A recent thread to have a sit-in at bwin.party on Friday November 1st has cropped up on twoplustwo.com in which many players air grievances that have become prevalent in the last few months. The thread was originally started to have the protest happen on October 28th, but so many people had interest in it and many thought that it would have more effect on a major day that would gain the most attention. It is best to check the thread to make sure you get the correct time of the protest.
The major complaints about bwin.party are numerous, but the same few that keep getting mentioned seem to be the less than stellar customer service, the new fee on Skrill cashouts, the segregation of players, and the cut in the VIP programs with no advance warning. While each of these problems alone might be small, they become large when they happen all at the same time. The player concerns have gotten significantly worse in the past six months, according to a lot of the posters in the thread, and many of them are very well-respected players. That last fact is something that makes this story worth noting, because it isn’t random posters, but high volume players who have clout in the community.
The largest issue that players mention is the abuse of the player segregation technology that has been happening at an alarmingly high rate recently. I will not post that much detailed information about it because I don’t want to give anyone ideas, but essentially, players have been buying or creating new accounts to get into the “protected” status and then destroying the competition for 2-3 days until they get moved back to the non-protected pool. They will do this numerous times and steal lots of money from unsuspecting players in the process. There have also been a few other ways of doing this mentioned that have had the same effect. A representative from Party has posted that there will be an official announcement by the end of the day on Thursday that will further explain the segregation process to players, but many are still exceptionally skeptical about getting an honest answer. Poster “jspill” puts together a wonderful collection of all the posts that relate to this issue found here.
Even without the segregation issue, the complaints against Bwin.Party comprise a pretty lengthy list. Recently, bwin.party instituted a 3% fee on all Skrill cashouts with no cap. Many players were exceptionally unhappy about this as it was aimed directly at those players who win money. With it being uncapped, the amount of money that Bwin.Party will make from this is also pretty significant on top of the money that they already rake. This represents an even bigger hit to the win rate of many players when you consider the segregated pools and lowered VIP rewards system, as players are finding it hard to make as much money as they had previously.
All of these changes combined with the complete lack of communication on the part of Bwin.Party have grown into a much larger problem than it ever should have been. Players feel that this is the only solution left to get the attention that these issues sorely need. It’s also a great example of players taking action when they do not get the answers that they deserve. While there is not likely to be a change to some of the issues, raising awareness about the unfair advantage that others are gaining by exploiting the “protected” pools is more than enough to make this protest worth it.
Six renowned investment pros took part in a $50,000 buy-in poker tournament over the summer at the Borgata in Atlantic City and the event was filmed to be shown at a later date. That day is here as "Poker Night on Wall Street" airs tonight, October 23 on Bloomberg TV and on Bloomberg.com via livestream at 9:00 pm ET.
