Had a Lock pro tell me Cake and Lock are merging, or Cake is buying them? I apologize if someone already posted this, but wanted to get more details and did not see this in the threads. Said this was all going down in June. I have not seen anything on the Lock or Cake sites yet. I think the guy slipped when he said it, but I believe it was the truth. Anyone know more on this?

except cake has less traffic

I've reached out to both Cake Poker and Lock Poker for comment and will let you know what I hear back.

If this is true, GL to US players playing on Lock in getting their cashouts during 2012 unless Lock is going to maintain its own cashier. Cashouts on Cake have been reportedly taking up to 4 months in many cases. Hopefully for US players, its not true for this reason alone as it will only bring down the overall Merge traffic and bring up traffic on a network that cares even less about customer needs than Merge does (if that is possible).

 

Originally Posted by wackyJaxon

If this is true, GL to US players playing on Lock in getting their cashouts during 2012 unless Lock is going to maintain its own cashier. Cashouts on Cake have been reportedly taking up to 4 months in many cases. Hopefully for US players, its not true for this reason alone as it will only bring down the overall Merge traffic and bring up traffic on a network that cares even less about customer needs than Merge does (if that is possible).

This is one big concern, especially for people who have 75+% of their Merge roll on Lock. If they want to stick with Merge, they are going to have to get backed or use outside funds to re-roll. Maybe the network would allow a one-time interskin transfer for Lock players only, but I doubt it.

It would also suck for rakeback players who don't have a pre-july 1st account on another skin and would be forced into the vip system, a system which I find fairly ungenerous for a network with such paltry SnG traffic.

Cake is both a network and a skin. Cake was operational before they had skins. They then licensed out skins to their network and operate their own site and the skins on the same network. This differs from Merge where you can't just sign up for merge you have to sign up for one of their skins.

They would buy a skin like Lock if they wanted to increase their customer base without improving any other aspects of their site or spending money on advertising which is hard to do anyway in the US at the moment except on some poker boards and other poker related sites. It is a bit silly to play on Merge or Cake if outside the US, so it is a potential legit way for them to expand in they don't wish to actually spend money on improving their reputation or advertising. However, since they fail so hard in many aspects (including angle shooting on customer accounts, absurdly slow payouts, etc.), I think alot of the players would just be moving to another Merge skin if they were playing on Lock with the retention level of the customer base from the acquisition at a bare minimum.

Not uncommon for a " skin" to jump networks. Two or three merge skins were Cake before, pretty sure Players Only/Playing Aces was. The thing is, merge hase lost two or three recently. If you go to the merge partner page you an see what's left. However, Poker AGA site will not open. Pretty sure it's gone. I believe something is going on at merge. Without checking, I would bet merge traffic is dropping, rapidly. My question would be, if Lock is one of the top skins on merge, why leave? For Cake?

 

Originally Posted by G2thV

Not uncommon for a " skin" to jump networks. Two or three merge skins were Cake before, pretty sure Players Only/Playing Aces was. The thing is, merge hase lost two or three recently. If you go to the merge partner page you an see what's left. However, Poker AGA site will not open. Pretty sure it's gone. I believe something is going on at merge. Without checking, I would bet merge traffic is dropping, rapidly. My question would be, if Lock is one of the top skins on merge, why leave? For Cake?

Dropping? Dude there numbers have gotten alot bigger since last year or even 6 months.

Why in the world would they have a skin on Merge and a Skin on Cake. Cake has just dropped. The horrible payouts, and there GTD's are terrible compared to Merge.

My advise on this, is find out how true it is, if its, get your money from LOCK ASAP!! Also, didn't LOCK come from Cake in the first place?

I would guess this must have had something to do with there series getting dropped if true. I think everyone in the poker community knew the GTD for the lock series would have never even have come close to that, I would think they would have easily lost over $1,000,000 trying to do there 14-20 events. Im sure Merge figured that out, and axed it.

OP, who is the lock pro that told you this anyway?

No doubt the last 6 (year) months have seen a rise in traffic at merge, but I just have this feeling it has leveled out and may be headed down, if not already, soon. (Y i said "without checking") They have lost some skins in just the last few weeks, and you can not deny there is a siginificant leven of frustration with the merge player base. I mean, Lock has to be the 2nd or 3rd merge skin, or 1st, I don't know. If this romor does turn out to have legs, and I find it hard to believe, then it can not be good for traffic to have your top skin leave. And if Lock is leaving the network in the US market with the largest player base, then, well.

BTY, I didnt say they would operate on both networks, that does not compute.

WELL, there you go! Cased Closed! (lol)

Can you read, I said none of that. In fact, I even said I found the rumor hard to believe. Wake up bud!

BTW, the trend over the last couple of years for merge is to add skins, even if it's the skins fault, it's a change in direction. If you look at the list of skins, seems obvious some more could go. Just an observation, no need to add anything to it.

Merge has been dropping guarantees in tourneys thats for sure

 

Originally Posted by mttgrinder90

Dan, why dont you ask them if there buying Cake out? That would make a ton more sense. And as far as the largest on the network, I think Carbon and Sportsbook dwarfs them.

So because some sites may have been underfunded or may have not got the response they thought they would closes, you think the network is done? Also, there numbers have been huge and your gut thinks there going out of business, lol

When asked whether Lock would buy Cake, Lock responded, "I cannot comment right now but I can say that we will be putting an official PR out this week."

Hopefully Lock checks all Cakes Books before buying them

related

http://www.gambling911.com/poker/wor...ge-050612.html

Merge reneging on the Lock Ops Series really pissed em off. Will they bring Cake to the top?? Maybe.