GGPoker closed in Romania for not paying the license?

This is....concerning. Posting my gg final table video yesterday ,(not a shameless plug, thread below this one) the Howard Lederer video popped up on my feed—and we all know Black Friday was dark indeed. What I didn't know was the extent of involvement and levels of corruption/greed that....ponzi scheme—went to with other people's money.

What strikes me here is not that GG ran into issues—shit happens, and we as consumers may be angry, but will understand if we're given transparent and prompt communications. Just be honest. I've been a director of a small business. It's stressful. When you're personally responsible for other people's money, even more so. Integrity is crucial. If you fuck up, own that shit. I'll respect you for it, Damn, I'll stand by you for it.

It took The Proffessor YEARS to publicly post an apology and accept personal responsibility for the Full Tilt fiasco. He's never been seen since, some would say rightly so.

Just dispense with the smoke and mirrors. Not that I'm suggesting GG is Full Tilt 2—players will want to know their money is ring fenced. Let the truth be known and the chips fall where they may, pun intended. That's all.

EDIT: The reddit post seems to have some what I suggest. And their customer service team must be inundated with thousands of messages. Reply to all probably isn't going to work for this one 😂. In the UK, I've been responsible for several messages to gg support, replies recieved within minutes. Always. The speed of response, even in the early hours of the morning GMT, impresses me.

Not replying to emails, I get that—there's not a call centre in the world big enough to cope with several thousand punters worried about Romanian Black Friday.

The fact they've resorted to a reddit post rather than their own website. Concern number 1. Calling it maintenance—that's the smoke... just don't wheel out the mirrors and own it.

Yea....the way that they are going with it it's wrong. I used to have a business also and I know how it is to be responsible for other people, but the way they done this is weird and out of the blue with no communication on any off their social media platforms. What is more concerning is that they used to have a license and now they don't....

Is GG a conglomeration of formerly independent poker sites? You know the old story, X buys Y, who then get bought by Z. Before you know it A B C and D are all actually Z in disguise...

When that happens, customer service gets messy. And Z has an effective monopoly with little incentive to change.

With the best will in the world, IT systems by different providers don't integrate as well as they should (or they've got donut data analysts doing mass migration scripts, and doing a job that by rights is beyond them—potentially, at least beyond their pay grade—senior software engineer should be doing it! It ceases to be simple SQL data analysis when you're talking major systems integration).

I digress...the point I was getting to is that folks like the GG rep Manuel who posts regularly here—he's on the ball, or so it's seemed. Times have been good so in fairness I cannot compare, Where's the Romanian Manuel reassuring them their money is safe?

Mrs. Romania is worrying that she'll have to sell herself in order to board the next boat to the UK for a better life, because Mr Romania "spent" all their money (when it's not spent, just frozen in cyberspace earning someone a hell of a load of interest).

EDIT: licence until 2031 suddenly revoked... what the hell did they do? Or was there some form of fast-tracked legislation aka Black Friday (or its predecessor, piggy backed onto the US terror bill) that's changed the goal posts revoking their licence immediately?

It'll come out in the wash. I pray no news is good news; perhaps there's some confidentiality clause that prevents them from speaking out until someone official makes a statement. I pray for you over there.

Originally posted by AcesMagnet
Is GG a conglomeration of formerly independent poker sites? You know the old story, X buys Y, who then get bought by Z. Before you know it A B C and D are all actually Z in disguise...

When that happens, customer service gets messy. And Z has an effective monopoly with little incentive to change.

With the best will in the world, IT systems by different providers don't integrate as well as they should (or they've got donut data analysts doing mass migration scripts, and doing a job that by rights is beyond them—potentially, at least beyond their pay grade—senior software engineer should be doing it! It ceases to be simple SQL data analysis when you're talking major systems integration).

I digress...the point I was getting to is that folks like the GG rep Manuel who posts regularly here—he's on the ball, or so it's seemed. Times have been good so in fairness I cannot compare, Where's the Romanian Manuel reassuring them their money is safe?

Mrs. Romania is worrying that she'll have to sell herself in order to board the next boat to the UK for a better life, because Mr Romania "spent" all their money (when it's not spent, just frozen in cyberspace earning someone a hell of a load of interest).

EDIT: licence until 2031 suddenly revoked... what the hell did they do? Or was there some form of fast-tracked legislation aka Black Friday (or its predecessor, piggy backed onto the US terror bill) that's changed the goal posts revoking their licence immediately?

It'll come out in the wash. I pray no news is good news; perhaps there's some confidentiality clause that prevents them from speaking out until someone official makes a statement. I pray for you over there.

As I have been reading the terms and conditions for the Romanian legislation, they have to make payments to the government. Payments that are set when they apply for license, so they know up front what and how much they need to pay.

It's really disappointing that they did not came with an official statement yet (only the reddit post which I bet not many Romanian players know about it ). I guess the big winner from this is Pokerstars

This is a post of mine from the reddit page, I got a "basic" reply from one of the moderators.

News about the GGPoker Romanian suspended activity.

https://playresponsibly.ro/conexiuni/situatia-exploziva-iscata-din-vina-onjn-operatorii-prinsi-fara-licentaautorizatie-risca-suspendarea-activitatii-pe-5-ani-1003

Basically what this document say is that even if you had a gambling license like GGPoker has in Romania for 10 years, they need also an authorization from the Romanian government and of course the "hard working " Romanian politicians didn't do their job, and in order for GGPoker to have a legal activity they have to wait until the 1st of next month to receive the new updated authorization. We should fire all this incompetents politicians....If I did this type of thing at my job I would not have one the next day.

See you next month GGPoker

Yes GGPoker is up and running for Romanian players since 1st of December....so there was no maintenance just a mix-up with the Romanian government which meant that GGPoker did not get there authorization in time...as a consequence they took the app down for Romanian players...so no update/improvement on the client app.

So the essential maintenance was

If I were GG I'd seriously be considering a lawsuit for lost revenue and damaged reputation. Probably not worth the expense, but it's the principle of it! Lazy ass politicians😂