Annette Obrestad now "ambassador" for Venetian Poker Room after helping promote Lock Poker SCAM

[HowQuaint]

Annette was informed NUMEROUS TIMES what was occurring at Lock, and chose to ignore everyone while still collecting a paycheck.

If I had to guess based on what I know about other "Lock Pros" I would imagine she too got swindled and didn't collect any form of paycheck that she'd ever see. Every Lock pro I knew was being paid directly to their player accounts. And none of them were able to cash out. Perhaps she had a different deal, perhaps not, it seems unlikely to me that she did though. She was probably just too dumb to walk away and kept building up those pretty, yet unattainable numbers in the Lock cashier.

EDIT: I still think she should have left the company at least a year earlier and I do not condone her actions, or rather inaction, at staying on as a sponsored pro. Regardless of whether or not she was actually seeing any of the money she was being "paid" for sponsorship.

[lvpkr1009]

when I saw this come out I thought that it was no big deal really. I mean what exactly IS a live poker room ambassador anyways. Is someone going to all of a sudden decide to play at the Venetain because Annette is a poker room ambassador there. If I choose to play at Aria I can tell you it has NOTHING to do with JRB being the face of their brand. It's really a pretty dumb role and other than tweeting about upcoming tournaments and promotions my choosing to go there will not be influenced one way or another by her and I assume this is pretty much the same thoughts as everyone else.

Sheldon Adleson is FAR from the biggest reason why we don't have online poker in the US and any person he picked under the age of 35 probably got started by playing online poker in the first place. I understand her lock affiliation is a black mark against her but really who gives a shit any more. The site itself even if it didn't screw its customers was breaking US laws by operating, Druff why dont you hold ANY site offering service in the US to these moral standards. You play on Bovada, and while they pay well now, they haven't always and are clearly flouting US law by offering services unregulated in the US market. They don't exactly Have a moral compass by breaking laws in order to provide a service to its customers. While they aren't breaking the "contract" between themselves and their customers by paying out wins...there's no Gtd that this will always be the case either.

ALL THAT BEING SAID....I was a little confused by her exchange with James Guill

Embedded Tweet

https://twitter.com/twt/status/694314217143296003

Isn't the purpose of being an ambassador to talk about why you were hired, what your goals are and what people should expect when they come to Venetain to play poker?

[Towerflower]

...Isn't the purpose of being an ambassador to talk about why you were hired, what your goals are and what people should expect when they come to Venetain to play poker?

This would be her role, but criminals don't speak that much usually, what we have seen with the conspiracy meeting in Porto.

[Tellafriend]

Phil H is also an ambassador.

They don't pay jrb shit. I think I heard Bobby Baldwin say it was like $12 p\hr while playing when they were running that real hl game at aria during the wsop on twitch.
Phil seems to have a rfb deal w them from what I've gathered.

[Dan Druff]

Annette was informed NUMEROUS TIMES what was occurring at Lock, and chose to ignore everyone while still collecting a paycheck.

If I had to guess based on what I know about other "Lock Pros" I would imagine she too got swindled and didn't collect any form of paycheck that she'd ever see. Every Lock pro I knew was being paid directly to their player accounts. And none of them were able to cash out. Perhaps she had a different deal, perhaps not, it seems unlikely to me that she did though. She was probably just too dumb to walk away and kept building up those pretty, yet unattainable numbers in the Lock cashier.

EDIT: I still think she should have left the company at least a year earlier and I do not condone her actions, or rather inaction, at staying on as a sponsored pro. Regardless of whether or not she was actually seeing any of the money she was being "paid" for sponsorship.

As late as March 2013, Melanie Weisner (who was lower on the Lock totem pole than Annette) was able to get priority cashouts. Basically, they were cashing out Melanie while no-paying all of the regular players there.

That's when Melanie did the reprehensible thing of privately offering certain players cashouts at 75% (way above the 2+2 market rate at the time). It was reprehensible because she was directly profiting 25% on cashouts of the scam site she was STILL PROMOTING. If she had any scruples, she would have at least withdrawn the maximum and cashed out peope at parity, as an act of contrition which would have cost her nothing.

Anyway, back to Annette.

I doubt she would have stayed on for over a year if not being paid. Even Eric Lynch, who had moved to the background by 2013, was paid some, by his own admission. (See the e-mails I posted of his, a few months ago.)

