This week marks the final full week in the life of WPTPoker.com, whose impending closure was announced last week. The World Poker Tour-branded site is one of seven member rooms on partypoker’s network.
The death of WPTPoker marks what can only be described as a failed opportunity. It would almost seem a given that an online poker room connected to one of the most recognizable and valuable brands in poker would succeed, but that simply was not the case. Rather than push the site to the forefront, owner bwin.party did almost nothing to promote it. ClubWPT.com, the World Poker Tour’s subscription based, “play chip” online poker room, seemed to be marketed more heavily. It is not the worst thing in the world that partypoker was still the dominant brand on the network – after all, it has been a major name in the industry for more than a decade – but it seems like management just thought that putting “WPT” before “Poker” was going to set hearts a flutter.
And so it ends with a whimper. WPTPoker.com will close on Wednesday, June 3rd, as “bwin.party has made the decision to focus our online poker efforts entirely on our lead brands: partypoker and bwin poker.”
Players can still login to their WPTPoker accounts for three months after June 3rd to withdraw any funds. There have traditionally been caps on the amount of money players can pull out, but in this case, those caps have been lifted. In a bit of news that has already infuriated the site’s customer base, though, the withdrawal fees will still be in place, despite this being a forced cash out.
Any tournament dollars and tournament tickets that have cash value will be refunded, but those without cash value will just disappear. After June 3rd, so, too will pending bonuses and loyalty points, so players are advised to use those up while they can. This latter point is a particularly sensitive one for players, as they represent session upon session of hard work (not to mention deposits in order to get the bonuses) just stripped away from them. Additionally, players have been galled at the prices of items in the points store; one player on Two Plus Two estimated the cost of an iPhone 6 in the store to be about $2,000, whereas, in his country, the same item would cost around $800.
On top of that, someone else noted that WPTPoker.com actually increased prices in the store at some point after the site’s closure announcement.
Players suggested to a customer service rep for the site that player funds, points, and bonuses should simply be transferred over to partypoker at the option of the customer, but this is not going to happen. If this is technically possible, it is an odd decision, as it would certainly help the players and would obviously help the company by keeping the customers onboard.
The official, if extremely brief, closure announcement was made on WPTPoker.com last week, but as of Monday morning (if not earlier), WPTPoker.com redirects to ClubWPT.com.
There is speculation that closing the site is an attempt by bwin.party to both streamline its product offerings and shut down an underperforming part of its business in light of recent buyout offers that have been made by its competitors, but the company has made no specific comments to support this idea.
