A weekend tournament was rife with glitches, causing lower payouts to be made
It was definitely a bad weekend for the online poker site PokerStars, starting with its servers crashing a couple of times in one night. If that weren’t enough, some players receive wrong payouts for some events. Apparently, a $5,200 high-roller Bounty KO event was announced with a guarantee of $500,000, but it listed a lower prize pool. Players didn't wait long to let their reactions known, and Twitter was filled with upset players demanding an answer. The poker site's answer was quick on Twitter in which they let customers know the company was working on fixing the issue and making the payments for the additional prize money.
In this particular event, names like Sam 'Str8$$$Homey' Greenwood, Jorryt 'TheCleaner11' Van Hoof, Pauli 'Fiilismies' Äyräs and Talal 'raidalot' Shakerchi, all pro poker players, were playing in the event. Thanks to the loud noise most of these players made on social media, including the player who had the lead, Simon Higgins, the site's response was quick. "Hi Simon, due to a technical error, players were sent the wrong email and the full prize pool was not paid out as intended. We're working on processing the correct payouts and the additional prize money will be paid out shortly. Apologies for any confusion created," wrote PokerStars in a tweet.
It was certainly not a good enough answer, at least for Greenwood, who was still very unhappy about how things were handled. Since this was a KO tournament with a bounty, understanding how the payout structures work was a bit more complicated. According to Greenwood, beyond the guaranteed prize missing, there was some money still owned for the bounties, and he accused PokerStars of holding those funds. It is not likely that the site was doing something dubious intentionally, although it has happened in the past. But, if it continues to happen, it won't look good to players.
