All Hope Lost

Cherokee Casino of Oklahoma

So, here's what happened. After a string of winning poker sessions online (for play money) I thought it was time to try a live tournament. The nearest casino is the Cherokee Casino in Oklahoma and I saw that in just over a week, April 8th and 9th, they were having an "Oklahoma Johnny" Hale Tournament with the winner getting a $25000 seat into a World Poker Tour event.

After getting that information at the Cherokee Casino website I decided to go ahead and register for the tournament online. After entering name, address, and credit card information for the $500+$50 tournament, it said I would be picking up a Players Club card on the day of. This was the first I knew that I was joining the Players Club, but that was okay.

I checked my e-mail and found the following message (on March 30) from playersclub.tournament@cherokeecasino.com:

COPY AND PASTE:

Cherokee Casino and Resort

Your registration information has been submitted and a confirmation email will be sent to you once the internal registration process has been completed.

Transaction #:***

END COPY (I've blacked out the transaction number.)

My reading of that is that I wasn't yet registered for the tournament, and would recieve an e-mail when I was registered. A month later I'm still waiting for that e-mail.

For a couple of days I waited. I figured the "registration process" involved a person entering the data. Nothing happened. It was now a weekend and I figured nothing would happen until Monday. By Monday night nothing had happened and I started trying to check my credit card to see if it had been charged. There will soon be a message here about credit card companies, but the short story is that I later learned that my credit card had been charged on March 30. I suppose my chips went in front of an empty seat and were blinded away.

This isn't the first time I've had trouble getting information from Cherokee's website. Once they gave a time for a Scotty Nguyen tournament satellite that was wrong. Later I found a different time in a poker magazine, which was probably right. But the magazine and the website ought to get the time from the same source. And since magazine information has to be submitted early, and a website can be updated up to the last minute, then the website ought to be more accurate. But it wasn't.

I would urge everyone not to trust any information on the Oklahoma Cherokee Casino website (http://www.cherokeecasino.com/tulsa/cards_schedule_list.aspx). I would urge everyone not to register online. If you do either of these things then try to verify that the information you have is accurate. They are not committed to reaching users online.

By the way, I've now recieved a Cherokee Casino Magazine, which is sent to Players Club members, which apparently I am, although I've never picked up a Players Club card.

posted by Roboto @ 11:36 PM