Great controversy: 5Dimes Poker refuses to pay a $54kUSD bad beat jackpot

The user "Pablo22" has confirmed that 5Dimes Poker has decided to pay him the jackpot.

This leads us to think: it is necessary to make a huge scandal to get paid the money you won on a website? This kind of behavior certainly doesn't help an industry where regulations and media pressure are increasing every day. The room insists on asking for a previous deposit to claim a jackpot, but players can keep playing at jackpot tables with freeroll money, which we consider an abusive T&C.

Last week a user who calls himself "Pablo22" created a series of posts on 2+2 and other sites, claiming that he won a bad beat jackpot on the poker room 5Dimes Poker (now blacklisted at Worldpokerdeals) and they are refusing to pay the money ($54kUSD), acting very unprofessional by changing the terms of service right after the user won the promotion.

Pablo shared that he signed up at the room 3 years ago and made a bankroll via freeroll tournaments. After growing his bank up to $800, he decided to play at the Bad Beat Jackpot NL25 tables of the room, losing with quad eights against a straight flush and winning $54kUSD as a result.

5Dimes Poker refuses to pay the prize, arguing the user abuses its site

After seeing the money disappear from his account, the user contacted the room support which in short word told him that his money was confiscated from the account because he never made a deposit on the room, and that was a break according to their terms of service. The customer support even accused the user of "taking advantage of the room" by playing with money won in a freeroll tournament. The funny thing is that the room support invited him to deposit to continue playing, but his USD 54k bankroll will be confiscated.

Other users studied the 5Dimes Poker website and found out that the TOS (terms of service) was updated right after the user won the Bad Beat Jackpot, in a clear attempt to refuse to pay the jackpot. 5Dimes also added a text saying that "freeroll abusers will have their poker option removed until they become active by depositing", which in our opinion is very unprofessional.

5Dimes contacted the user again and told him that he was abusing their poker room, so in conclusion, it seems that the site, after all, is sticking to its version and confiscating the players' money no matter what.

Conclusion

Shady poker rooms have existed and will continue to exist in the online poker world. The best decision that a player can make is to carefully choose an affiliate and ask for recommendations about safe sites to play, but even that is just a risk management strategy that will reduce the chances of being scammed.

We added 5Dimes Poker (and the Grand Poker Network) to our blacklist as we consider this a clear abuse of the TOS, and even when this case could be an amazing marketing opportunity for the room ("our player made $54kUSD playing freerolls"), they have decided to refuse payment and change the conditions.

Stay tuned on our Telegram channel for more EV+ news.