Eric "Rizen" Lynch broke his silence in February 2015 after Lock conspirators outed -- here are his e-mails with me

[Dan Druff]

Background:

Eric "Rizen" Lynch was the Poker Room Manager for Lock Poker for a few years. He resigned in August 2014, but that was after Lock hadn't paid people in 20 months!

Lynch used to be the main point-of-contact on 2+2 when people had gripes with the way Lock was handling things. This was BEFORE the payment problems got bad, but included the time period with the Girah scandal, Casino Bonus scandal, and other shady situations. I found Lynch to be VERY evasive, though he was good at answering questions civilly and pretending like he was on the players' side.

His role as communicator on 2+2 ended around the time the payment problems began, and he was replaced by Shane Bridges, who was often arrogant and combative. However, it is important to note that Lynch continued promoting Lock, continued to officially be the "Poker Room Manager", and seemed to have no problem doing so for 20 months while Lock wasn't paying anyone.

Lynch disappeared from social media when things with Lock got bad, and people assumed that he was in hiding. However, he reappeared in February 2015 when a Lock victim uncovered lots of information about the various conspirators, and posted a lot of it to 2+2 and PFA.

User "HipAintCheap", who uncovered the info, put the scare into the Lock conspirators, and some of the players were shaken out of the hiding tree. Shane Bridges briefly surfaced and pretended to cooperate. Eric Lynch chose to surface privately, by e-mailing me on February 20th, just 10 days after HipAintCheap posted the information he found.

Lynch said he would talk with me, but only if I kept our conversation private. I agreed at the time, but Lynch stopped responding to me, so fuck him. I especially don't feel guilty publishing this stuff because he was part of a conspiracy to defraud poker players, so I don't feel I owe him a lot of integrity. I was honestly going to keep our correspondence private if he was truly helpful, but instead he just seemed to be interested in making excuses and claiming that Jennifer Larson isn't all that bad (lol). Shockingly, despite knowing that Jennifer stole $10-$15 MILLION from our community, he told me that he still felt "loyal" to her because she was supportive to him during his divorce!

There was a substantial delay between his last response and my answer to him. That's because I injured my ankle badly on February 22, 2015 (hours after I had written my prior response to him), and while I received his response the next day, I was in too much pain to read the whole thing, and I forgot he had answered. I thought about it months later, responded to him, and he ignored me. I sent him another e-mail, and he ignored that, as well. Keep in mind that he's had the same e-mail address for many years, so it's unlikely he changed it and didn't get what I sent him.

The e-mails follow. Enjoy!

[Dan Druff]

From: Eric Lynch
To: Dan Druff
February 20, 2015

Todd - I had to do some digging to find your contact info, but I guess we had this conversation a long time ago.

If you want to talk let's talk. I will only do so with you, and for now only if we agree for all conversation to be private. Part of the reason no one has heard from me in this long is because I have some (I believe legitimate) concerns about consequences if I do. I'm not trying to be overly dramatic as I don't think it's life/death or anything like that, but I do believe going public would both potentially harm me as well as any potential help I could possibly do.

FWIW Jennifer still occasionally stays in contact with me, I get an e-mail from her every month or two checking in. I told her back in August 2014 that I no longer had time to be involved with the company for personal reasons but left the door open with her for coming back if/when players started to get paid and my personal life cleared up. Obviously any communication would stop if my contacting you became public.

I totally understand people being upset with me and obviously everyone (including yourself) has every right to express any opinion they have about me as well as any decisions I've made.

If you want to talk privately we can. I will do my best to answer/explain anything I can for you from my perspective. I think in some senses you may be disappointed in what I know as given my title and time with the company people assume that I had a lot more direct involvement than I actually did. I probably know less than Shane does in most areas as I refused to relocate outside the US so I was left out of a lot of things that I know he was privy to that I was not, as I was never involved in any face to face meetings.

I'll leave it at that for now until you agree that any discussion we have is private. Also this is coming to you from a different e-mail than before, it's my private e-mail so I check it more regularly than my poker one, that is why.

Thanks

-Eric

[Dan Druff]

From: Dan Druff
To: Eric Lynch
February 20, 2015

All right.

I want to give everyone a chance to give their side.

I will also keep it private that you contacted me.

Where can we do this? Do you have Skype?


-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

From: Eric Lynch
To: Dan Druff
February 20, 2015

Well you may have misunderstood me a bit. This really isn't about giving my side or clearing my name or anything. People have already informed their opinions of me and I'm not looking to change them. If I can somehow help some players be made whole or closure then I would like to do what I can.

I would prefer to talk via email for now.

To be clear not only that I contacted you is private but any discussions we have as well until we both agree otherwise? Part of the reason I went to you is because you seem like an intelligent, logical person whom I can trust to see the bigger picture and keep things between us.

[Dan Druff]

From: Dan Druff
To: Eric Lynch
February 22, 2015


Yes, I agree.

Now here are some questions for you:

1) How were you paid on Lock? Did they pay you in Lock money, or cash?

1a) Were you given any form of priority cashouts on Lock when others' cashouts were clearly becoming very slow?

1b) Were you paid any form of non-Lock-money (cash/check/wire/whatever) when others' cashouts were very slow?


2) You promoted Lock Poker on your Twitter as late as July 28, 2013. Surely you were aware of the massive payout problems by that point. As an intelligent man who has been around the online poker community for many years, how did you feel comfortable doing this?

3) Why did you step away from active work with Lock Poker?

3a) If you stepped away because you no longer trusted Lock, why did you allow your name to still be listed as Lock Poker manager, and why did you continue to promote Lock at that point?

4) What information can you provide regarding Jennifer, Olga, Brendan, Jamie, or anyone else relevant to the operation/association with Lock Poker?

5) What do you know about Lock's complicity with the Girah situation? Were they aware Girah had cheated when first planning to award him the prize? If not, how did you as poker manager have such poor oversight of the highly obvious situation?

6) What was Lock's strategy regarding the Casino Bonus scandal? This was dragged out for about a year and nobody was ever made whole. What was Lock communicating to you about it, and how did you find it ethical to breach the agreements Lock had with players?

6a) If you are going to blame the Casino Bonus scandal on Merge, why didn’t Lock reimburse affected players in some other way, such as live tournament buyins or sponsorships? How were you okay with people being cheated like this?

7) At what point did you decide that Lock was a complete scam? What made you come to that conclusion?

8) Do you know anything about where player funds were held, and were you aware that they were used for other things?

