Originally Posted by
Dan Druff
Tam Nguyen appeared on PokerFraudAlert Radio on 5/11/17 (start at the 82 minute mark).
I want to thank Tam for coming on. Very few people are willing to come onto PFA Radio to defend themselves (or their product), when we are clearly coming from a position of skepticism. It took guts for him to do this.
I will also say that Tam seemed like a nice and personable guy. I didn't get the "scammer" vibe from him. He seems to believe in the JaoPoker product.
With that said, I need to clear some things up.
From his subsequent tweets and Facebook group posts, it appears that Tam believes he convinced me that I was wrong about JaoPoker. I have not changed my original position, aside from perhaps my belief that it's not outright trying to scam people.
I still don't like multi-level marketing schemes. I feel they are scammy. The biggest problem I always have is the fee one must pay in order to become an affiliate. That's unnecessary, and seems like it's simply a scheme to collect money for the company. Tam described it as paying for "back office expenses", but as I said on the show, that's nonsense. There really aren't any significant expenses to adding affiliates, given that they can be electronically entered into the system (and in fact, this process could be fully automated, not even requiring human intervention!) I cannot see how they can possibly justify charging $250 to be an affiliate.
Tam trotted out the usual multi-level marketing answer that the $250 "shows that people are serious" about referring, but again that's BS. Why does it matter if people are serious? The company should be thrilled to get as many affiliates as possible, whether these affiliates refer a little or a lot.
Tam claimed there are "350 to 400 affiliates" at the moment. If this number is true, that means they've collected as much as $100,000 in affiliate signup fees in 2017 alone. Wow.
But what if we ignore all of the affiliate stuff, and discuss whether the poker site itself is okay? After all, you don't need to become an affiliate to play there, and you are welcome to sign up an account for free.
As far as that's concerned, I don't necessarily think the site is a scam, but rather it is new and difficult to trust at the moment. This is true for ALL new, unlicensed poker sites. (They claim to be licensed in Cambodia, but that's meaningless.) As we have no proof that the money on deposit is safe or segregated, there's no way for us to know whether the money on deposit is actually there, or if it has been stolen. Now, this is indeed true of all unlicensed online poker sites, including huge ones like Ignition. Still, it's a lot easier to trust a large, long-running operation like Ignition over a small, Johnny-come-lately site which has been around for only a few months.
Regarding deposits and payouts, while there are some backdoor methods such as checks and bank wires allowed, those will likely disappear (due to legal risks or busts) if the site grows any more than it already has. PayPal is going to shut them off incredibly soon, as they are very hard-line against any form of gambling. I could easily see where, even if JaoPoker WANTS to pay people, they will have no way to reliably do so.
I just don't think a poker site has been conceived very well if PayPal is one of the payment options.
I would more understand this if it were an underground poker site which isn't marketed, but this one IS marketed. Sooner or later, the hammer is going to come down.
JaoPoker is only microstakes and small stakes at the moment. This means your risk is pretty low if you play there. I also believe that, at the moment, they will likely pay you quickly. (I don't have proof of this, but that's my gut feeling.)
Overall:
- I think the multi-level marketing side of the site is usual scammy garbage which is typical of MLM schemes
- The poker site itself is probably okay for the moment, but the site or money can disappear at any time, and they may have problems paying you once their current methods go away
- Verdict: Not an outright scam, but proceed with extreme caution, and avoid the affiliate stuff