In the event of Natural8 servers crashing or a Natural8 unscheduled downtime happening, Natural8 shall refund players as described below. Natural8, in its sole discretion, shall decide otherwise for any other events disrupting play caused by the Licensee or the Licensee’s players.
For Cash Games, all hands in progress will be rolled back. Each player’s chip count will be reset to the amount at the beginning of the hand.
For tournaments, there are four (4) possibilities depending on the status of the Tournament:
If the tournament has not started, Natural8 shall refund all buy-ins and fees to the registered players.
If the tournament has started and is in late registration period (that is to say, where the tournament allows a User to register as a player following the fixed registration time) or if the late registration period has finished but the tournament has not reached the paid places, remaining players shall be refunded their Fee and current bounty (if applicable). Regarding the prize pool, (fifty) 50% shall be paid equally to the remaining players at the time of cancellation with the other (fifty) 50% being paid according to the chip to the remaining players at the time of cancellation. If the tournament has a guaranteed prize pool that has not been met or exceeded at the time of cancellation, only the prize pool amount collected via player registrations will be distributed.
If the tournament has reached the paid places, remaining players shall be refunded their Fee and current bounty (if applicable). Regarding the prize pool, the next prize to be won shall be distributed to each remaining player at the time of cancellation with the remainder being paid according to the chip count to the remaining players at the time of cancellation. All transactions, including pots won and lost, are posted to players’ account at the completion of each hand.
If a tournament that features late registration proceeds to a point at which the next eliminated player will receive a prize (also known as ‘in the money’), late registration may be closed, regardless of the late registration period detailed in the tournament lobby. No additional players will be able to enter. Furthermore, in such a situation the tournament prize pool will be solely determined by the amount collected via player registration, rather than any advertised guaranteed prize amount.
Please note that when calculating tournament refunds, Natural8 will determine the moment the disruption began and use the state of play in any given tournament immediately prior to this disruption as a basis for calculating the refunds. Not all players may experience disruption at the same time.
With regards to Natural8’s Staking Feature and refunds, if a player has sold action and receives a cash refund, whether equal to the initial buy-in and fee or greater, those players that bought the action will receive a share of the total amount refunded to the backed player in proportion to the size of the stake bought.
In those circumstances where a player has sold action via the Staking Feature and receives a replacement ticket or replacement entry instead of a cash refund, those players that bought the action will be returned the amounts they staked in cash.