[Dan Druff]

From: Eric Lynch
To: Dan Druff
February 23, 2015


Answers in-line to keep things clearer. Also - just in case I don't explicitly say it in there some things I'll answer are me repeating what I was told. I will try and be clear when I'm saying something that I have direct knowledge of and repeating something I was told. The reason I state that is some of the things Shane said that people are blasting him for are him repeating what he was told as fact. I'm relatively certain he never had direct insight/contact with the network regarding funds, some of the things he said was just him repeating what he was told 1,000 times. I'm specifically referring to the cash flow issues with the network.

1) How were you paid on Lock? Did they pay you in Lock money, or cash?

Primarily in Lock Money. I was paid via paypal three times total, once back around 2010/2011 and twice as recently as 2014. The early one was for $2500, and the latter two for $5000 and $4000 respectively. Everything else was in Lock money. She offered to set up a bank account for me in Andorra (like Shane had and I believe some of the others, although as far as I know there weren't any pros set up this way, but for all I know some were). I said no at the time, mainly because it seemed unnecessary when cashouts were ~6-8 weeks and it seemed like a lot of work. When I asked later she said she was no longer using that bank and said she hadn't been using her new one long enough to feel comfortable asking them to set up an account for me.

1b) Were you paid any form of non-Lock-money (cash/check/wire/whatever) when others' cashouts were very slow?

Two payments via paypal, totaling $9k. When you say other's cashouts were very slow, I'm assuming you're referring to the spring/summer 2013 period before cashouts more or less stopped altogether. Even if you went back further than that the answer to this would still be the same, but you mention cashouts being slow in many of your questions, so I just wanted to specify that time period. Cashouts were pretty much always very slow compared to other sites pre Black Friday, although there was a time post Black Friday and pre 2013 where they were as fast as any other US facing room except Bodog/Bovada. Not important, just making sure we're on the same page.

2) You promoted Lock Poker on your Twitter as late as July 28, 2013. Surely you were aware of the massive payout problems by that point. As an intelligent man who has been around the online poker community for many years, how did you feel comfortable doing this?

At the time I was beta testing and working with the Partouche team in France (that may not be their name and I may be butchering it, I'm trying to answer all of these tonight if I can. If you want me to find specific times/dates I can try and get them for you later when I have more time to search). Payouts had been slowing down quite a bit for some time (I received my last payout in either June or July of 2013, I can find the exact date if you think it's important for some reason), but we were all being fed the network vs Lock stuff you've heard others talk about and I won't rehash in great detail again other than to say that we were all being told that the money was there, but Cake (or whatever name they were going by at that time, all my e-mails are still cakepoker.eu from then) wasn't giving it to Lock for some reason or another.

Jennifer was telling me that Lock just needed to get this new software in good enough shape to leave Cake and have a new poker room for Lock, and then payouts would improve. The logic behind it was supposedly Lock turned from the biggest winner on the network when Lock first joined to the biggest loser. This seemed odd to me, but I was told it was because of Lock's marketing efforts Lock was attracting fish, so the other rooms on the network owed Lock money at the end of the month and Cake was finding reasons to not release these funds.

Around the time the Girah thing happened is when Jennifer and I's relationship started deteriorating a bit (I'll answer that more down at the Girah questions) and this was probably one of the bigger issues I had personally and basically when I started having doubts about continuing with the company at all.

There were sort of two things at odds with one another. On one hand when I started with Lock in 2009 Lock was on Cake. She always talked about how horrible they were to deal with so Lock left for Merge, then they were horrible to deal with, so Lock went back to Cake although supposedly Lock bought it and renamed it Revolution and then Lock didn't buy it and Cake still owned it and they were still terrible so Lock starting their own room. I mean at some point when you bounce around over and over again the problem is probably you more than it is the network. Although having seen some of the things network politics wise that go on, I definitely think the network model is flawed if anyone who is operating the network also operates a room on the network, but that's neither here nor there.

On the other hand I was already beta testing new software at this time, so I knew that Lock was really going to start Lock's own room, and for YEARS I'd always been told that if Lock just had control over everything it would all work. So basically at this point I told myself that I would wait for the transition to complete and see if things improved or not.


(continued next post)

[Dan Druff]

From: Eric Lynch
To: Dan Druff
February 23, 2015

(continued from above)

3) Why did you step away from active work with Lock Poker?

for several reasons. Summer of 2013 I had really put all my efforts into the new software, both testing/feedback on it as well as coming up with a VIP rewards system (I don't think one was ever really implemented, but I did a lot of work coming up with one), and creating the tournament schedule, sit n go structures, and entering in a lot of the cash game rake structures so that things were ready to go. I expected to see a significant improvement once the new site was launched, and when I didn't I just sort of lost any passion I had for working on any of it.

My wife and I were expecting and my life just focused on other things. I never officially "quit" or even told Jennifer I wasn't going to do anything, I just sort of stopped doing things. I would answer questions Jennifer or Shane would have on how things were set up or implemented, and up to as late as spring/summer 2014 (I can get an exact date if it's important for some reason) I was on some of Lock's skype status meetings, just to find out what was going on. At that point those and the occasional e-mail were really the only contact I had with Jennifer.

After the site had launched in October around the first of the year I began to ask when players could expect to see improved payouts. At that point I was told Lock was either switching or setting up new payment processors (sorry I'm not sure which, with payment processors it was always one or the other), and then sometime around Feb/March on one of Lock's status meetings we were all told that Lock had Russian investors lined up and that Lock was going to launch a Russian version of the site and once Lock got that cash infusion Lock would be rolling. This was really the first time I heard Jennifer admit that the cash wasn't there, although obviously I had serious doubts before that, it was always either directly stated or implied that Lock had the money but for some reason or another Lock just didn't have the ability to distribute it. Again, I'm not saying that's what I believe, just that it was what was being stated.

To this day the statement about Russian investors doesn't really seem like a lie because new people were hired and I could see a Russian version of the site being created. I never got the name or directly spoke with anyone from the Russian investment group, but I did see a lot of things going on that didn't make a lot of sense unless Lock was actually planning on launching a Russian site. It could have been smoke and mirrors, but it would have been a lot of effort that I don't really see would have served any purpose, as the only people they would be fooling would have been Shane and I.

This doesn't really completely answer your question, but in order to go deeper into it I have to answer some of the later questions, so in the interest of clarity I'm going to cut it off here, feel free to ask any follow ups.

3a) If you stepped away because you no longer trusted Lock, why did you allow your name to still be listed as Lock Poker manager, and why did you continue to promote Lock at that point?

