and come to the wrong conclusion.
I'm happy to see Steve-o coming around on a lot of the partial information that all seems to point against Lock. I still don't like that you say "I say I don't trust any US facing sites" because it is too kind to Lock to lump them in with these other sites. Even Merge, who has had some payout issues lately and has taken some very poor actions against users (not honoring tournament tickets that users bought into on skins that Merge takes over, let alone VIP points), they still don't compare to Lock's inconsistency and outright lies about some situations. That doesn't mean your statement isn't true, but it's like saying "there are problems at every poker room." This is true, even the top poker rooms do have problems sometimes, but it's almost purposely making a situation vague. Like saying Lehman Brothers might have bad debt, but every bank has bad debt.
I'm of the mind that people should've seen this coming. I mean, you were all aware of the casino bonuses scandal, the Girah "lawsuit" used to end Lock's explanation of that incident. Last summer the biggest rakers, what should be Lock's best customers, were making up to 150% rakeback for 2-3 months. How on earth would something like that be sustainable? Especially in the USA industry, where every other room offers players less rewards than the euro facing networks (indicating less competition and higher operating costs).
Throw in the clear lies Shane told about Portugal from Dan's (appears now to be very reliable) source, as well as this Cyprus stuff that appears to be of the same lying variety. Spotty reasoning Shane gives about cashouts, broken promises that it'll be fixed next month (he's literally said it every month or two since September...).
There's just so much wrong here and it's honestly worse than every other US facing site's scandals, dirt and lies combined.
Something like "I wouldn't trust any US facing site, they're all prone to additional risk, but Lock is particularly worrisome" starts to get into the neighborhood of accurate, but is still underplaying the information the community currently has.