Say that I own a diner, and you're a regular. You typically order a burger and fries, which has cost $10 for years.

Today you come into my diner and order the same thing. You don't bother looking at the menu, because you know it so well.

I serve you the burger, and while it seems to taste better than usual, you don't think much of it. Then you get the bill, and see that I've charged you $50 for it.

"This must be a mistake," you protest. "How could a burger cost $50? I've been coming here for years, and it's always been $10."

"Oh sorry," I tell you. "Now we serve Kobe Beef Burgers here. So the price went up to $50. Sorry for not telling you, but that's the new product, and $50 is the new price. You should have looked at the menu. You still owe me $50."

Would you be pissed under such a circumstance? Yes.

Would you be justified to be angry? Again, yes.

But would you legally owe me $50? Maybe. That part is kind of fuzzy.

You might wonder why I am talking about burgers in a post about Party Poker, but something similar occurred during last month's High Roller Event #14 of Party Poker's New Jersey Championship of Online Poker (NJCOP).

It was a $500 buyin, and promoted a $20k guarantee for 1st and $10k for 2nd. The event attracted 149 players, and the final prize pool was slightly under $70k -- easily covering the guarantee.

Unfortunately, most players didn't realize that it paid 2 and only 2 spots, meaning that 3rd place and below got absolutely nothing!

Here is a picture of the tournament lobby, after the event ended:



Notice that 1st paid approximately $46k and 2nd paid approximately $23k, but the unfortunate third and fourth place finishers "MickVictory" and "GaryG1950" got nothing.


Of course, Party has the right to make whatever tournament payout structure they want, but players complained that this was not publicized at all, and almost all of them assumed they were playing a normal 10%-or-more player payout structure.

Even worse, Party Poker support reps were clueless regarding this situation. When concerned players noticed the 2-player-payout during the tournament, they wrote e-mails to support, receiving the response, "The tournament lobby was an error, and we are working diligently to fix it but have no further information at that time."

The Party Poker Rep on 2+2 wrote the following:

Dear NJCOP Event #14 Players,

In response to some of the concerns raised here and elsewhere about the payout structure used for NJCOP Event #14, please note that our intent for this event was always for it to pay just two positions, and advertised it with $20K guaranteed for first place and $10K guaranteed for second place.

Some feedback we received in advance of releasing the final NJCOP schedule was to add a high-roller event, and to consider an extremely steep payout structures – perhaps even winner-take-all – as there was strong interest in that format. So we added this event with this structure to the schedule intentionally, and regret that we did not advertise this structure more as a feature of the event as the actual turnout and post-event comments indicate we might have had even greater participation.

Our poker software shows payout structures clearly in each tournament’s lobby, and they update in almost-real-time as players register and rebuy (though there is sometimes a slight delay when add-ons are made). The registration lobby for this event did show the payout structure correctly at all times. Players who registered before the $30K guarantee was met would have seen that only two places were being paid, and players who registered after the guarantee was met would have seen the same thing. So while we recognize advance communication was not great about exactly what might happen once (and if) the $30K guarantee was exceeded, the prize payout details were available for players to see before deciding whether/not to play. Therefore, we do stand by our payout structure for NJCOP Event #14 and will not be revisiting it.

We apologize for the negative experience some of you had in this event, as this was the one dim spot in an otherwise successful first NJCOP (two missed guarantees of 15 events being considered a reasonable start). We will take greater care in the future about emphasizing special payout structures when scheduling similar events, and hope you all return for those series.

Thank you for playing on partypoker.

Best regards,

Party Rep

So was this simply a matter of poor communication, or an error that Party Poker is covering up and claiming was intended the entire way?

I have to assume that this was an error, but knowing that it cannot be proven, they are standing by the posted structure, knowing they are still legally sound.

My assumption is that the payout structure was to be computed to something similar to below:

If prizepool is equal or less than $30k:
20k for first, 10k for second, 0 for everything else.

If prizepool between $30k and $60k
20k for first, 10k for second, and the remaining prize pool money to lower spots, down to 10% of the players.

If prizepool is greater than $60k
Start with base of 20k for first, 10k for second, and 30k for other spots down to 10%, and then distribute remaining money to one-third for first, one-sixth for second, and one-half for remainder.


I'm just making up the above, but I think what occurred here was that they forgot to program the "distribute remaining spots" portion, and it just kept piling the money onto 1st and 2nd at a 2:1 ratio.

The fact that Party Poker didn't promote or advertise this as a 2-players-take-all event shows that this was likely a mistake, as a tournament like this would have attracted a lot of attention (and, by their own admission, would have probably gotten more players).

This is not a large amount of money here, and Party should really just pay the top 10% out of their own pocket, and chalk this up as a lesson learned. This is especially true because their own support reps were mistakenly advising players, and if players were wrongly advised BEFORE registering, then they actually have a legal claim, as well.

Once again, this shows that the legalized online poker market still has a lot of growing up to do.