Sometime around the Portugal trip and when the pro pages went down, I asked to have my name removed from everything on the site. I didn't quit and I was still actively consulting for Lock, but I didn't want my name on the site anywhere. As far as I know, I was no longer listed on the site anywhere as of then.

I know they sent out several e-mails that had my name on them, but I didn't see those nor approve them before they went out. Jennifer and I actually had a pretty big fight over that, especially when the rekollect one went out. I was told that it was an e-mail templating issue and has since been resolved and haven't seen my name on any subsequent e-mails.

I could have come out and said something at that time, and I definitely considered it, and when I said "said something" I just mean say that I didn't write that e-mail.

I definitely wasn't trying to promote anything at that point, although obviously I wasn't actively discouraging people from signing up either. Someone recently pointed out to me that my site at rizenpoker.com still has Lock on it, but if you go there you'll see I haven't updated since 2011. That's no excuse for it still being up. I own the domain but it's still on Lock's servers, so sometime shortly after I send this I'll go take the site down for now by pointing the DNS somewhere else. I didn't even think to check the site, or else I would have taken it down around summer 2013 as well.

As far as I know my name isn't listed anywhere else and hasn't been for some time. If you're aware of anywhere that it is please let me know so I can get it changed.

4) What information can you provide regarding Jennifer, Olga, Brendan, Jamie, or anyone else relevant to the operation/association with Lock Poker?

Eric - I don't know Jamie at all. I've never met him, and until it was mentioned on 2+2 I had never heard of him. I knew Jennifer had a brother but didn't even know his name at that point.

Assuming that I don't get locked (pun not intended) out of my lockpoker.eu e-mail account or lose VPN access, I have years worth of old e-mails. I have an address for Jennifer, but it was from long enough ago I doubt it's still valid. I have exchanged some private e-mails with Olga back around the time of the France trip coordinating everything, but I'm not sure if they contain anything useful or not. Brendan I have virtually nothing on, although I think you guys are probably going down the wrong path thinking he's in London. It's certainly possible that he's there, but the entire time I've been with Lock he's either been with Jennifer or in Vancouver. If you're just using an IP related to him to determine that, I know the entire Lock team uses a VPN out of London for internal work, so all the IPs will look like they're from London if they're in the VPN. If there is some other method you determined he was in London then you or whoever you're talking to could easily know more than I do.

Most of the other relevant information I know Shane probably knows as well if you're still talking with him, but I do have contact information for the people who run the current software, although I couldn't tell you who among the people I have contact info is really in charge and who are just programmers/employees. I also still have VPN access last I checked, which gets me into the management software etc as well as a few other minor things.

Honestly depending on the goals of whoever is trying to do this the company that runs the software is probably your best bet. It's based in France and I would assume that the people running the software side of things are probably going to continue to get paid until the software itself goes down, and they're also the only people outside of the small core group that she's required to be in contact with to keep things going.

(continued)

[Dan Druff]

From: Eric Lynch
To: Dan Druff
February 23, 2015

(continued)

5) What do you know about Lock's complicity with the Girah situation? Were they aware Girah had cheated when first planning to award him the prize? If not, how did you as poker manager have such poor oversight of the highly obvious situation?

I can't speak to what Jennifer knew and when, so most of what I'm relaying here is what was told to me, although I believe at least some of it has some validity because Jennifer consulted me on how to handle the situation shortly after she found out. It was all on skype, but it was via voice chat so I don't have any logs or anything like that. I realize that a lot of what I'm about to say probably looks like I'm trying to paint myself in a positive light but that's not the case. I'm not looking to change anyone's opinion of me or anything.

I don't believe that Jennifer was aware Girah had cheated when first planning to award him the prize. Jennifer is a very intelligent person and knows a lot of stuff when it comes to gaming, but her understanding of how poker players think and how a lot of the game works she's not super knowledgeable on. It's possible she's really good at playing dumb about it, but I don't think she knew.

When she contacted me about it via skype, she told me that the network had discovered he was cheating (She said something other than cheating, but I'm just using your word to keep things simple) and Lock needed to decide what to do about it. She told me that the network had offered to keep quiet about it if Lock wanted them to, and seemed unsure of how to handle it. I asked for more detail as to what had happened and she gave me some story about his roommate playing on his account that he had apparently told her. Once I found out that it looked like chip dumping though (I hadn't seen any hand histories or anything at that point) I explained to her how easy it was to identify this behavior and that roommate or not, he had to be disqualified.

I actually recommended she terminate his contract immediately and award the prize to second place. At the time we got off our voice conversation she had actually agreed to do this. During the entire conversation I never got the impression she really wanted to cover anything up, but it was obvious she must have had a lot invested in Girah as she seemed really reluctant when I said she should terminate him.

Ultimately this is where I started having a bit of a rift with Jennifer and how she was running things, because later she called me back and told me that she believed in second chances and she was going to disqualify him and not terminate him. I told her that I disagreed but ultimately would defer to her. I was very adamant though that she should be VERY sure she handled it carefully and that he was on a REALLY short leash because if she gave him a second chance and he burned her it would look awful.

Ultimately this became a series of things we disagreed with over the pro team. Jennifer was loyal to a fault, she pretty much refused to cut anyone loose regardless of what they did. At this time, I was actually in charge of the pro team. I was actually helping negotiate a lot of the contracts with some of the players and dealing with the pros. I actually wanted to cut a bunch of them loose that weren't doing anything (some of them weren't even logging into the site, just collecting a paycheck), especially those who had a huge overlap with other pros in terms of what they were bringing to the table. I kind of felt like I was being played though because every time I went to one of the pros and would tell them they weren't performing even the most basic of their duties and Lock was going to have to let them go if they didn't pick it up (a decision we made together) they would go back to her and she would give them a second chance and sometimes some sort of bonus. It was constantly undermining my authority with the pros (there was even some interview PrimordialAA did where he said I didn't do anything there, and certainly didn't manage the pros). Eventually I told her that if she wanted me to be in charge of the pros that's great, but she needed to stand behind me and empower me to run things or I wouldn't do it. Eventually I just handed it back to her and she eventually hired Jim Erwood to take on that role.

I diverted a bit, but I brought that up because Girah was different. She never consulted me before signing him, as she had with every other pro up until that point, and never told me how much money he made etc. I didn't really care how much he made, and always just assumed she cut me out of the picture because he probably got paid more than I did. That really didn't matter that much to me, but it was a pretty big change at the time to how operations were going and what my place was in things. I mentioned in your question about why I stopped being active with Lock that more of it would be gotten into later, and this was sort of it. I couldn't be expected to manage people if I wasn't given any real authority, and I didn't really want to be just her mouthpiece to the pros and on the forums. After the Girah thing I did continue to manage the pros and the forums for a while, but it wasn't super long after that that I had a conversation with her telling her she either needed to empower me to truly be in charge of the team as well as give me access to the information I needed to properly manage the forums, or Lock needed to redefine my role within the company, if it was going to continue to exist.

