The WSOP Online 2020 Series on GGPoker has been running strongly, but technical issues on two occasions have cost the operator nearly $1.5 million.
Last Sunday, the operator was once again marred with server overload problems leading to the interruption of four tournaments including one of the WSOP Bracelet events: BIG 50 that had witnessed a record turnout.
As per the operator, a huge influx of players crashed “one of the tournament servers” as a result of which, three tournaments had to be canceled including the marquee tournament – GGMasters. Moreover, Day 2 of the BIG 50 bracelet event was delayed by 1.5 hours.
Sign up to GGPoker today and enjoy a generous Welcome Bonus! »
Refunds for the canceled tournaments were carried out as per the operator’s standard tournament cancellation policy, but on top of that, GGPoker also very generously compensated thousands of players that were affected.
Nearly $1 Million Was Compensated by GGPoker Last Sunday
Per the figures provided to pokerfuse by GGPoker, the total reimbursed amount paid out to players on last Sunday was $894,888, making it one of the biggest giveaways in recent history. This is in addition to the $1 million in refunds that were made to thousands of players.
Players were compensated with tournament money (T$) equivalent to the tournament’s buy-in.
The following tournaments were affected and the breakdown of the reimbursed money is as follows:
- Bounty Hunters Main Event $210: 1104 players ($231,840)
- Bounty Hunters Sunday Special $84: 422 players ($35,448)
- GGMasters $150: 2804 players ($420,600)
- Big $50 Day 2: 4140 players ($207,000)
“Within 24 hours, we will be refunding them according to our tournament refund policy,” wrote GGPoker last Sunday on Twitter. “Also, we will be crediting all affected with T$ equivalent to their buy-in. Again, apologies for the stress.”
“We will work hard so that this does not happen again,” the operator added.
Sign up to GGPoker today and enjoy a generous Welcome Bonus! »
Note that this is not the first instance that the operator was hit with similar technical issues. During the first weekend of the GG WSOP series, a “critical bug” and “overwhelming number of players” led to the postponement of the first two bracelet events.
GGPoker issued an apology on social media refunding all players in tournament dollars and announcing a special freeroll for those impacted by the outage.
For the Event #32, The Opener— $368,400 was refunded to 3684 players in the form of T$100 and for the Charity Event #33, the operator doubled the $177,378 amount collected for charity.
The huge amount of compensation should be welcomed by players as the operator has been involved in controversy in recent weeks due to the banning of “winning” players.
On August 21, the operator published a statement in an effort to clarify its stance on professional players at its tables.
The operator also opened a two-week window for players who have been previously banned to apply for account reinstatement.
“If you have been banned and wish to return, we will be taking applications for the next 2 weeks (~Sep 5),” the operator stated, one day prior to the end of the GG WSOP 2020 series.
Adding last Sunday’s compensation figures and first week’s reimbursed amount, the GG WSOP series has so far cost the operator $1.4 million.
Although $1.4 million is a significant amount of money, this should not dampen the spirits as the operator has had massive success with the series thus far.
Out of 54 bracelet events that were originally scheduled, 42 have ended, generating a staggering $92 million in prize money. The operator has collected $4.6 million in tournament fees so far.
And the big event is yet to come. The audacious Main Event with a record-breaking $25 million guarantee is set to conclude this week. It features 23 Day 1 flights, 16 of which have concluded, covering half of the ultra-ambitious guarantee. There are still seven flights remaining, one of which is already underway.
In hopes of a huge turnout, GGPoker has scheduled a short maintenance period on August 28 for system stability.
“We are increasing system capacity for smooth gameplay for the coming Sunday,” the operator states.
