Lock Poker Leaves Revolution – Co-Starring Who is Pure Poker?

Lock Poker left the Revolution Gaming Network without any notice to players today.  It launched a proprietary platform that will not be shared by any other sites.  The action on Lock Poker has been sparse since the site relaunched hours ago.  There may be a good reason for this.

A Lock Poker press release made the claim that there were “numerous and ongoing breaches of contract by the current network operator.“

Revolution Gaming appears to dispute this claim.  Players that open the old Lock Poker software are forwarded to Pure Poker with this message (also pictured to the right):

Due to Lock’s ongoing financial issues, the poker service to Lock was terminated. We apologize for the inconvenience.  Pure Poker is offering you a chance to redeem your Lock player balance immediately.  Sign up with your Lock player email here.  Go here to learn how to redeem your balance and create a ticket for more details.  Pure Poker has been operating with integrity for 14 years, catering to niche players globally. In addition to playing with the same proven software, we offer faster payouts and immediate access to a Sportsbook.

Players that go to Lock Poker’s website directly to download the new version will notice that the installation automatically removes the previous Revolution version of the platform, preventing Pure Poker from intercepting Lock Poker players.

A thread at Two Plus Two about the situation has offered little information on what players can expect from either room.  There is speculation that Pure Poker may bail out Lock Poker players by tying their balances to a rake requirement.

Who is Pure Poker?

Some players have questioned who is behind Pure Poker.  The Pure Poker website lists BTG Global N.V. as the operator.  Sportsbook Review offers a searchable database for sites by parent company.  The list for BTG sites may be found here.  Sportsbook Review gives all BTG Global sites a D+ or worse except one, which is graded a C.

As the message to players that try to log into Lock Poker’s old software states, Pure Poker has been in business for 14 years.  A search of the Wayback Machine confirms this claim.  The Wayback Machine also shows Pure Poker has been a Revolution/Cake skin since 2011.

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.

Futurebet went on to acquire Dobrosoft after Ongame kicked it off of the network in October 2006.  The former owner of Dobrosoft has an interesting story to tell about that situation.

I reached out to Pure Poker for comment on this story.  I did not receive a response before going to press.  Lock Poker responded to Pokerfuse’s request for comment on a similar story here.

Special thanks to Sportsbettingsites.org for helping us compile information for this story.