As I said above, Jennifer is loyal to a fault and wanted me to still be involved, and asked me what it was I REALLY wanted to do, and I told her that I wanted to be able to have meaningful input into the software and poker side (promotions, tournament schedule, special tournament series, leaderboards, etc) and it was around that time we redefined my role to poker room manager. I didn't want to continue to have involvement with the pros the way things were being handled nor the forums, which is when Shane officially took over rather than just helping me occasionally when I needed it.

I'm diverting a lot again, and this probably isn't important, and I don't know how much you know about me but when Lee Jones originally left PokerStars to join the EPT back around 2007ish (I don't remember the exact date) he recommended me to take his job. I had a long phone conversation with Isai about the role and I was super excited about it. When Lee first approached me about it saying he wanted to recommend me I told him I'd love to do it as long as it didn't require relocation out of the US. My kids were young at the time and I didn't want to take them away from our families so that was a deal killer for me. I was lead to believe that wouldn't be an issue but when it came down to it Isai said there was no way it could happen if I didn't relocate and negotiations stopped there.

The only reason I mention that is that was what gave me the idea that I really wanted to be involved with a poker site and have an opportunity to have a meaningful impact in online poker. I knew once my kids started school I didn't want to travel for poker anymore, and I wasn't going to be able to play forever, and the thought of being involved and turning that into a career was super appealing to me. It didn't happen with Poker Stars though. The reason I actually joined UB briefly back in the day was because I was promised a path beyond just being a pro and actually transitioning to getting involved with the company itself. I thought when I quit UB that I would pretty much never have an opportunity for that again so when Lock presented itself I was very excited about it. My long term goal was to help build Lock into a big player in the industry and be able to transition from pro into the corporate side of things and have that be my career while my kids were in school. When I signed with Lock my salary was actually only $2500/month and I probably only got paid half the time. It only went up post Black Friday when things with Lock boomed but even though it went up to $5000/month, and I didn't always get paid.

I guess I told you that I didn't care about telling "my side of the story" and now I went on a tangent and did it, but based on the questions you're asking me I think it's relevant. I don't really care if anyone else ever hears about it because I don't expect any of the people who have money tied up there to care how much or little I was being paid. It was never really about money for me, at least not in the short term. For me it was always about building something sustainable that I could use as a career and be at home while my kids were in school and not constantly be out traveling the circuit.

6) What was Lock's strategy regarding the Casino Bonus scandal? This was dragged out for about a year and nobody was ever made whole. What was Lock communicating to you about it, and how did you find it ethical to breach the agreements Lock had with players?

Well the strategy when the casino bonuses were offered was to pay them. Jennifer always had this weird "us against the world" mentality and when she was coming up with promotions and things she would say that Lock was her brand and no one else could tell her how to run it. Then when Lock got push back on Lock's promotions from the network Lock would have to backtrack. It was really frustrating and part of the reason I quit doing the 2+2 forums is because I basically said that if I was going to continue to do them I needed direct contact with the network so that I could make sure everything I was saying was accurate. Jennifer is/was a super micro manager and reluctant to delegate or give up control of anything. I realize that largely sounds like me repeating Shane, but he was super accurate on that point.

I never thought it was ethical or okay the way it was handled. She did promise me that the players impacted by it were a small number and that she was going to contact them privately and take care of them, but that the network couldn't find out or Lock would be kicked off but she was working on something else that would allow Lock to end up running Lock's own promotions and not having to worry about it in the future (which ended up being Revolution).

6a) If you are going to blame the Casino Bonus scandal on Merge, why didn’t Lock reimburse affected players in some other way, such as live tournament buyins or sponsorships? How were you okay with people being cheated like this?

Let me be clear, the casino bonus issues were not Merge's fault. They were Lock's fault for trying to circumvent controls Merge put in place for player rewards and game the system using the casino to attract more players. Lock should have known that Merge would find out and not let Lock do it. To blame it on Merge would be like a child stealing a candy bar from a grocery store and then blaming his parents for it because they wouldn't buy it for him.

As far as players not being reimbursed, I was told that if Lock tried to do anything publicly to award them Lock would get kicked off the network and that she was arranging for them to be reimbursed privately. I obviously dropped the ball on following up and making sure this happened and there really isn't any valid excuse for it. I was certainly never okay with it though.


(continued)

[Dan Druff]

Dan Druff
From: Eric Lynch
To: Dan Druff
February 23, 2015


(continued)

7) At what point did you decide that Lock was a complete scam? What made you come to that conclusion?

To be honest I never thought it was a complete scam. I actually think the company was well run pre Black Friday and I think Jennifer's original intention was to operate and run a legitimate poker site. Most of this is complete conjecture on my part based on different things I've seen and heard over the years, I think things began to fall apart after Black Friday. Pre-BF Lock was always a lean, well run site. Lock's overhead was super low and all the operations were transparent and open to me. Post BF, pro signing, spending etc got out of control fairly quickly. Operations were less transparent and things like the France retreat started being planned.

I expressed some concerns over how quickly Lock was expanding. Jennifer would always talk pre BF about how one day Lock was going to take over the world and aspired to not just compete with sites like PokerStars but overtake them. I think once Lock started experiencing explosive growth post BF that she got way ahead of things thinking this was it and that Lock was going to be huge and rich over night. She felt it was necessary to spend to encourage all of the people relocating post BF to come to Lock instead of other sites.

It worked at first, Lock had explosive growth and people were being paid regularly. This is when Jennifer boosted my salary (not that it's important but I didn't ask for a raise) and things seemed to be going great. That's when things get to the point where most of what I'm saying is either what was said to me or my own personal theories. I'll try and say which was which, but I have very little evidence of what's true and what's not.

The first problem Lock encountered (that I was told) is that the DOJ started seizing Lock's funds in batches that were going out. Basically the way it was explained to me is that the processors Lock was using were opening many small accounts and would send X amount of checks from that account. If the DOJ found out about an account they would seize it, which sometimes caused checks to bounce from that batch. Also supposedly people from the DOJ had accounts on Lock, so if a batch would have a seizure Lock would lock every account in that batch from withdrawing again until they contacted Lock and Lock investigated the account. This is why some of the checks at the time would bounce and why people would mysteriously have their withdrawal privileges revoked only to be reinstated later after talking with support. Again, I have no way of validating the accuracy of these claims, was told not to tell anyone because if people thought the DOJ was snooping around Lock they wouldn't want to play on the site, and that Lock was doing small enough batches the overall losses were acceptable and could be overcome with current revenue.

