Poker news tagged with 'fraud'

On Monday, the Copenhagen City Council has seized DKK 26 million from a professional poker player and passed the verdict that he will be sentenced to 2 years and 6 months behind bars.

The criminal case hearing was first conducted in May and it was regarding the man's activities negatively affecting other poker players from 2008 until 2014. The defendant is convicted mainly for charges of hacking and fraud.

The illegal profits that were confiscated from him are approximately DKK 26,376,929 (approx. $3.9 million).

Read more » Danish Poker Pro sentenced to Jail for Cheating Players Out Of $3.9 Million!

In a continuous effort to enforce fairness and security for all players on the site, partypoker revealed that it has successfully closed 48 more ‘bot' accounts in August 2019 as well as they seized $148,668 and €29,495 to be redistributed to players.

Read more » partypoker Closes 48 More Bot Accounts in August 2019; $148,668 and €29,495 Seized

Robert Alexander, a US tech entrepreneur and owner of sweepstakes-based online gaming company Kizzang, has been charged by the Securities and Exchange Commission for embezzling company funds to fuel his lavish gambling activity.

He also scammed people, including poker player Patrik Antonius who loaned him $700,000.

Read more » Millionaire Grand Theft Auto Distributor used Company Funds to Gamble, Scammed Patrik Antonius out of $700,000

In a continuous effort to enforce fairness and security for all players on the site, partypoker revealed that it has successfully closed 67 more ‘bot' accounts in June 2019 as well as they seized $24,257 and €8,888 to be redistributed to players.

Read more » partypoker Closes 67 More Bot Accounts in June 2019; $24,257 and €8,888 Seized

After poker pro Ali Fazeli pleaded guilty 6 months ago (July 2018) to one count of wire fraud, he has now been sentenced to a period of 18 months in jail.

In March 2018, federal officials indicted Seyed Reza Ali Fazeli on multiple charges of wire fraud after orchestrating a Ponzi scheme that duped three poker pros and many other investors.

Read more » Ali Fazeli faces 18 Months in Jail over Super Bowl & World Cup Ticket Scam

Natalie Saul, a 37-year-old mother-of-one from Wansworth, South London, stole £350,000 from her technology firm primarily to feed an online poker addiction. According to DailyMail, Saul created over 400 fake invoices to get money from the software company between March 2015 and December 2016. She lost over £250,000 playing online poker during that time. 

Read more » Accountant Stole £350,000 To Play Online Poker - Walks Away A Free Woman!

Travell Thomas, age 38, who has over $500,000 in lifetime poker tournament earnings, was sentenced to 8 years and 4 months in federal prison last Thursday, as punishment for orchestrating a fraudulent debt collection business out of Buffalo, New York.

Read more » Poker Pro Gets 8 Years Behind Bars For $31M Debt Collection Scam

A former nun was last week ordered by a judge to pay back $970,123 that she received from investors between 2009 and 2011 to manage a casino project in D'Iberville, Mississippi. Sandra Manno, the mayor of Marlton, New Jersey in the 1970s, who reportedly helped legalize gambling in the state, used money for The CanCan Casino Resort and Spa project (expected to open in December this year) to enrich herself, her family, and their friends through generous compensation.

Read more » Former Nun Misused Investor Money For Casino Project - Ordered To Repay $970k!

On January 18th, 2014, the New Jersey Department of Gaming Enforcement cancelled the opening event ($2 million guaranteed prizeopool) of the 2014 Borgata Winter Poker Open after concluding that someone had used a significant number of counterfeit chips in the tournament.

Read more » Borgata Cheater Sentenced To 5 Years Behind Bars

For about 6 years, an unemployed 61-year-old Romanian national cheated casinos across the UK for tens of thousands of pounds by marking cards. Mihai Lacatos was so good at his cheating technique (bending and denting cards in 3-card Hold'em) that it went unnoticed for years.

Read more » Cheated UK Casinos For Several Years By Bending & Denting Cards

In September last year, police raided Aviation Club de France, a more than hundred year old casino on one of Paris' finest addresses, and brought 12 persons into custody after allegations of breaches of employment law and money laundering.

