WiltOnTilt's PlusEVPoker.com Blog

When it comes to internet poker these days, there aren't many options.  The reality is though, I tend to play on all of the sites available to me because getting good action these days is harder and harder.  As a result, I needed a cake network skin.  I chose Victory Poker because I've talked online with some of the people involved in the site and I actually had some affiliate links on my blog at one point.  They have been gone for a while.

The Victory Poker CEO @DanFleyshman seemed like a nice enough guy on 2+2 and twitter.  It seemed like he wanted to give some transparency to the industry and his  (despite never responding to me on both twitter and 2+2).  After reading his recent interview on SubjectPoker.com: http://www.subjectpoker.com/2011/05/interview-with-dan-fleyshman-part-ii/ I found it very promising that he was so in favor of  the blunt truth in this quote:

"I just like the blunt truth, and that’s how I’ve always acted in this industry–Just really be blunt about things, and you don’t have to remember what you said."

Let me back up a bit and explain what has recently happened with Cake and UseMyWallet.  As I detailed on twitter May 18th:

@WiltOnTilt :

UMW, cake, victory http://forumserver.twoplustwo.com/showpost.php?p=26659566&postcount=458

I found out that despite previous withdraws to UseMyWallet/QuickTender taking 4-6 weeks (45 days for my last 13k withdraw), my newest 18k withdraw took only 11 days.  Why so quickly? I wondered the same, until I went to request a withdraw from UMW/QT to my bank where I received a message that withdraws were disabled.  I did more searching on 2+2 and found out that one of their bank accounts was seized by the US Government.

Once the news broke, many people dumped their UMW/QT money to Cake.  As a result, Cake had extra money in their UMW account that they also will not be able to touch, so guess what they do? They proceed to process many of the withdraws that were pending to UseMyWallet to attempt to clear their own UMW money.  That's right, they toss our funds into the sinking UMW/QT ship so they aren't responsible for that money in our player accounts, despite knowing that UMW was going down.

Today I wake up and check the internet and find that UMW/QT has now vanished:

@WiltOnTilt :

UMW dead, cake (victory poker skin) dumps player funds there in an incredible display of shadiness and scumminess http://tinyurl.com/3peqom4

Where going to quicktender.com now results in this:

Please, Mr. Fleyshman, tell us the blunt truth about what has recently transpired with your site's network and processing payments to a dead e-wallet?  If you do not know, please find out.

Is Victory Poker going to step up and cover the cost of the funds that were thrown into this black hole?

Can you tell me in good faith, or the blunt truth, that the Cake Network didn't maliciously process these payments to save their own money and throw the players under the bus? I'm sure the natural response is that Cake Network handles the withdraws, not Victory.   I'm sure Victory has some plausible deniability about the whole situation. I can understand that, but I think it ultimately falls on the skin to make things right for the players when the network screws up, or AT MINIMUM publicly repudiate the actions of that network and look for a new home.