Internet poker operator Lock Poker spoke out about its player to player cash transfers, noting that they have implemented a new policy that will require players to accumulate at least 15% of the transferred money needs to be accumulated before it is withdrawn.
In a statement posted to its website Lock Poker said:
"Through a detailed investigation over the past few weeks the Lock security team uncovered a large group of persons that were abusing the P2P transfer policy and creating a large network of mule accounts to move and withdraw funds without any play at all taking place."
"To deal with this situation a policy change was put into place to clear out the backlog of withdrawals by accounts with little to no play and increase the speed of withdrawals for players taking actual winnings."
"Lock has introduced a new cash-out policy for transferred funds which requires a player to accumulate at least 15% in GGR on the funds received via P2P transfer before these funds are cashed-out. Put simply, for every $100 of transferred funds to be withdrawn, $15 of rake or fees will need to be accumulated beforehand."
"The policy change was put in place explicitly to put an end to money laundering via Lock's player transfers. Players withdrawing winnings are not affected."
"Lock will continue to process withdrawals and work to reduce all withdrawal delays over the coming weeks."
"A large amount of mis-information has been spread recently on various poker news sites and forum postings about player funds being lost in recent banking scandals; none of this is true."
Additionally, Lock Poker CEO Jennifer Larson granted an interview to gambling publication "Gambling911" in which she addressed the company's slow payments.
In the interview Larson said, “In terms of slow payouts there are a number of reasons for this. There was a group of people who were buying and cashing out players bankrolls and not playing at all - this was a large volume and was causing legitimate players' cash outs to be delayed, as the scheme was using accounts incorrectly marked as belonging to affiliates."
“The other main reason is that Lock (is) one of the largest poker sites that continues to serve players in most States in the US. This means that all Lock payments processors must be discreet as the DOJ has shown repeatedly that it likes to seize the players’ funds."
However the CEO's explanations appear to only raise more issues, as it is not only US players that are having issues getting money out of Lock. Is the firm in dire straights, or is everything really as how Lock would want us to believe it is?
Casino Listings will update this story as more information is revealed.