Righting a Wrong

An interesting thing happened recently at Hollywood Poker: a guaranteed prize pool tournament did not have a guaranteed prize pool. And if it wasn’t for the observant eye and persistence of a player in that tournament, it may have gone largely unnoticed.

Before I get to the main point of this column, let me first give you a brief rundown of what happened. The Ongame Network, home of Hollywood Poker, held a monthly $1,000 + $40 tournament called The Grand. On Hollywood Poker, the guaranteed prize pool was $1 million, while strangely, at other rooms on the network, such as bwin and Tower Poker, the guarantee was lower. The January tournament only fielded 553 players whose collective buy-ins fell $447,000 short of the guarantee, a significant overlay for Hollywood Poker to cover. But, instead of adding money to the prize pool to cover the guarantee, Hollywood or Ongame (it is not quite clear which party was ultimately responsible) just let it be. Thus, everyone who made the money received fewer winnings than they should have.

A player noticed before the tournament started that the payout structure did not reflect the $1 million guaranteed, but thought that maybe the money would be added later. He asked support about it, but received a rather uninformative e-mail. When he did make the money, he ended up winning almost $1,500 less than he should have. He again e-mailed customer support, which apologized for not updating the tournament information on the website to reflect the fact that there was no longer a $1 million guaranteed prize pool.

When the player pressed Hollywood Poker further, a customer support representative gave him two $5 + $0.50 tournament tickets to make up for it.

Fortunately, a week after the fiasco was exposed on an internet message board, Hollywood Poker made good on the guarantee.

Upon reading the back and forth between frustrated players on the message board, it occurred to me that while a situation such as this is rare, this was not the first time it happened. So, allow me to set forth some guidelines on how to avoid getting the short end of the stick when poker rooms screw up.

Document Everything

Whether it is a guaranteed prize pool tournament or special poker room promotion, make sure you understand all of the rules. Take screenshots of everything you can so that you have evidence if a problem should arise. Save web pages to your hard drive (don’t just bookmark them in your browser, as the pages could change). In the Hollywood Poker case, the player who posted about it took screenshots of the web page on Hollywood’s site which advertised the tournament, as well as the poker room payout tables, which were evidence of how much each player should be paid.

Save and time stamp all communications with the poker room, as well. Not only does this help you remember details from conversations, but once again, it puts evidence in your hands.

Act Like a Human Being

While it is frustrating when something goes wrong, don’t e-mail customer support IN ALL CAPS, RANTING ON AND ON LIKE CHRISTIAN BALE. Nobody wants to help a jerk. Kill ‘em with kindness, as the saying goes. At the same time, though, be firm in your requests and take them through the issue in a clear and logical manner. Allow the poker room representatives to understand your take on things and make them want to help you. While the player on the message forum did a fantastic job and dealt with customers support like an adult human being, he didn’t get very far.

Take it to the Next Level

If customer support won’t help you and you know you are right, try to bend the ear of someone with more say in the company. You probably won’t have much luck simply finding a manager’s name on the poker room’s website, but you may be able to get the attention of a non-call center employee in other ways. One possibility is to contact your affiliate if you signed up at the poker room through one. The affiliates, particularly the big ones, will have a direct line to an affiliate manager at the poker room, who, of course, will know who the decision makers of interest are in the matter. If the affiliate manager, someone who actually works for the company, takes up your cause, you are much more likely to see a happy ending. Additionally, some representatives from the poker rooms are members of popular poker message boards. An e-mail to the administrators of a poker forum could help you track down the poker room reps to ask for assistance.

Take it Public

If you still are not able to get the problem resolved, you may want to post about it on an online poker forum. The poker rooms (Full Tilt Poker, Ultimate Bet, etc) do not want negative exposure, and most scan the forums frequently, so getting hundreds of poker players to rally against the poker room can be quite effective. But, just like I mentioned earlier, be civil about it. Your point will get across much better if you don’t appear to be a rabid mental patient. This is what the Hollywood Poker player did. He laid out the situation clearly, posted his e-mail correspondence with the poker room, and explained how he felt about the situation. The thread blew up, with many people going nuts on Hollywood, but in the end, the tactic worked. A Hollywood Poker rep responded to the thread and not long thereafter was able to resolve the problem.

If all else fails, I was going to suggest contacting whatever regulatory body or gaming commission oversees the poker room, but that will probably get you nowhere.

Hopefully you will never have a significant problem with a poker room. Things sometimes happen, though, so if you ever do, just remember that Rome wasn’t built it in a day. It may take some time for your issue to be resolved. If you take a thoughtful approach to presenting your case, you should come out smelling like roses.