Reports last week that Lock Poker and its associated websites were no longer operational (see previous reports) have been followed by the news that the Curacao licensing for the businesses is no longer valid.
Writing on the 4 Flush.com poker information site, the usually well-informed John Mehaffey records that:
“Lock Poker was licensed in Curacao. Its license number was 1668/JAZ. Lock Poker’s sister sites Superwins and Lock Casino operated under the same license. While unrelated, Curacao also regulates Carbon Poker and numerous other generic sites under the same license.
“A search of interactive gaming records in Curacao shows that the license pertaining to Lock Poker and Superwins is now invalid. The license covering Lock Casino is also invalid. This action does not include unrelated sites that operate under the same license number.”
Apparently the Curacao authorities invalidated the licensing on April 21 – four days after the Lock sites went silent.
Mehaffey goes on to recap recent developments following the revelations on April 17 that the company’s websites had gone dark.
There has been no reappearance since, customer support is not working, and there has been no effort by the company to communicate with its many unpaid players – some have been awaiting payment for over a year and total amounts owed by Lock have been estimated at as much as $15 million.
Although the sites remain live, it is not possible to use the operational platform.
Mehaffey notes that players first started complaining about slow-pays from Lock back in 2012, and that if the company has finally gone bust, there appears to be little hope that players will be able to recover their money.