With the demise of Lock Poker, stories regarding the operation of the site have begun to leak. First there was former Lock Poker spokesperson Shane Bridges, who warned in February that he believed that the site would never pay out players. Now, Bryan PrimordialAA Pellegrino (pictured) has opened up regarding his time as a sponsored member of the Lock Poker Pro team.

“I get approached by Lock Poker about a pro deal,” Pellegrino continued. “They had actually offered me a deal a few years before this that I had turned down because it seemed kind of sketchy. The owner just hopped on Skype and started talking to me about offshore bank accounts and stuff… I said I wasn’t interested, but… with my options a lot more restricted, I listened to what they had to say.”

After doing some investigation among fellow pros, high-stakes online players, and others regarding Lock Poker, Pellegrino accepted the offer to become a Lock Poker Pro. At the time, the roster of players read like a “Who’s Who” of the world of poker: Chris moorman1Moorman, Annette Annette_15Obrestad, Melanie Callisto 5Weisner, and Michael Mizrachi, just to name a few.

“For the first six months, things go by fine,” Pellegrino reported. Pellegrino then moved his attention to a daily fantasy sports site that he was starting and drifted away from daily play on Lock Poker.

Roughly one year later, Pellegrino looked to get back into the action at Lock Poker and found that the site had many issues. “Lock starts falling to s**t,” Pellegrino wrote in the post. “I’m hearing a ton of complaints from people about cashouts starting to take longer. I talk to [Lock CEO Jennifer Larson] and… get told a bunch of stuff about Cake doing some shady stuff.” After the discussion, Lock Poker moved towards its own poker network and Pellegrino saw how difficult things had become.

The Lock Poker management gathered the sponsored pros and staff in Portugal for a meeting about “big things,” according to Pellegrino. Meeting at a prime hotel, Pellegrino reported that Larson and the senior management “drove around in one or two Rolls Royces” and that there were “30 limos” to transport everyone else. “It was insane and just screamed ‘money,’” Pellegrino observed.

After two days of extravagant but unproductive gatherings, Pellegrino admitted the “big thing” was a reiteration from Larson about problems with payment processors and that things would be fine once new processors were established.

Once again, Pellegrino had done some homework on the issue. He confirmed Lock had purchased a new software program. Pellegrino also disclosed that he learned that Laurent Tapie, the French investor who was unsuccessful in his attempts to buy Full Tilt Pokerfollowing “Black Friday,” had made an offer for Lock and been turned down. Along with being the online poker room that ran satellites for the now seemingly defunct ISPT, Pellegrino thought that things were looking up for the site and decided to stick around a little longer.

“I came back from that trip and told people… I thought they had money and would pay,” Pellegrino continued. “A few months went by with no improvement and, even though I still couldn’t really see how any of those things made sense, it seemed very obvious things weren’t going to get any better. I left quietly… and felt pretty ashamed that I had been so ridiculously wrong.”

Pellegrino stated that during his time as a Lock Poker Pro, he never took money out of the site. “I wasn’t doing it for any monetary gain… I had pledged to give my cashouts to other people who were waiting for money.” Pellegrino concluded his thoughts by saying, “I am incredibly sorry for what happened to everybody. Many of my closest friends and family members were affected by this as well as anybody who saw my name associated with Lock and gave it extra credence of being trustworthy.”

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