Player sues PokerStars over tournament win

By Sarah Polson

The Isle of Man Today is reporting that Natalie Teltscher has filed a lawsuit against PokerStars over a tournament she claims to have won on the poker site in September 2007.


Teltscher, who plays online as the VOid, won the 2007 World Championship of Online Poker main event on PokerStars for a top prize of more than $1.2 million. However, PokerStars claims Teltscher isn't entitled to the winnings because she was disqualified for breaching tournament rules.

The poker site claims that Teltscher didn't play the game herself, but instead had an agent play on her behalf.

Teltscher said she had agreed with a third party that they should play the entire tournament on her behalf. After 22 hours of play, her account the VOid was one of two left in play in the tournament, and the players decided to split the remainder of the prize pool, giving the VOid a $1.228 million payday.




PokerStars told the High Court in Douglas that Teltscher claims she never entered or played in the tournament and the poker site was entitled to disqualify both her and the person who is supposed to have played under her user name because they breached tournament rules.

According to Isle of Man Today, Deemster David Doyle adjourned the case. He ruled that the contractual issue had to be determined before any other issues could be addressed.

They would first need to determine if the player is contractually entitled to the money won by her account, and whether or not the poker site was entitled to disqualify the player.

Makes you think about what rights as an online player we actually have to any money in our accounts!!!!!

Not really.

I'm pretty sure your rights are pretty clear in the agreement you signed when registering.

this was about thevoid, so this is not a surprise

Pretty sick if stars loses this and cant enforce there own MTT rules because of it.

Uh just b/c stars made up some rules dosnt mean they can legaly be enforced

i dont understand this.

is she admitting her brother played it?

Why anyone would say this with $1.2M on the line is beyond me.

Did PokerStars refund all players who participated?

I hope PokerStars didn't steal $1.2 million from the poker economy! This is players' money...

Given that the matter is still in dispute, I doubt anything has happened with the money yet. It's probably frozen right now awaiting a ruling.

Assuming that the judge rules in favour of Stars, I would imagine they would do what they've done in these spots in the past - that is, to disqualify the offending player and bump everyone else one step up the results ladder and pay them the additional prize money that is associated with that position.

PokerStars upgraded everyone one spot in the payout structure.

You can read about it at http://www.cardplayer.com/poker-news...r-disqualified

No, PokerStars did not steal $1.2 million from the poker economy.

As an aside, PokerStars contributes a significant amount out of its own pokets above the amounts confiscated to compensate people for the effects of collusion and the like.

Thanks MichaelJ, glad to hear PokerStars still cares about their players.

Stars have consistently had the best Customer Services of any site out there imo (even though the bastards have me on a 2 month chat ban).

They really are the last site I'd suspect of trying to angle shoot their customers.

im no lawyer but cant the courts still find that she is entitled to the money even if it is written in T&C that you cannot share the acct?

forget the details of this case but can anyone confirm whether Mark Teltscher's own account played in this tourney as well?

'Its own pockets' meaning the profits it makes from said players, without whom there would be no pockets.