Pure Poker kicked up a storm of controversy when they hijacked Lock Poker's old Revolution network client, and attempted to redirect Lock's traffic to their own site.
It's not that Lock didn't deserve it. They had cheated both their own players and the Revolution Network out of more than $10 million, and then abruptly left the network after essentially laying waste to it.
However, the bigger question on everyone's mind was, "Who is Pure Poker? How come I've never heard of them."
The screen shot above shows Pure Poker claiming to have been "operating with integrity for 14 years", which people found hard to believe. How could no one have heard of them, especially if they were present during the 1999 infancy of online poker?
Lock Poker claims to have accused Revolution of operating Pure Poker, which they claim Revolution denies.
However, everyone seems fairly certain that Pure Poker really is Revolution itself, and the mostly-dead skin was utilized to grab Lock's disgruntled customers.
So does Pure Poker = Revolution Gaming?
Yes.
And were they really around in 1999?
Also yes, but they have NOT been operating continuously.
Here is the timeline for Pure Poker:
November, 1999: Pure Poker goes up, probably on its own network. It claims to be "A Division of Dragon Cyber Club", which sounds like something a 12-year-old would invent. Promotes itself as a poker room where you can own a piece. It never appears to catch on. Website is unprofessional and ugly, even by 1999 standards.
October, 2000: Pure Poker goes down. It does not resurface in any form until 2004.
July, 2004: The domain purepoker.com is for sale, with a generic message and contact form.
January, 2005: Pure Poker does not sell. Instead, it becomes an affiliate site.
October, 2005: Affiliate business didn't work out. Pure Poker is again offline.
November, 2005: Pure Poker reappears as a skin of Ongame, managed by the ill-fated Futurebet.
Note the similarity in screen shot to this current Ongame screen shot:
According to John Mehaffey in his recent article about the situation, when Futurebet went under (through no fault of Pure Poker's), Pure Poker was actually one of the few skins to attempt to pay players out of their own pocket:
http://www.uspoker.com/blog/lock-pok...re-poker/6341/In or around 2005, the Pure Poker brand partnered with Futurebet, which sub-licensed Ongame skins. A long list of companies and players lost everything invested. Pure Poker was mentioned several times during this debacle. It entered into negotiations with players to repay funds that most speculated were stolen by Futurebet, not Pure Poker. A long thread at Casinomeister covers this situation.
Pure Poker was among a number of sites licensed to operate on the Ongame Network by Futurebet where everyone got stiffed. This included the skin owners, which were not much more than glorified affiliates. This was common back in the day and similar to the Tusk Investment implosion on Microgaming. In both cases, the networks claimed no responsibility for payments.
Pure Poker made attempts to pay players. Some got paid and full, while others agreed to accept an amount less than their balance to settle the claim. Most players on other skins never received a dime, so the fact that Pure Poker paid anything is important to note as it was likely to be directly out of the company’s pocket.
Pure Poker seems to have gone dormant after that, though their website with the Ongame screenshots remains through 2009.
March, 2010: Major website redesign. Pure Poker is clearly now a Cake Network skin. Site looks almost identical to the way it does today.
October, 2013: Pure Poker, after years of irrelevance, suddenly hijacks Lock Poker's former software and promises a way to claim money stuck on Lock.
Both the 2010 and 2013 versions of the website state "OPERATED BY BTG GLOBAL N.V." at the bottom.
And who is BTG Global?
That's BTG Gaming, operators of the Revolution Network:
http://www.btggaming.com/poker-network
And just in case you think perhaps Revolution just OPERATES Pure Poker, but doesn't own it, take a look at the WHOIS records for purepoker.com:
The bolded parts show that BTG owns the domain, and that it was registered in 2002. This matches the copyright date on the current website, which says (C) Pure Poker 2002-2013.domain: purepoker.com
owner: - -
organization: BTG GLOBAL N.V.
email: Email Masking Image@btgglobal.com
address: Brionplein 4
city: Willemstad,
postal-code: 111111
country: AN
phone: +49.11111111
admin-c: CCOM-1852264 Email Masking Image@btgglobal.com
tech-c: CCOM-1753602 Email Masking Image@btgglobal.com
billing-c: CCOM-1753602 Email Masking Image@btgglobal.com
nserver: ns1.pokster.eu
nserver: ns2.pokster.eu
nserver: ns3.pokster.eu
status: lock
created: 2002-07-10 15:36:15 UTC
modified: 2012-10-04 15:24:07 UTC
expires: 2020-07-10 15:36:15 UTC
query-source: 174.36.119.183
contact-hdl: CCOM-1852264
person: - -
organization: BTG GLOBAL N.V., BTG GLOBAL N.V.
email: Email Masking Image@btgglobal.com
address: BTG GLOBAL N.V.
city: Willemstad,
postal-code: 111111
country: AN
phone: +599.946114015999461
contact-hdl: CCOM-1753602
person: -- -
organization: BTG Global N.V.
email: Email Masking Image@btgglobal.com
address: Via Cipollini
city: Sellia Marina
state: CZ
postal-code: 88050
country: IT
phone: +1.6137150123
So how did it exist in 1999?
I believe they switched registrars in 2002. It's also possible that the original owner from 1999 let it go, and the current owner (BTG) grabbed it in 2002. I would go with the registrar-switching theory, because their original claim was being in business for 14 years, which matches the November 1999 date.
CLIFFS:
Pure Poker = Revolution Gaming.
Pure Poker has not operated for 14 years straight.
Pure Poker was a highly inconsequential/inactive Cake/Revolution skin until a few days ago.
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Originally Posted by haleylh
