American online poker players who relocated to Canada and Mexico following Black Friday recently got a nasty surprise from 888poker. The world’s second largest poker room sent out emails to relocated US citizens explaining that their accounts have been closed. The emails also instructed players on how to recover their money and asked that they please refrain from opening another account.
In the aftermath of this surprise move, affected players have started a discussion on TwoPlusTwo about the matter. As other posters conclude, 888 have not left Canada or Mexico – they’ve just begun canceling accounts of relocated Americans in these countries. And at this time, no reason has been given for doing so. Below you can see a couple of examples of 888’s interactions with players.
Chat Log Excerpt
Allison: This is the Operations Department at Cassava Enterprises (Gibraltar) Ltd. We are contacting you with regards to your account with username “dendawgg420”.
Allison: This email is to inform you that we have taken a decision to discontinue your membership with us. In order for us to request a withdrawal of your bankroll on your behalf, please send us your bank details in reply, or confirm the address where you want us to post you a bank draft and will be pay in accordance with our policies.
This is the Operations Department at Cassava Enterprises (Gibraltar) Ltd. We are contacting you with regards to your account with username “prolly350”.
This email is to inform you that we have taken a decision to discontinue your membership with us. Please note that a cashout request of your bankroll has been made on your behalf and will be paid in accordance with our policies.
We ask that you refrain from opening new accounts owned or operated by us, as these too will be closed and no monies refunded.
Why did 888poker Close the Accounts of Relocated US Players?
As mentioned before, 888poker haven’t offered a reason for shutting down the accounts. So all we have to go off of right now is speculation from the affected players. Here are a few different theories on the subject:
‘Rowniwn’ – Maybe they finally realized that like 200 americans are vpning (using a virtual private network) over there and now panicked and closed a bunch of accounts to investigate.
‘somesortabull’ – No, my account was NEVER locked. I’m mexican and one of our main concerns was that this could be 888 taking measures because of the new legislation that’s supposed to include online poker regulations.
‘am_man’ – Wonder if the ban includes regulated 888 sites in the US. That could be a huge thing in the future for some of you.
‘phishman’ – def not vpning. ive been in mexico forever, as have all of my friends down here that got banned too. weird thing is they didnt ban either of my roommates.
‘burnJa’ – Someone was probably cheating/VPNing, and sent money to felix in an honest trade, or felix sent money to someone who then cheated/VPN’d and then anyone linked to felix or the cheaters were then banned.