Interesting discussion on 2+2.
A rather clueless degenerate named "sjw08" told the following story on 2+2:
http://forumserver.twoplustwo.com/28...thing-1525764/I created an account at work.
Deposited 400
In 2 weeks I turned that into 23,700
After my account was verified.
My boss previously played poker on Bovada.
They verified my account to make withdraws after the first week when I had it up to about 8000.
2 days ago when account was at its high point, they froze it.
I called in.
Thy said they would call me with 24 hours.
25 hours later I called back, talked to Nicole (in their security department)
They told me they are not paying me because I used someone's computer that already had their account banned.
She said a lot, one thing that stuck out was when she said that. Me and the player that was banned had identical voices. She said she listened to a recording (over a year ago). Of m boss and me, and we sounded identical. We sound as different as vanilla is to chocolate. At that point I knew she was lying, and I knew I was in for.
She ended the call saying they would get back to me the next day.
My bosses account was banned for this reason. He had an account, for years, one day he lost a few k he called Bovada to restrict his account for a month. 2 weeks later he called them to activate his account again, they said it had to be a month, that is what he asked for. At that point he deposited money on his girlfriends account and played. They banned him for that.
Today I got a call from Chris who was "handling my case"
He said that because I played on the same computer and because my card that I used to deposit said DrClutter (the name of my bosses business) he said that my money would not be paid to me, and there was nothing I could do about it.
So it doesn't take a genius to see what happened here.
sjw08's "boss" likely doesn't really exist. This is almost surely a multiaccounting situation.
In reality, it appears that this is what probably actually happened:
sjw08 is a sick gambler, and owns a business called "Dr. Clutter". He used his business credit card to deposit at one point. After losing a lot of money, he called Bovada and self-excluded for a month.
However, he got the gambling jones again and wanted to reverse the exclusion. Bovada refused, so he made a fake account in his girlfriend's name. Bovada caught this immediately and banned that account, as well. He was likely also told not to return to Bovada after this.
About a year later, sjw08 decided to once again make an account on Bovada, presumably in the name of one of his employees or friends. Bovada somehow was asleep at the switch (or freerolling?) and let him deposit and play. When he ran his account way up, he initiated a cashout, at which point the account was further scrutinized and found to once again be the same guy who was banned. (He was dumb enough to again use the same PC to play where he was originally banned twice!)
Bovada confiscated all of the money, and presumably did not distribute it to any of his opponents that he beat.
-------------------------------------------------------------
So, okay, this guy is definitely a moron. Not only did he keep creating new accounts after being banned, but did it from the same computer!
Bovada had every right to remove him again.
BUT... what about the $23k?
At first glance, it appears like it's justified for Bovada to keep it. But if you think about it some more, they pretty much stole $23k from the poker community.
First off, sjw08 did not cheat in any way. He won the money fairly, and the multi-accounting thing did not provide him any edge, because players at Bovada tables are anonymous. It is fairly clear that he never played two accounts at the same table, nor did he ever have two active accounts at once on Bovada.
sjw08 basically violated one of the site's internal terms of service -- that you can't continue playing after self-excluding, and then he re-violated it after being banned by them for breaking this rule last year.
So there's no question that sjw08 should be removed from Bovada.
But where should the money go?
I think he should be allowed to cash it out, because he won it fairly, and he was only in this mess because he was trying to circumvent his OWN self-placed gambling restrictions.
However, if Bovada wishes to set an example regarding how they don't coddle problem gamblers, that's fine. I can also see it justified to return the $23k to his various opponents. After all, sjw08 knew that he was playing on a false name (violation of Bovada terms) and was playing despite being asked to stay away from the site. So Bovada refusing to reward him for breaking these rules is reasonable.
What is NOT reasonable is them keeping the money for themselves.
It should have either been refunded to his opponents or given to him.
This looks like Bovada just made a cash grab.
I don't think it was intentional. He is accusing them of freerolling him (allowing him on to lose but not win), but I don't think that's what happened. I truly think they didn't know he was back a 3rd time until he initiated the cashout. They do indeed scrutinize your account more closely when you attempt to cash out for the first time, which is reasonable. The fact that they banned his 2nd account (the girlfriend's) without letting him win first seems to be contradicting this particular accusation.
However, while we have no independent confirmation that this situation is as it appears, I believe that the above narrative is pretty close to what happened, and Bovada indeed did something pretty shady.
Reply With Quote
Originally Posted by anonamoose
