The world’s fastest-growing poker site, GGPoker has been taking big strides. The site recently partnered with the WSOP to host the first-ever World Series of Poker (WSOP) Online Super Circuit featuring over $100 million in the guaranteed prizepool. The month-long series (May 3-31) wrapped up with a grand success, pulling in 485,000 entries across 516 events and paying out $134 million through the series. Headlining the series were the 18 ring events, including the WSOPC Ring Event #8: HR Championship $10M GTD that drew 505 entries to generate the largest prizepool of the series – $12,372,500 and found a winner in Costa Rica’s “800-522-4700” who banked $2.1 million.
GGPoker is now in the news for switching to a real names system. Although the poker site has already implemented this system in a few high stakes cash games and tournaments but this feature is now going to be rolled out to more games in the future. The idea is to crack down on the players who create multiple accounts to hide their identity and target weaker players to profit on the site.
GGPoker seems not to limit real names to high stakes cash games. It is believed that High stakes MTT players are also being asked to reveal their identities. Several of the recent WSOP Online Super Circuit tournaments also had real name players as well as aliases in the chip counts and payouts.
Also Read: WSOP Super Circuit Series On GGPoker Awards Over $134 Million In Prize Money!
Players have already received messages from GGPoker informing them of the enforced changes.
“Thank you for being an active member of our VIP Games. We are contacting you to inform you of our new VIP Game policy. It has recently come to light that some players are creating multiple accounts to hide [sic] identity and target weaker players despite our effort to police it. This is affecting the safety of our VIPs and hurting the integrity of the game. As such, we plan on progressively converting players’ nicknames to their Real Names.”
It seems GGPoker is taking the multi-accounting matter very seriously as the poker players who fail to confirm their actual names will no longer be allowed to play on the poker site. “Once we have received and verified the document, your Nickname will be converted to your Real Name. Subsequently, you will no longer be allowed to use any other multi-accounts on [sic] GGPoker Network, which includes all skins on the network.If you do not wish to comply, we regret to inform you that we can no longer accept your services. In this case, please cease playing and cash out your balance immediately.”
GGPoker is not the first site asking players to reveal their identities. The world’s leading poker site, partypoker has already implemented the real names system. The poker site began rolling out real name games in June last year. The recently-concluded WPT Online Series and Super High Roller Bowl (SHRB) online festivals were all real names. The weekly $5,200 buy-in Big Game is now real name only, while the recently-launched Club Games are also played with reals name players.
As multi-accounting is a serious issue and need to be addressed to ensure fair games for the players, some other major poker sites are likely come out with a similar system in the future.