Again, my timelines on these may not be perfect and I don't remember exact dates, but that was about when payouts started to first hit some snags. A few months later when I asked why things weren't improving I was told that one or more of Lock's processors stopped working with Lock because of the DOJ issues, and that several of the new processors Lock didn't vet well enough and basically stole from Lock (again, I can't validate this, just what I was told) and that Lock was working on finding more reliable ones. I was never given exact figures although I was told one processor was transferred $800k for payouts and never heard from again.

Following that there was always a series of conversations about bringing new processors online (I think Lock was promised the cash to card etc around this time). There was always internal evidence of new processors and payout methods being worked on being brought online, and it was obviously being rushed and not thought through as carefully as it probably should have been, but it never seemed like things weren't trying to be improved.

It's possible it was all some sort of elaborate smokescreen, but it certain seemed like there was at least some degree of truth to the claims.

I'm straying from the question a bit but Jennifer and I had some disagreements on the Portugal trip. I did confront her and ask why Lock wasn't cancelling the trip and using those funds to pay out players. I was told that the Portugal trip was very important for Lock's business moving forward and repeatedly told that once Lock was done vetting more processors and once they were online it wasn't an issue of having funds just being able to move them. I told her that even if Lock had the money cancelling the Portugal trip would be a good idea just because of the appearance of it.

I would say that the Portugal trip was where I really started to think there was some serious issues. I realize in hindsight and from your perspective that it probably seems ridiculous I didn't have serious doubts before this. and I really don't have any logical explanation for that other than that I'd been with Lock Poker for a long time and wanted to believe what Jennifer was saying, so I probably didn't question many things as much as I should have.

Anyways - around the time of just before the Portugal trip another weird thing happened. She offered me a piece of the company in exchange for forgiving months of past salary she still owed me. Not only that but she asked me if I'd be willing to invest for a bigger piece. Given that I was unwilling to move out of the country there was no way I was going to be part owner post BF. I also didn't really have anything close to the funds necessary after my divorce. It was a pretty big red flag for me though and I'm sure that if she tried to get me to invest she tried to raise money from others as well. In fact I got the impression while I was in Portugal that the trip wasn't so much a corporate retreat as it was a chance to show off for current investors how successful Lock was as well as wooing new investors. There were tons of people there I didn't know at all and had never heard of. I managed to eavesdrop on a few conversations that I'm fairly certain were both potential investors based on the conversation and at least one that was affiliated with a major payment processor. The conversations actually seemed to be going pretty well and I overheard a seemingly big processor based out of the UK committing to working with Lock, although I'm pretty sure he was drunk at the time. I have nothing evidence wise to base this on, but I would be willing to bet that most of the company isn't even owned by Jennifer any more but silent partners, although knowing her I'm sure she retained power and controlling interest in some way.

So my speculation at least was that Portugal and this new software was basically Jennifer using a huge chunk of whatever funds Lock had at the time doubling down on everything. I was convinced that either Lock was going to secure new processors and investors and dig out of this with the new site, or that it would basically collapse. When I returned I actually had a pretty big internal debate over if I should resign or stick it out to see if things came through. I made what is in hindsight obviously the wrong choice. Looking back it seems silly I even debated it, and I'm certainly not trying to make excuses for myself but at that point I had invested so much time and I wanted things to work out so badly I probably had blinders on. Again, not a valid excuse, but what was going through my head at the time.

Short answer to your question - I have no idea how much money (if any even) was being used to pay for lavish lifestyles or personal things and how much was just blown making poor business decisions trying to capitalize on Black Friday. It was post Portugal when I felt like the plane was in a nosedive and Lock was either going to be pulling up sharply soon or headed straight into the ground.

8) Do you know anything about where player funds were held, and were you aware that they were used for other things?

I kind of answered this above. I had no personal insight into player funds beyond what I was told. I don't know where they were held. As far as them being used for other things, I was never explicitly aware of it, but I knew when Lock was developing Lock's own software that there was no way Lock had the funds to do that unless Lock was using player funds to finance it. I was never explicitly made aware of it at any point, and there were probably points before that when it should have been clear, but that was the point in my mind that there just wasn't any other way Lock was paying for it.

Like I said I had several internal debates, and obviously I ended up on the wrong side of them. When I contemplated leaving I always had a huge amount of anxiety over the work and time I had put in, that things would pull through and work out and then I wouldn't be a part of seeing my hard work pay off. I know that I will never have another opportunity to be a part of something within the industry now as well, and that played into my psyche a bit.

As far as the info I have provided. If there is something relevant that you think would help HipAintCheap or someone like that, please pass it along. Please don't identify you got it from me or that I even spoke with you, and it would be nice if they kept it quiet in general as well. I realize you have no real reason to do this for me beyond the fact that you said you would and that you might want additional information, but if it's even suspected that I'm talking to anyone about anything I'm positive I will immediately be cut off from any internal access I still have and any ability to provide any additional information.

As far as my motivation for this, if Shane hadn't said anything I probably wouldn't be talking with you, but it's become painfully obvious Jennifer's big investors won't come through, so there is very little chance that everyone (including myself, I'm not trying to sound completely altruistic here) will be made whole. I guess my hope by sharing is that no one else will deposit and lose anything. I suppose you could argue I could attempt to accomplish the same thing by just publicly coming out with all of this, but that's not something I'm prepared to do yet. I know you probably don't care, nor do you think it's a good reason, but it's still difficult to turn my back on Jennifer. I suppose I'm doing it now in a way, and I'm risking it by talking in general, but she was one of the few people that was there for me during my divorce. I wish she'd been more responsible with the funds. There is a reason so many people were fiercely loyal to her for so long. Most of us didn't really get a lot of money out of it (when I say us I mean pros, I know what most of them made but have no idea what Jen et al were pulling down), but she had a way of making you feel like a part of a family and something bigger. During some of the most difficult periods of my life she never turned down a phone call or told me she didn't have time to talk, and many times it was my personal life and nothing to do with Lock Poker.

I'm certainly not excusing anyone, and I feel terrible for people with significant funds stuck there. I really wanted to believe that she would be able to pull out of this and make everyone whole, that way no one lost out and I didn't have to turn my back on someone who never turned their back on me during some of the most difficult times in my life, not that I expect anyone to feel sorry for me.

