The Hendon Mob is one of the biggest and most popular global poker databases giving the general public real time information on poker players from around the world. A simple Google search on any professional poker player will take you to the Hendon Mob which lists the tournaments the player has cashed out in, his or her total career prize money and the current rank on the Global Poker Index. There is also information available as to where they stand in the All Time Money list in their respective countries and the Global All Time Money list.
A thread at TwoPlusTwo stated earlier in the week that it was now possible for European poker players to delete their account with Hendon Mob. Account deletion was made possible because of the European Union’s General Data Protection policy. European players are now also able to change their account nicknames.
Defending Hendon Mob
A Hendon Mob representative provided clarification in a thread and also defended Hendon Mob from people that accused the site of engaging in data collection that was termed abusive. He said that publishing the results of major poker tournaments along with payouts is no more abusive than the APT or PGA publishing similar results. He pointed out that the information that the Hendon Mob posts has already been released by casinos and poker tours.
He went on to say that the EU’s General Data Protection has forced Hendon Mob to change some things from an operational standpoint but that they still work hard to serve the poker community. He then thanked the site’s followers.
GDPR Went Into Effect In May
The General Data Protection rules went into effect on May 25 and they make it possible for European citizens to ask for corrections or deletion of their online data. Companies that do not grant those requests can be penalized with a fine of up to €20 million. Hendon Mob collects information from numerous casinos and major poker tournaments. The site reportedly has profiles on around 560,000 players, data on 368,732 poker events, and over 2.5 million results overall.
The site was launched in 2000 by Joe Beevers, Ram Vaswani, Ross Boatman, and his brother Barney. Hendon Mob was bought by Global Poker Index in 2013.
Mixed Reactions On TwoPlusTwo
The thread at TwoPlusTwo quickly drew plenty of reactions. A lot of posters thought that the news was a little silly seeing that the database is made up of information already in the public domain. One comment said that you are expected to have your name appear in the chip register when you enter a poker tournament. Your name is also bound to appear in blogs and players are often seen on live streams. He claimed that the new rules amount to an privacy expectations that were unreasonable to the point that it doesn’t make sense.
Another poster compared it to baseball asking if major league baseball players should be able to delete their statistics from ESPN.com just because they have a bad season. He went to explain that the data isn’t private and it is all on public record.
However, there was a bit of support for the decision. Poster Boss716 argued that adults who worked a paying job wouldn’t like the general public to know that they play poker or how much they make playing the game. Many don’t want others to know how often they play and how much they have won. Most people still see playing poker as a form of gambling and some people want to keep it to themselves.
Hendon Mob Will Have To Comply
Whether the Hendon Mob agrees with the new E.U ordinance is relatively immaterial because the company will have to comply with any requests it receives from European players amend or delete their profile.
Should the company fail to do so, then a compliant can be made against the Hendon Mob and the parent company will run the risk of facing a massive fine or going into litigation. European players that would like to either alter or remove their profile from Hendon Mob can contact the site’s administrators at support@thehendonmob.com