Muchos Poker Dropped by iPoker Network
Muchos Poker, an affiliate-themed service whose claim to prominence was helping players participate on and help transfer funds to and from multiple online poker networks, has been dropped by the iPoker Network.
The iPoker Network was one of the most prominent networks to have worked with Muchos, which had deals with at least four iPoker skins: William Hill, Winner Poker, Poker770 and Dafabet.
Muchos also has affiliate deals in place with several other networks, including Ongame and the International Poker Network (Boss Media). In addition, Muchos maintains its own skins on several smaller networks, including the Lock/Cake-owned Revolution, eNet, and a tiny startup called Instadeal, which offers a form of fast-fold poker playable via smartphones.
iPoker gave no specifics when implementing the ban, though speculation on discussion forums centers around possible abuses of the network’s player-to-player (P2P) transfer mechanisms. iPoker recently suspended P2P activity network-wide, a separate topic which we’ll dig into in a second post later today.
As for Muchos, a site representative quickly distributed a statement on the seeming termination of its arrangement with iPoker, as follows:
We have been advised by iPoker and the iPoker sites we affiliate with that Muchos poker can not bring players to iPoker and are fully complying with their request.
As per their directive, all player’s funds are safe and secure and they will be able to withdraw their funds from the respective iPoker sites they have balances on.
From iPoker: “If funds are present in accounts they are allowed to be withdrawn following normal checks relating to collusion, fraud or account verification”.
From our perspective, we believe we have done nothing untoward and followed all network rules & regulations and performed necessary KYC checks on all players and will continue to do so.
However at this time, we respect iPoker’s decision and have removed the iPoker skins from our network and will assist player’s to withdraw any iPoker balances through normal payment processing methods.
All iPoker balances are held by the respective iPoker skin’s cashiers and not held by muchos.
We would like to point out we work very closely with all networks to provide a safe, secure, legitimate and most importantly innovative solution for poker players.
If the industry so desires that player’s should move their bankrolls through e-wallets, then we will comply exactly with what is required and will continue to innovate our product in other areas of the “somewhat stale” poker industry.
To point out too, the ban on p2p transfers, did not just affect Muchos, rather it was a network wide ban which affected many other affiliates and staking programs.
We will continue to assist iPoker in their investigations to the best of our ability and try to find an acceptable solution with them, so we can get back to marketing and bringing in new players to the great game of poker.
Whether or not the iPoker P2P transfer ban was attributable mostly to Muchos or to other parties is currently a topic of debate, though at least one poker player and forum posted has accused Muchos of incurring the wrath of iPoker by offering “bottomless” bonuses, in violation of iPoker’s network rules for affiliates.
Such offers (unless uniformly employed network-wide) are often associated with aggressive player-poaching tactics used by some affiliates, and are generally frowned upon by the industry because they do not grow the overall online player base, but attempt to shift it from one affiliate to another.
Muchos has advised its players that a process of withdrawals of existing iPoker network balances is expected to be in place this week.
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