After Portuguese poker pro José “Girah” Macedo admitted to what amounted to $30,000 poker cheating scam, Lock Poker did the only thing it could do in good consciense–drop Macedo from its esteemed list of sponsored poker pros.
18-year-old Jose Macedo came into the public eye back in March of 2011 when he posted on an online poker forum that he had won $2 million with only a $30 deposit at a poker site (not Lock Poker). He posted the results of how he accomplished that achievement along with a detailed blow-by-blow of how it came to pass. This was followed shortly thereafter by a sponsorship arrangement with Lock Poker.
Macedo then used his newly won status to scam players who trusted him out of $30,000. It went like this: Macedo courted players on a Skype discussion group, telling them he’d sit on the rails while they played in order to give them advice. Well it seems Macedo was advising his players to pit themselves repeatedly against a player by the username Sauron1989 who turned out to be luckier (or simply better) than Macedo had judged him to be. At this point it should come as no surprise that Sauron1989 was Macedo himself, making his moves based on his knowledge of the hole cards in his opponents’ hands.
Lock Poker’s administration made a statement that they were “horrified” by Macedo’s actions and that “within 10 minutes” of learning of his behavior had dropped his LockPRO sponsorship. Macedo is also banned from playing at Lock Poker ever again, under any username.
Lock Poker is one of the last remaining poker sites still serving U.S. players. As such it also currently boasts one of the largest American player pools in all of online poker.