WSOP Online Series Plagued With Difficulties, Players Express Disappointment

The World Series of Poker (WSOP) Online Bracelet Series has been running for nearly a month now, having kicked off on July 1 on WSOP.com.

The second set of events have also recently begun on GGPoker. A total of 85 bracelets are on offer at the massive festival which runs through to September 6.

However, despite many beautiful online bracelet stories recently told, the festival is nowhere near perfect if player feedback was to be considered. With the massive series being put together within such a short period of time, minor issues are inevitable and understandable, but if organizers are unable to fix long-standing problems much to the disappointment of players, that’s another story.

Technical Glitches, Payout Structure Issues Irk Players

GGPoker postponing two of the first three WSOP online bracelet events running on the platform has made headlines over the past few days, but unbeknownst to some, the first part of the festival, which is nearing its conclusion on WSOP.com, also has its fair share of blunders.

First, players have been raising concerns about the improper structuring of final table payouts, an issue that’s been going on for years. Ideally, the payouts must increase with every final table spot, with the jump to the next higher spot also increasing. But this hasn’t been the case on WSOP.com. Players have been complaining about discrepancies on how payouts are calculated and structured, a problem organizers have been ignoring.

There have also been difficulties with registration, because a player must register with a unique IP address. This means multiple players with the same IP address are not allowed to register.

But how about those players who are staying at the same hotel? Obviously, this would make it hard for them to enter into events. WSOP tried to fix this by whitelisting Caesars properties in both Nevada and New Jersey, but it didn’t come across as a solution, as many see it as another money-making scheme. Furthermore, players have also been hitting out at excessive rakes charged for these online events. Ari Engel recently tweeted about this issue.

Played a 950+50 wsop the other day. Today’s bracelet event is 700+77. Very poor form by @wsop for this offering

— Ari Engel (@AriEngelPoker) July 17, 2020

The problems continued on GGPoker, with the site apparently not prepared enough to handle massive traffic. Worse, they decided to delay the action for one full week for the two affected events, leaving players disappointed. Other reported glitches include external outage, software bugs, and DDoS attack, which could have been envisaged beforehand. If things continue to be this way, the WSOP will eventually lose some of its shine. Something needs to be done to address these concerns.