I think it's more likely she was being paid on and off throughout this debacle, and probably not paid at all throughout the last few months of it.

Still, whether she got paid or not, that doesn't excuse any of this. She stayed on at the very least with the BELIEF they would pay her for promoting a site that wasn't cashing anyone out.

Similarly, if I accepted an offer from someone for $20k to help scam you of $50k, and then the person scammed you and ran off without paying me my share, I doubt you would see me as any less culpable.

[Dan Druff]

Sheldon Adleson is FAR from the biggest reason why we don't have online poker in the US and any person he picked under the age of 35 probably got started by playing online poker in the first place. I understand her lock affiliation is a black mark against her but really who gives a shit any more. The site itself even if it didn't screw its customers was breaking US laws by operating, Druff why dont you hold ANY site offering service in the US to these moral standards. You play on Bovada, and while they pay well now, they haven't always and are clearly flouting US law by offering services unregulated in the US market. They don't exactly Have a moral compass by breaking laws in order to provide a service to its customers. While they aren't breaking the "contract" between themselves and their customers by paying out wins...there's no Gtd that this will always be the case either.

Bovada has always paid well, aside from a few short spurts when they had temporary processor issues. But let's face it -- they've been around for 15 years without a single major scandal.

They're not perfect. Their security is shit, they looked the other way when bots played there, they are passive-aggressive assholes toward pro players like me... these are all truths. But at least I believe they are providing an honest game and paying me when I win, which is great by today's standards.

I care much more about moral decisions than laws on the books.

Lock stole from its customers and Annette knowingly helped them do that. This is why I have a big problem with her.

That's FAR worse than breaking the law by offering poker to US residents without a license. (And Lock did that, too!)

About 5 years ago, there was a story about a guy who tracked down the priest who had molested him as a little boy, tricked him into coming into the lobby of his retirement home, and beat him up. That was also illegal, but I fully supported it, and was glad when the guy didn't go to prison. Sometimes the law and what's right are two different things.

[FRANKRIZZO]

Wearing as late as april 2013 from her facebook page

[HowQuaint]

If I had to guess based on what I know about other "Lock Pros" I would imagine she too got swindled and didn't collect any form of paycheck that she'd ever see. Every Lock pro I knew was being paid directly to their player accounts. And none of them were able to cash out. Perhaps she had a different deal, perhaps not, it seems unlikely to me that she did though. She was probably just too dumb to walk away and kept building up those pretty, yet unattainable numbers in the Lock cashier.

EDIT: I still think she should have left the company at least a year earlier and I do not condone her actions, or rather inaction, at staying on as a sponsored pro. Regardless of whether or not she was actually seeing any of the money she was being "paid" for sponsorship.

As late as March 2013, Melanie Weisner (who was lower on the Lock totem pole than Annette) was able to get priority cashouts. Basically, they were cashing out Melanie while no-paying all of the regular players there.

That's when Melanie did the reprehensible thing of privately offering certain players cashouts at 75% (way above the 2+2 market rate at the time). It was reprehensible because she was directly profiting 25% on cashouts of the scam site she was STILL PROMOTING. If she had any scruples, she would have at least withdrawn the maximum and cashed out peope at parity, as an act of contrition which would have cost her nothing.

Anyway, back to Annette.

I doubt she would have stayed on for over a year if not being paid. Even Eric Lynch, who had moved to the background by 2013, was paid some, by his own admission. (See the e-mails I posted of his, a few months ago.)

I think it's more likely she was being paid on and off throughout this debacle, and probably not paid at all throughout the last few months of it.

Still, whether she got paid or not, that doesn't excuse any of this. She stayed on at the very least with the BELIEF they would pay her for promoting a site that wasn't cashing anyone out.

Similarly, if I accepted an offer from someone for $20k to help scam you of $50k, and then the person scammed you and ran off without paying me my share, I doubt you would see me as any less culpable.

You are correct. Many of them were getting priority cashouts and far more than Melanie Weisner were pulling the priority cashout buying funds play. Some of those guys got burned by having 100-300k+ in their Lock accounts which was never paid out.

