Yes. That’s exactly what hundreds of Indian poker players are thinking for last 3 days and as we publish this story, they are yet to receive an official reply from the company. For those who are still unaware of this burning issue of Indian poker industry, on Wednesday, 13th April, several Indian players accused Spartan Poker of stealing extra rake on their online cash tables. Since then, the players have tried reaching the company through various channels but neither the customer support nor the company’s promoters and owners came up with an appropriate answer on this issue.
Only announcement which came via a profile – Spartan P (yet to confirmed official) is “The issue here is a visual display glitch which seems to be still there in hand history replayer. Like if any player plays on table, he won’t find any discrepancy and correct pot amount is credited to winner. But the replayer is showing a discrepancy.
We’ve been talking with software guys to resolve this since morning, and so far the only solution they have come up with is removing the replayer, which isn’t feasible either.
Any player can play on a table to see for himself that correct rake is being collected from pots. Spartan has been live for more than a year, and you really think higher rake was being charged and not a single player noticed it before last few days??
So obviously that’s not what was happening. It’s just an issue of this display glitch which has cropped up recently and will be sorted going forward.
Spartan has always tried its best to offer maximum value to the players – in deposit promotions, cash game/tourney leaderboards, points to cash exchange, TDS absorption, added prizepools etc. Our only agenda from the very beginning has been to give back to players as much as financially possible, and not crush them via excessive rake.”
However, a lot of players came up with explanations, screenshot proofs of hand history as well videos of gameplay to show that the extra rake was being taken from every pot as well as the rake cap was also being exceeded. A group of players have also started a protest against the site by withdrawing all funds and posting their zero-balance account snapshot on social media.
Sumit Sapra, one of the regular player posted in the forum: I think the excess rake being charged on Spartan Poker is a real issue and I have now verified that as recently as yesterday on a 200/400 PLO table with a rake cap of INR 1200, the rake that was deducted is INR 1400, which is obviously more than the published rake cap, which anyone can see by clicking on the chip tray graphic on any table. I have been a regular on Spartan Poker from early days and put in a high volume on the PLO tables there under the id ‘boronyx’. While I understand that this error may have been unintentional what I do not buy is the ‘visual display glitch’ theory and I feel it is a deplorable effort by Spartan to try and sweep things under the rug. Like all players I am obviously deeply hurt and angered at what feels like an open effort to cheat unsuspecting players. As a regular player the fact that I never bothered to check this at any point in time earlier leads me to believe that 99% of the players would have never thought about doing this either. I hope the guys at Spartan Poker understand that trust of the players is one of the most important factors in running a successful online poker business and they act in a responsible manner to resolve this issue, after all anyone can make an honest mistake. I have enjoyed my time on Spartan Poker and I really believe that their team will do the right thing here.
When contacted, Abhineet Jain said, “Rake structure is the most important thing for a poker company and it’s hard to believe that Spartan had such issues in their software even unintentionally.”
Tejas Doshi posted a video with game being played on the Spartan explained extra rake as: Okay so lets do little maths here. My same hand. My starting stack was 2750. Money I put it on pot preflop was 175 so my stack became 2575 and on my c bet all folded so uncalled bet is not part of rake. Now I won pot of 539.75 which is after 6.1% rake and my stack became 3114.75. If that was just a glitch for hand history replayer, on next hand my stack should be more than 3114.75 assuming that 1.1% additional rake was just a glitch and rest you can see at the end on my next hand and it goes so on and on and on.
Video link: https://www.facebook.com/cstejasdoshi/videos/1038612306206748/
Maheep Sangari examined the rake in 100 hands played at 50/100 9 max tables where rake should be 5% capped at 800 and posted a sheet calculating extra rake.
Sheet link: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1aHhE65P5WUq0I392_jk3DxO28w12EdDpIqfisn5j_V0/edit#gid=0
With pressure mounting on the Spartan Poker and its promoters, they are expected to clarify on this extra rake issue soon and compensate the players who have been affected.