Read more » Legendary Aviation Club de France Closed For Good

In 2011, Darren "Dooschcom" Woods won a bracelet at the World Series of Poker and was at the top of his career. Besides the prestigious WSOP title, Woods had won millions of dollars playing online and was consider to be one of the best limit cash game players in the world. However, what many didn't know was that the Brit cheated by playing on multiple accounts and colluding with other players.

Read more » Poker Pro Sentenced To Prison

A former Danish high-stakes poker player has been reported to the department of economical fraud in Denmark. The reason is that several players of the Danish poker community have found trojan horses on their computers that they believe were installed by the suspect in question. The accused could allegedly see the other players hole cards on different poker sites.

Read more » Former High-Stakes Pro Accused Of Fraud

A 12-year-old boy was caught red handed cheating at online poker last week when police officers raided his home in Tianjin, China. The boy, who cannot be named for legal reasons, was reported to the authorities over a month ago by his own parents who had started to get suspicious when their son booked a trip for the whole family to Las Vegas. It didn't take long before they found out that he had earned hundreds of thousands of dollars at online poker by using a homebuilt device to cheat against other players.

Read more » Online Poker Cheater Reported To The Police - By His Parents!

According to some news sources, Douglas "WCGRider" Polk, a regular of PokerStars nosebleed tables, recently got approximately $35,000 refunded after PokerStars found out that he had fallen victim to a computer hacker.

It all began in March when Polk played against an unknown "fish" named "Forbidden536" at a $5/$10 no-limit hold'em table. The two moved up to $25/$50 after some time and then $50/$100... Polk was getting his ass kicked... and after some time he suspected that something was wrong when his opponent called huge 4 bets with 83 off-suit and raised every spot in 3 bet pots when Polk didn't have a good hand.

Read more » High-Stakes Player Gets $35,000 Refunded After Computer Hacking Investigations

Last week a Greek businessman and poker player was sentenced to 7 years in jail for defrauding UK banks out of some 750 million British Pounds. Achilleas "The Don" Kallakis, 44, lived a jet-set lifestyle of high-stakes real estate purchases and casino/poker gambling. In total, he invested in 16 real estates for €120,000,0000 from 2003 to 2008 and had a private jet, helicopter and super yacht moored in Monaco. He was well known on the casino circuit, spending large sums on backgammon and poker.

Read more » High-Roller Sentenced To Jail For Defrauding UK Banks

The cheating scandal on Ultimate Bet and Absolute Poker between 2004 and 2008 is, according to many, the biggest cheating scandal ever in the online gaming industry. There has been a lot of information on this scandal since it was brought to light. However, a lot is still unsaid and many wonder what exactly happened behind the scenes.

Read more » Documentary on Ultimate Bet Cheating Scandal in the Pipeline

Yet another cheating scandal is about to emerge in the online poker world. This time it's two high stakes players that have fallen victim to a scam. Both players have had trojan horses installed on their computers by a German poker player who has won about $400,000 from them. The victims come from Switzerland and Austria and the German cheater is now located in England. One of the victims is rumored to be EPT Tallinn winner Ronny Kaiser.

Read more » Another cheating scandal brought into daylight

José "Girah" Macedo, who used to be called the Portuguese poker prodigy, can't be having the time of his life at the moment. In June he was caught cheating in a leaderboard competition in which a sponsorship was up for grabs, and about 2 week ago he was caught cheating once again. This time, however, it was worse as he had tricked people into playing against "the extremely bad player sauron1989", his own account, at the same time as he "gave advice" to the players in question on Skype while he got to see their hands.

Read more » José "Girah" Macedo to face legal action

Douglas Rennick said in federal court yesterday, “I had business that transferred money from offshore gaming sites to American players within the Southern District of New York,” as he pleaded guilty towards a single count of dealing offshore bets.

Rennick is a Canadian who is alleged to be behind quite a few online poker payment processing companies.  He will be sentenced on September 15.  Rennick’s lawyer said that his client’s plea will mean the forfeiture of $17.1 million as well as 6 to 12 months incarceration.

This is far less from what he could have faced if he had not pled guilty and then found to be guilty of all charges he is facing in federal court.

Aside from being charged of processing offshore bets, Rennick was also indicted last August for bank fraud conspiracy, gambling conspiracy, and money laundering conspiracy.  Should he be convicted of all the charges, he would be facing up to 55 years of imprisonment.Read more » Poker Processor Pleads Guilty in New York