Thanks

-Eric


(note: Bolded part was done by me, not Eric -- to show how he's STILL loyal to Jennifer after everything she has done!)

[Dan Druff]

From: Dan Druff
To: Eric Lynch
Date: May 15, 2015


Eric,

I know it's been nearly 3 months since you wrote this. I read your e-mail at the time, then some important things in my personal life on that same day distracted me from it, and in fact I had forgotten that we were having this exchange. I remembered it again a few weeks ago when Lock went down, and had meant to revisit it and write back to you. So here I am again.

Thank you for the detailed response. I do believe much of what you wrote, and I think even some of your conjecture regarding Lock and Jennifer is likely true or at least partially true.

For example, I do believe that Jennifer did not start Lock as a scam. I believe she actually intended it to be a legitimate and profitable business, where everyone involved would make all kinds of big money, while the players would get paid promptly. I believe she only stole the money when she needed continued capital to operate.

However, that does not excuse anything she did. It only changes Lock from "premeditated scam" to "scam of opportunity". As far as I'm concerned, both are scams.

I am afraid that your letter engaged in too much of what I call "Seboking". As I'm sure you recall, Joe Sebok joined the "New UB" after the superuser scandal and subsequent coverup. Many questioned Joe at the time for doing this, pointing to a pile of evidence that UB had neither switched owners nor had been open and forthcoming with information regarding the scandal. Basically, he was still working for the same dirty, rotten people who stole from us in the first place.

Joe's response to this -- and any other accusation leveled at UB -- was always some form of, "I understand your point, but I've been told and shown the opposite, and I don't see any concrete proof of your accusation."

The problem was that it was very hard to present Joe with 100% ironclad PROOF of what we were saying, but there was a mountain of circumstantial evidence, and an even bigger mountain of contradictions and unanswered questions. Joe kept dancing around these, simply citing that we had no concrete proof, and that we needed to give his bosses a chance to make everything right.

And of course you know what eventually happened.

Now, your statements in the last e-mail were a bit different than that. You acknowledged that Lock basically screwed everyone, and that you made a mistake by staying. But so did Joe Sebok when UB folded. Joe's mistake prior to that was engaging in appalling willful ignorance.

Unfortunately, your explanations of your reasoning prior to that point -- basically that you kept trusting Jennifer's convincing lies -- are all too indicative of willful ignorance. I sensed much of this willful ignorance when we interacted on 2+2 regarding the casino bonus scandal. You were always polite and professional. Unlike Shane, you never allowed yourself to degrade into slinging insults or talking down to people, but you also danced around the meat of the issue for something like 9 months. At the time, I thought to myself, "Eric couldn't be this stupid. He is either directly lying to us, or is bending over backwards to remain willfully ignorant, to the point where he believes anything Jennifer says and intentionally doesn't question it."

I will give you the benefit of the doubt that you were not outright lying, and were not going to bed every night believing you were assisting Jennifer in scamming people.

However, I also believe that you intentionally put logic aside and mentally reached as far as you could to believe that Jennifer was telling the truth. You seem to have been in a years-long exercise of rationalization, as believing Jennifer was personally beneficial to you, as well as insulated yourself from having to issue a painful mea culpa to the community.

The end of your e-mail was most telling. You stated that you STILL "didn't want to turn your back on Jennifer", which honestly was shocking to read. Jennifer is a con artist and a liar. She was "there for you" during your divorce and other hard times because it created a false bond which she could (and did) exploit later. That's what con artists do. They don't scam people by being rude and abrasive. Most con artists are described as appearing to be nice, friendly, caring, and helpful. While it might be slightly understandable that you fell under her spell while Lock was struggling (but still appeared to have some small potential for rebounding), there is absolutely no explanation for why you still believe Jennifer deserved your loyalty and respect when you wrote that e-mail in February 2015. Simply put, she shamelessly used you and destroyed your reputation in the process. She blatantly lied to you the entire way. That should be 100% crystal clear now, as it also should have been in February. How can you have even one ounce of loyalty or sympathy for her at this point?

Here are the facts, Eric: Jennifer stole $10 million or more from the poker community. She did so knowingly, and without remorse or regret. Whether she stole in attempt to keep her business afloat, or if she stole for personal gain, is immaterial. She still stole, and did so over a period of years. You were one of the people she used to give legitimacy to her operation, including long after the operation traveled down the road of illegitimacy.

The bottom line is that you saw a TON of red flags for a long time, and chose to ignore them. You could have resigned and prevented further damage and theft. You could have publicly denounced Lock in 2013, and told everything you knew. You didn't. Instead, you chose not to tell anyone about the sinking ship, and convinced yourself that everything would probably turn out fine, by your own admission because you didn't want to see your hard work up until that point go to waste.

Very disappointing.

I don't want this to come off like I'm your father giving you a lecture, but I was pretty shocked to read (and now re-read) your e-mail and learn that you still have some degree of loyalty to a criminal who knowingly stole such a large sum of money from the community which trusted you. As you mentioned, your reputation was so good in 2007 that Lee Jones wanted you to take his place at Pokerstars. That's the Eric Lynch players trusted when they saw you in a prominent role at Lock.

Lives were ruined from this. Some had their entire bankrolls on Lock, and that money became worthless. You can't steal $10-$15 million from a community without leaving an ocean of tears behind you.

That should have trumped your loyalty to Jennifer or hopes that keeping quiet would possibly allow Lock to turn things around.

I know you didn't go to bed every night believing you were helping Jennifer steal. I know that you convinced yourself of the opposite, and rationalized why you were doing the right thing. Perhaps you believed that by coming forward, Lock would crash down, and that the only shot for people to get their money was to allow Lock to move forward and hopefully build back up (perhaps through investors).

But that's flawed logic. Even if that had a potential of working (which it really didn't), that's robbing Peter to pay Paul.

So what am I hoping for here? Obviously you can't go back to the past and change your actions, or reverse what occurred at Lock.

You can, however, come forward publicly, tell the truth about everything, and assist all you can in the effort to bring Jennifer to justice.

I hope that's the path you ultimately take, and I hope that choice occurs soon.

-Todd

[Dan Druff]

Eric never responded to the above e-mail, nor did he respond to an e-mail I sent him asking if he had received it.

Clearly he saw that I wasn't buying the bullshit he was trying to sell me, and bowed out of the discussion. Also, as 3 months had passed without anything happening to him (remember, he only wrote that February 2015 e-mail out of fear -- the same reason Shane Bridges surfaced at the same time), I guess he figured he no longer needed to answer me.

