GGPoker Addresses Banned Player Controversy

GGPoker has responded to the last week’s big online poker controversy that involved pro player Tobias Duthweiler alleging that online poker site GGPoker had seized the funds in his account and closed it without justifiable merit.

Tobias Duthweiler has said that he had spun up a $50,000 deposit into $180,000, but, the profits were confiscated after the security team discovered he had been previously banned from GGPoker’s sister site, Natural8.

Duthweiler claims that he didn’t know Natural8 is part of the GGPoker Network, and he says that he verified his identity months ago upon signing up for GGPoker, but now, the poker site required him to verify his identity again. This made the online grinder questioned if the poker site purposely waited until he ran up a sizable profit before taking his money.

And now the emerging poker giant responded by saying that Tobias was only banned because (after being warned years ago) he came back under a different account name and behaved in the same predatory manner as before.

Here is the official statement from GGPoker:

“We acknowledge that this case became complicated as the player signed up on multiple skins, where the GGNetwork security team does not have access to personal information including email addresses. Therefore, our security detection was limited to IPs and Mac Addresses when it comes to detecting trespassers. We will enhance our system so that we can request email addresses and personal information from our Licensee Operators.

We also acknowledge that our P2P transfer was too easy for the players. We have already removed P2P transfer for our UK customers and will be placing a strict KYC verification process and limits for all future P2P transfer. 

We have already shown our good will with a gesture to the player by returning the funds he has received from his friends. All of his winnings have been re-distributed to the affected players.

We would like to apologize for the concerns that were brought up by this incident and will make sure that our security measures are more tight.”

The poker community hasn’t had positive response to any player being banned from an online operator for simply being bad for the ecology.  Others have pointed out these are changing times, and this may be a change to which many will simply have to get used to.

The World Series of Poker will continue to hold events on the GGPoker until the Series wraps in September.