I have no idea whether or not Annette was paid, but I suspect that just like everyone else, her money went into her black hole of a Lock account. The "pros" I've spoken to privately got burned. i.e. they made less on their trades than they did in fronting money that didn't get repaid/got stuck in their accounts. Their Lock Pro pay also was being directly sent to their accounts and thus was stuck for the last year or so before Lock folded. Same thing probably happened to Annette with regard to her pay.

I'm not defending her morals for sticking around, just commenting on what I think the most likely scenario was.

[MumblesBadly]

bla bla...the action, treated as a criminal offense, of demanding money from a person in return for not revealing compromising or injurious information about that person....bla bla

To give the participants of the Lock Poker FRAUD the possibility to indemnify my damage caused by their illegal activity, is an offer and not a demand. And as a demand is a mandatory part together with the threat of a sensitive evil to fulfill the criminal offense of extortion, my offer to indemnify my damage can be never the criminal offense of blackmail. Therefore, it remains that your false claim fulfill the criminal offense of defamation.

You "offered" to not release damning information if they pay you. That is the same as threatening to release the info if they don't comply with your "offer". You are playing word games by calling it an "offer".

http://legal-dictionary.thefreedictionary.com/blackmail

Blackmail

The crime involving a threat for purposes of compelling a person to do an act against his or her will, or for purposes of taking the person's money or property.

The term blackmail originally denoted a payment made by English persons residing along the border of Scotland to influential Scottish chieftains in exchange for protection from thieves and marauders.

In blackmail the threat might consist of physical injury to the threatened person or to someone loved by that person, or injury to a person's reputation. In some cases the victim is told that an illegal act he or she had previously committed will be exposed if the victim fails to comply with the demand.

Although blackmail is generally synonymous with Extortion, some states distinguish the offenses by requiring that the former be in writing.

Blackmail is punishable by a fine, imprisonment, or both.

[Towerflower]

http://legal-dictionary.thefreedictionary.com/blackmail

Blackmail
In blackmail the threat might consist of physical injury to the threatened person or to someone loved by that person, or injury to a person's reputation. In some cases the victim is told that an illegal act he or she had previously committed will be exposed if the victim fails to comply with the demand.

LOL, how can I threat someone to expose an illegal act he or she had previously committed, while the illegal acts are already publicised in the internet?

[FRANKRIZZO]

http://legal-dictionary.thefreedictionary.com/blackmail

LOL, how can I threat someone to expose an illegal act he or she had previously committed, while the illegal acts are already publicised in the internet?

How much money have you received from these deadbeats? The due date you specified has come and gone. What is your next course of action?

[Hockey Guy]

LOL, how can I threat someone to expose an illegal act he or she had previously committed, while the illegal acts are already publicised in the internet?

How much money have you received from these deadbeats? The due date you specified has come and gone. What is your next course of action?

Obviously legal action has already begun & justice will be served & we'll be hearing about their impending incarcerations shortly.

[tiltedstone]

most poker players are shady or have friends that are shady thats the poker comunity.most poker players are either broke in debt or close to broke.i dont blame annette15 her career has not gone well lately and she needs money.

[Sanlmar]

most poker players are shady or have friends that are shady thats the poker comunity.most poker players are either broke in debt or close to broke.i dont blame annette15 her career has not gone well lately and she needs money.

Most states require that casinos have some kind of "Responsible Gambling" effort onsite. Little office hidden near the valet.

I remember Druff's pal, Gary Loveman ran and starred in a kind of funny/famous "Gamble Responsibly" public service ad campaign. Shoulda taken his own advice.

This has to explain the hiring of Annette15. An onsite cautionary tale.

[ChoakMyDee]

Honestly big boobs Melanie Weisner and Annette Obrestad don't have the money.

Who knows where is the $15 million stolen from Lock Poker?

That bitch Jennifer Larson from Canada knows, since she was a front for the real owners.

I think the brother Jamie was behind it as well as ole jen. I don't even disagree with towers methods , just comical that I am defaming him in all honesty. I don't think any of the participants tower mentioned have shit in terms of money to pay even 12k a piece. Can't get blood from a stone. Usually in ponzi schemes if any money is recovered its pennies on the dollar as funds have been used up which is probably the case here.

But she's hot.

[Towerflower]

...Annette was informed NUMEROUS TIMES what was occurring at Lock, and chose to ignore everyone while still collecting a paycheck...

Please post documentation/proof of how she was informed?