[haleylh]

Eric never responded to the above e-mail, nor did he respond to an e-mail I sent him asking if he had received it.

Clearly he saw that I wasn't buying the bullshit he was trying to sell me, and bowed out of the discussion. Also, as 3 months had passed without anything happening to him (remember, he only wrote that February 2015 e-mail out of fear -- the same reason Shane Bridges surfaced at the same time), I guess he figured he no longer needed to answer me.

Pardon me to fuckall for pointing this out, but for an online poker room manager to have resigned and kept it hidden for six months is a pretty big revelation of its own. Especially one who's based in the US -- Kansas, to be more specific.

And yep, I'll be reporting on this at FD. The poker world owes Rizen nothing.

[Hockey Guy]

Good read.

Fuck you Eric Lynch & I truly mean that.

[TheXFactor]

Eric "Rizen" Lynch became "poker famous" during 2006 when he won a PokerStars $1 million online tournament and he had a big cash in the WSOP main event the same year.

PokerStars gave him "free money" to gamble online and to enter high stake poker tournaments.
He probably got an agent and thought he was going to be doing hollywood movies about what a genius he is at poker.

If he just invested half the effort into his health that he put into online poker he would be in great shape.

Now he is just another fat fucker and former poker pro that's tied to a poker scam site.

[Daniel72]

Rizen was never a thin guy

The "free money" from PokerStars was patch money or was he a paid pro there?

I always liked his old rizenpoker blog (now almost all deleted) with his successes on Party, Paradise, Stars and his PokerXfactor Videos.

Rizen was never a hoodie / shipitholla /degen player, he was a normal, introverted and nice guy.

Lock paid him $2.500? I always thought a poker room manager would earn more...

I am surprised about the effort and length of his e-mails.

[MumblesBadly]

Rizen was never a thin guy

The "free money" from PokerStars was patch money or was he a paid pro there?

I always liked his old rizenpoker blog (now almost all deleted) with his successes on Party, Paradise, Stars and his PokerXfactor Videos.

Rizen was never a hoodie / shipitholla /degen player, he was a normal, introverted and nice guy.

Lock paid him $2.500? I always thought a poker room manager would earn more...

I am surprised about the effort and length of his e-mails.

It's *not* surprising given his emotional involvements in the matter (hoping his work there wouldn't be for naught, and hoping Larson wasn't taking advantage of his trust). A divorce can be a devastating emotional experience, and Rizen's bond with Larson could been almost family-like for him from the experience. And who is readily willing to believe they are being taken advantage of by a family member?


Here's a similar story of denial of a con:

I have a relative who was directly swindled out of $100,000 by a two guys at his church. This relative had been an engineer with a very successful high tech company, and had cashed in his mid 50's for mid 7 figures in stock options when he retired early due to health reasons. But this relative had a strong emotional bond with the folks at that church because they had helped him turn away from a self-destructive drug-fueled lifestyle about 20 years prior. So, he trusted the folks at this church, including the two swindlers, to a fault. Literally.

And despite leaving that church over a decade ago, and realizing that that church was full of deadbeats who almost universally welched on numerous loans he extended them, this relative *still* can't fully accept that he was intentionally conned by those guys. *And in that decade, he was super depressed and left that church after he realized how much these "friends" were taking advantage of his trusting generosity. To this day, this relative still says that the 6-figure loss could have been because he had been scammed, but also could have been due to "poor management" by the scammers.


Back to Rizen:

So, I don't find it surprising that Rizen held out hope that Larson could somehow save Lock Poker, still expressed some loyalty to Larson in his email even at that late date, nor that he responded with so much digital ink to Druff's questions. Most likely, it is part of the process of coming to terms with his naiveté about the matter.

And I'm also not surprised that Rizen hasn't responded to Druff's emails since. If he has swung over to believing that Larson conned him, he could be super depressed and embarrassed about the matter, and doesn't want to agian open up to Druff about it given how hard Druff came down on him in his May email for his abetting Larson's grand larceny.*

[Daniel72]

http://www.flushdraw.net/news/misc/p...sites-closure/

Great article by Haley Hitze as always.

She writes there:

"The problem that Lynch’s reputation faces is that had he shown a willingness to publicly disclose his departure from Lock Poker a year ago, it may have helped stop the trickle of deposits from poker novices that allowed Lock Poker to keep its virtual lights on well into 2015."

Here i agree with Limon in his last show, that poker pros (who only know a handful 2+2 guys) never attract novices. They simply don´t know these online pros. 99% of the pro´s are unknown in the "Mainstream". So i think Rizen also wouldn´t attract (m)any novices.


Stars & Co realized this (very late) and hire now the Ronaldos and Co´s.


P.S.: All these 1000 FTP pros in the past were a big fail and cost factor.

[Dan Druff]

Rizen was never a thin guy

The "free money" from PokerStars was patch money or was he a paid pro there?

I always liked his old rizenpoker blog (now almost all deleted) with his successes on Party, Paradise, Stars and his PokerXfactor Videos.

Rizen was never a hoodie / shipitholla /degen player, he was a normal, introverted and nice guy.

Lock paid him $2.500? I always thought a poker room manager would earn more...

I am surprised about the effort and length of his e-mails.

It's *not* surprising given his emotional involvements in the matter (hoping his work there wouldn't be for naught, and hoping Larson wasn't taking advantage of his trust). A divorce can be a devastating emotional experience, and Rizen's bond with Larson could been almost family-like for him from the experience. And who is readily willing to believe they are being taken advantage of by a family member?


Here's a similar story of denial of a con:

I have a relative who was directly swindled out of $100,000 by a two guys at his church. This relative had been an engineer with a very successful high tech company, and had cashed in his mid 50's for mid 7 figures in stock options when he retired early due to health reasons. But this relative had a strong emotional bond with the folks at that church because they had helped him turn away from a self-destructive drug-fueled lifestyle about 20 years prior. So, he trusted the folks at this church, including the two swindlers, to a fault. Literally.

And despite leaving that church over a decade ago, and realizing that that church was full of deadbeats who almost universally welched on numerous loans he extended them, this relative *still* can't fully accept that he was intentionally conned by those guys. *And in that decade, he was super depressed and left that church after he realized how much these "friends" were taking advantage of his trusting generosity. To this day, this relative still says that the 6-figure loss could have been because he had been scammed, but also could have been due to "poor management" by the scammers.


Back to Rizen:

So, I don't find it surprising that Rizen held out hope that Larson could somehow save Lock Poker, still expressed some loyalty to Larson in his email even at that late date, nor that he responded with so much digital ink to Druff's questions. Most likely, it is part of the process of coming to terms with his naiveté about the matter.

