Getting paid – trouble withdrawing your money

This is the most serious integrity risk that you face when doing business with an online poker site. What guarantee do you have that the site will pay you when you request a withdrawal? All of the poker sites are beyond the reach of legal action, thanks to the US refusal so far to regulate the industry as a legitimate business. So you can only rely on their reputation.

Prompt payments

The four largest sites (Party Poker, Poker Stars, Ultimate Bet and Paradise Poker) all have good reputations for paying promptly. See our section on withdrawing money for details about this process. If you play at one of these sites you can be confident of being paid, usually without any hassle at all.

However, in the poker discussion forums you will find frequent and repeated stories of poor behavior by a few sites. As a general rule, the smaller poker sites that are associated with online casinos (sites with blackjack, craps, etc.) are the worst offenders. These sites are more familiar with the online casino world where almost no player ever withdraws money – they lose it all first. Their cash-out procedures assume that if you won then you must have cheated somehow. They also hope that if they delay the processing long enough you will decide to play some more and cancel your cash-out request. With all the alternatives you have in the world of online poker, why bother with such a sleazy operator?

Here are some stories from rec.gambling.poker:

William Hill troubles by Folding Pete, March 2004

Big Dollar troubles (a Prima Poker site) by Pokerpot, Feb 2004

Royal Vegas troubles (a Prima Poker site) by I. M. Constantine, Oct 2003

Financial soundness

Although the less reputable sites may drag their feet when you request a cash-out, they will mostly likely pay you eventually. But what happens if there is a run on the bank? This has happened more than once to small sites with disastrous results. The most famous examples are Poker Spot and Highlands Poker. The lesson to learn here is to avoid the newer, smaller sites.

PokerSpot collapsed with several hundred thousand dollars of player deposits on the books. Here is the explanation by PokerSpot's founder, Russ “Dutch” Boyd, who today often plays [1], [2] in major poker tournaments. A willing buyer came forward to rescue the site, but says that Boyd refused the terms. Former PokerSpot players report that he never made good on the player deposits.

Highlands Poker suffered a similar fate, though players reported that spokesman Doyle Brunson personally reimbursed them for the value of their accounts, despite not even being a principal in the business.