PokerStars NJ, 888/WSOP NJ, and partypoker US Netowrk affected by geolocation outage Thursday
A malfunction in the geolocation technology used by New Jersey's state-regulated online gambling platforms caused massive disruption on all of the state's networks Thursday.
The GeoComply company, which operates geolocation services for virtually all of New Jersey's regulated online gambling sites, experienced a network communications error Thursday night that effectively knocked out mobile gambling operations throughout the state. Multiple regulated online gambling outlets in the Garden State reported an interruption in service, not just limited to online poker sites.
FanDuel and DraftKings, New Jersey's two biggest online sports betting and daily fantasy sports operators, both posted apologies to customers frozen out of their betting platforms while the outage was taking place
The partypoker US Network posted the following message in the aftermath of the geolocation freezeout.
"After confirming the geolocation issues that impacted NJ sites and tournaments being paused over an hour, all tournaments are in the process of being auto settled per our tournament cancellation policy," stated the tweet from the partypoker US network.
PokerStarsUSA tweeted a similar message Friday morning, writing that all players in tournaments affected by the geolocation outage would be refunded per site policy within 24 hours.
Outages cause chaos in WSOP Fall Online Circuit Series
The WSOP Fall Online Circuit Series, offered to players in both New Jersey and Nevada, experienced major disruption, with players taking to Twitter to report on an apparent lack of action and communication from the WSOP NJ network.
The geolocation outage happened during Event #8 of the series, won by Jesse 'patient0' Yaginuma for a $36,261 first-place prize and a WSOP Circuit Ring. PokerNews' Chad Holloway tweeted about Yaginmua's win, prompting reports from other players about the tournament playing out in unfair fashion.
Longtime poker player and commentator Tony Dunst was one of the more prominent names weighing in on how Event #8 played out. Dunst tweeted the following in response to Holloway's tweet about Yaginmua winning the tournament:
"He sure did...after a truly abysmal experience on @WSOPcom where (almost) every player was disconnected from geolocation issues and many of us blinded out or gave up trying to log in," Dunst wrote in the tweet. "WSOP didn’t even bother tweeting when events were back up."
Holloway tweeted back in response with a statement he received from WSOP Executive Director Ty Stewart
Stewart's statement to Holloway stated that WSOP would "look to process the appropriate compensation to impacted players in short order." In response to that, however, Twitter user Ryan K pointed out that the tournament had already paid out the 50 money finishers.
"Nothing against the 50 players who cashed this event, but it's absurd that they get to keep their prize payouts while the rest of us who had live stacks get refunds unless we also get ICM payouts... Only 1/3 of the field was left at the time," tweeted Ryan
"Apologies for the fake news here: refunds haven’t been issued," Dunst wrote in the second tweet. "I mistook the pay out I received for a stack that folded into the money. Hopefully WSOP makes this right."
Poker.org will continue to update this situation as it develops.
Featured image source: Twitter
