Grrrinders.com recently celebrated its one-year anniversary in March, and looking back, founder David Webb chuckles at how appropriate his name selection has become. During the past year, Grrrinders has overcome so many obstacles in its road to success that even the most ardent poker player would truly be impressed.
Grrrinders was welcomed to the world of poker with Three DOS attacks within its first 10 days. “It was crazy, our very first day hosting tournaments for cash prizes and boom the site comes down,” recalls Webb. Two more times, hackers were successful, carefully plotting the DOS attacks. Webb added, “I’m glad they did it when they did as it allowed us to find the security flaws early in our development - one of the hackers was really brilliant. He designed a robot that, once inside the game room, tried to register 100,000 people within a minute. The work that was put into that hack was purely genius.”
Banking institutions weren’t exactly sold on Grrrinders either. Grrrinders is a membership-based community of poker players, where players purchase a $29.95 optional membership and play unlimited freerolls each day for cash and prizes. Paypal was their original processor, but they stopped processing transactions less than 30 days in. “Paypal told us that they received hundreds of reports that we were a gambling site, and we were in violation of their TOS. My guess is whomever was responsible for the failed DOS attacks, tried to bring us down through Paypal,” reflects Webb.
Grrrinders found another processor a few weeks later that seized nearly $11,000 in membership dues - citing that Grrrinders was promoting gambling. “It was absurd. They completely reviewed our entire site prior to accepting us, and then used a link from a PokerNews feed they found on our site to claim we were promoting illegal gambling”.
Black Friday appeared to be the final nail in the coffin for Grrrinders since nervous bank officials threatened to seize all personal and business assets, as Grrrinders had just begun ACH transactions. “Despite all of the legal documentation and legal opinions - including references from the State of Nevada that Grrrinders was not a gambling site, but was in fact a sweepstakes site - the bank stated that if we deposited another dollar into the account, everything would be seized.”
In June of last year, Grrrinders stopped offering cash prizes and paid out over $135,000 owed to the players on the site. Instead of closing, they kept the doors open for free play and the popular blogs and forums. Hundreds continued to support the site, and Webb became even more determined to keep Grrrinders alive.
Armed with a plethora of legal opinions, licenses and court rulings, Webb approached hundreds of banks and credit card processing firms. “After Black Friday, just the word ‘poker’ made people just look for excuses not to even review our materials. In August, Webb approached Wepay.com and found a company with an open ear. WePay sent the legal docs through every channel including legal, security, and eventually their C.E.0 gave Grrrinders a big thumbs-up. On September 10th Grrrinders.com relaunched its tournaments for cash and prizes - defying all odds.
“If I wasn’t a poker player, I never would have endured this. Poker teaches us to grind, to never give up, and with proper preparation, we will be successful. Chip and chair…chip and chair.”
Since September, Grrrinders.com has given away 25 $1,000 seats to the World Series of Poker, another 10 seats to regional WSOPC, HPT, WPT and the Venetian Deepstacks tournaments, plus over $240,000 in cash prizes. Grrrinders has grown to over 5,500 users. Tournament fields are small, averaging around 300 players for its major events. Also, tournaments are always free to enter. Voluntary memberships are available for $29.95 per month, which gives you access to blogging, photo and music storage, message forums, newsletters, and the opportunity to become a sponsored pro - plus instant access to the diamond room, where the major tourneys are held free of charge.
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