888poker Receives Serious Complaints from Players

Judging by the posts in the 888poker support thread on 2+2, this online room has been experiencing some serious technical difficulties during last couple of days. Number of players came into thread to complain about not being able to access the room for long periods of time, despite of everything reportedly being fine on their end of things.

Different workarounds, like trying to uninstall and install the software again weren’t doing the trick either for the affected players. While some were reporting that they were not able to access the software all together, some other players were able to log in, but the only thing they had was an empty lobby.

888poker representative came to the thread, explaining the room was aware of the issue, and that “it is being investigated”. According to the reports, it wasn’t a small issue either, as some were saying that they couldn’t even access the download section of the web page.

Despite of the investigation, players continued having different issues, being constantly disconnected and tables experiencing severe lag. It seems, however, that not everyone was affected, as some players reported that they had no problems whatsoever and were able to enjoy the games as always.

Although the 888 representative was around to answer other questions in the thread, the disconnect issue was not addressed again after the first answer about the investigation and the affected players are now left to hope that these will finally go away. The strangest thing is that, at this point in time, nobody really seems to have any clue as to what is actually causing the problems and considering the number of reports it is highly likely that they are originating from the server side of things.

Wheel of Fortune promotion issues

Another hot topic in the support thread seems to be the Wheel of Fortune promotion. The promo, which allows for one free spin a day, has a number of prizes that players can potentially win, but there’s been more and more complaints coming in that most of the time the wheel lands or nothing (try again tomorrow) or the $1k freeroll ticket for the Battle of Glory.

The sample to make any definitive conclusions is certainly on a smaller side, and there are players who reported winning other things, like $5 free bets or free casino spins, at least according to this bankrollmob forum thread.

All the players do seem to agree that $1k tickets are by far the most frequent, with some of them reporting having more than twenty of these sitting in their accounts. The 888 representative doesn’t seem too eager to comment on this and there is no page showing the distribution of prizes, which could explain what is the likelihood of the wheel landing on any particular item.

Many questions, few answers

Players clearly have many questions they would like answered. Some of these questions may be more legitimate than the others, but addressing them properly seems like the right way to go about it. Instead, for reasons unknown, 888 has recently decided to discontinue their live support, although with the promise of restoring it soon.

Even though it could be a mere coincidence, this really seems like a bad time to reduce the access to the support. With all the above problems and some players also raising the issues of alleged bots playing at the tables, the room should be doing all they can to stay in communication with their customers at all times.

LINE:

One of the first rooms to have tested a different approach, trying to bring in more fresh deposits, instead of focusing on the rake, 888poker has found a successful business model that has served them quite well thus far.

Players can be displeased by technical difficulties and other issues with a room, but if the past experience in general is any indicator, they seem rather forgiving, as long as there is good and clear communication on the issues.

Considering the entire online poker history, one thing that players dread the most, however, is the silence and vague answers that leave them hanging. The answers like “we are aware of the problem and investigating” might just not cut it. It is understandable that dealing with questions can be hard at times, but it is the best way to maintain the long-term relationship with your customers. Keeping them in the dark, on the other hand, can produce exactly the opposite effect.