And I'm also not surprised that Rizen hasn't responded to Druff's emails since. If he has swung over to believing that Larson conned him, he could be super depressed and embarrassed about the matter, and doesn't want to agian open up to Druff about it given how hard Druff came down on him in his May email for his abetting Larson's grand larceny.*

I think he didn't respond to my last e-mail because I sent it in May, and by that point he wasn't worried about HipAintCheap sending him to prison.

Everyone in management at Lock (current or former) panicked when HipAintCheap showed up in February and dropped so much accurate info. They thought the jig was up, and they were about to suffer serious consequences if they didn't surface and give the appearance of cooperation. So that's why both Shane and Rizen popped up within days, and tried to claim innocence.

By the time I wrote my last response in May, Rizen realized two things. First, he probably wasn't actually in danger of going to jail, and the hysteria from February had died down. Second, he knew that I wasn't buying his bullshit, so further responses to me were pointless.

I think this "I'm still somewhat loyal to Jennifer" garbage wasn't really true, but was just an excuse as to why he's not showing up publicly and releasing everything he knew. So rather than admitting the truth ("If I release everything I know, then it will also probably come out how much I was involved, so I just want to hide in the background"), he made up some BS about how Jennifer was so close to him at one point and he still can't fuck her over.

But even if his statement about continued loyalty to her is true, that's still no excuse. He's basically saying that someone who helped him emotionally and financially during a divorce is worth covering for when it comes to the theft of $10-$15 million, of which he was an accomplice. Or, simply put, "She was good to me, so fuck all of the rest of you."

And that's just as bad as trying to save his own skin.

[haleylh]

http://www.flushdraw.net/news/misc/p...sites-closure/

Great article by Haley Hitze as always.

She writes there:

"The problem that Lynch’s reputation faces is that had he shown a willingness to publicly disclose his departure from Lock Poker a year ago, it may have helped stop the trickle of deposits from poker novices that allowed Lock Poker to keep its virtual lights on well into 2015."

Here i agree with Limon in his last show, that poker pros (who only know a handful 2+2 guys) never attract novices. They simply don´t know these online pros. 99% of the pro´s are unknown in the "Mainstream". So i think Rizen also wouldn´t attract (m)any novices.


Stars & Co realized this (very late) and hire now the Ronaldos and Co´s.


P.S.: All these 1000 FTP pros in the past were a big fail and cost factor.

Thx for the nice words. I think Rizen was more recognizable several years back, when I'd have characterized him as a second-tier online star. I agree not too many people would likely be signing up in 2014 based on him still being there, but by choosing to conceal his departure from a very, very public-facing role (room manager) he helped disguise some of the internal struggles that Lock was almost certainly facing last year. And, he's admitted he did it for reasons of self-preservation, rather than having any sense of responsibility to the poker community at large.

I appreciate his length and attention to detail, and I have no doubt his mea culpas were sincere, but in this situation, that fell far short of what was needed.

[Dan Druff]

http://www.flushdraw.net/news/misc/p...sites-closure/

Great article by Haley Hitze as always.

She writes there:

"The problem that Lynch’s reputation faces is that had he shown a willingness to publicly disclose his departure from Lock Poker a year ago, it may have helped stop the trickle of deposits from poker novices that allowed Lock Poker to keep its virtual lights on well into 2015."

Here i agree with Limon in his last show, that poker pros (who only know a handful 2+2 guys) never attract novices. They simply don´t know these online pros. 99% of the pro´s are unknown in the "Mainstream". So i think Rizen also wouldn´t attract (m)any novices.


Stars & Co realized this (very late) and hire now the Ronaldos and Co´s.


P.S.: All these 1000 FTP pros in the past were a big fail and cost factor.

Thx for the nice words. I think Rizen was more recognizable several years back, when I'd have characterized him as a second-tier online star. I agree not too many people would likely be signing up in 2014 based on him still being there, but by choosing to conceal his departure from a very, very public-facing role (room manager) he helped disguise some of the internal struggles that Lock was almost certainly facing last year. And, he's admitted he did it for reasons of self-preservation, rather than having any sense of responsibility to the poker community at large.

I appreciate his length and attention to detail, and I have no doubt his mea culpas were sincere, but in this situation, that fell far short of what was needed.

I don't agree his mea culpas were sincere.

If they were sincere, he would be bending over backward to help at this point.

He's not. His long e-mail to me was a long exercise in trying to convince me that he was just made into an unwitting accomplice of a very devious con artist -- one so convincing that he's still unwilling to fully turn on her. He's basically portraying it as a Stockholm Syndrome sort of thing. Not only was he victimized along with the rest of us, but he found himself too attached to the perpetrator and can't bring himself to turn on them. So we're supposed to walk away from this believing that Eric was well-meaning but naive, and was psychologically roped into the whole thing to the point where he's still not strong enough to come forward publicly. Sorry, but I don't buy it.

Melanie Weisner basically tried to sell the same bill of goods. "I was naive, I believed in Jennifer, I was fooled, I was trying to make things better, etc etc etc etc".

So all of these Lock accomplices are taking one piece of truth (that Jennifer lied to them and made false promises), and stretching it into turning themselves into naive and unwitting victims who acted reasonably in the face of believable false promises. But that's not what happened. People like Rizen and Melanie were given tons of facts and chose to ignore them, instead deciding believing the wild stories and promises of Larson. It's no coincidence that Melanie and Eric financially benefited from believing Jennifer, rather than the naysayers in the poker community which would have caused them to end the stream of money they were receiving. So they selfishly and greedily massaged their view on the matter until it matched Jennifer's lies.

Their lack of cooperation post-scandal makes it clear that they have little guilt over what they did, and like Howard Lederer, have convinced themselves that they've done nothing wrong, and were just victims like everyone else.

[Dan Druff]

But Haley is correct that Rizen was much more recognizable and trusted back when he joined Lock, and indeed people (especially grinders) signed up for Lock because of his involvement.

Let's take a hypothetical new poker room where I am hired to be its manager. Many of you would sign up and trust them to hold your money, assuming, "If Todd is the manager there, then he will take good care of us and things won't be shady."

That's the way people viewed Eric back then. They figured that he was a trustworthy figure who would run things fairly. Instead, he was just a stooge for Jennifer's shadiness, and helped cover up for the early scandals (Girah, Casino Bonus, etc). Then when the heat became too much, he handed those duties over to Shane, and quietly sat in the background still collecting a paycheck.