My friend has been a professional poker player for the past 4-5 years. before that he was working elsewhere and got into huge debt. Anyway he managed to clear most of it by playing poker - he made 1-2M USD via Tournaments over this span of time. In Jan 2018 I loaned him 10k USD to play cash and he blew it.

Over the next 2 years, there were multiple instances where I tried to help him break free from his debt by lending him more money to play cash games but he always lost at cash and was only profitable in Tournaments.

Last year in early 2020, he binked a tournament (think it was for 100k+ USD) and paid most of his other creditors except me.

Anyway Pokerstars had some bullshit reason and withheld his money for several months. He had a really small withdrawal limit, I cannot remember the exact amount but maybe it was like 20k USD per month and he cleared his other creditors first.

I got fed up with it and wrote to Pokerstars Email support on his behalf (since he's mainland chinese and cannot really write in english), demanding for them to release the funds that were rightfully mine.

They then claimed that gambling/playing on their site under debt is against their T&C and confisicated the remainder of his funds (20+K). They refuse to reply to any of his emails now. I think this is extremely ridiculous, and the one getting ******ed hardest is me, for being kind enough to lend money to my friend. My friend cleared all of his Bank Debt which was killing him in terms of exhorbitant interest rates, but he still owes a little to a couple of friends. I'm the biggest creditor at 30k USD which is why i am last to get any money (most people in this spot will rather clear multiple small creditors instead of one big creditor)

I just helped him log into his account today to check his account balance and it is now 0.

Any thoughts on how to address this? Matters are made worse when Pokerstars decided to withdraw from the Chinese market.

So you told stars your friend is playing on a debt and basically gave them a reason to confisticate the funds and you think someone here could help you to get them back? And makes zero sense your friend making 2m playing mtts and not continuing to play them after paying the debts. Cool story bro though and lesson learned.

Why would you have him pay the small debts first....

Confiscated money from a pokersite is against the law(in basicaly any country in the world,unless there is a court decision),but if what you are saying is true,then they are entitled to hold and confiscate any amount of money because it is considered money laundering.I'm not saying you are guilty,but you are not supposed to play with someone else's money.
Stables are on the edge of the legal side,but it is an accepted fact,but if you will send an email saying you played with money from a stable you will receive insta ban.Even if you or your friend will go to court to get the money back you'll get a fine too.

This story makes little sense. If Pokerstars closed down and took money from an account because someone else emailed them saying the money was owed to them or was a debt - then anyone could email Stars about anyone and get that account closed without issue.

Obviously the full email back and forths would help, and posts like this who openly include those always fare better, but the story so far seems to be

- OP buddy made millions on Pokerstars yet only has tiny cashout limits.

- OP buddy stinks at cash so OP gives buddy money over and over to play cash to try to clear other debts (or something). Terms of this "deal" remain a mystery.

- OP gets mad and emails Pokerstars support something and as a result the buddy account gets closed and money taken, after answering the OP issues about someone else's account.

- Friend binks for 100K in 2020.

- Friend cleared all bank debt which had horrid interest rates (guess he got a loan in 1981), and now owes friends

- OP is biggest creditor so naturally he will be last to be paid. Next time loan $5 at a time in separate loans to be first.

- OP helped buddy log into his account today. Apparently the buddy who won millions on the same account lacked this ability without help.

- Pokerstars withdrew from China market (not sure how this is related).

- OP asking for help.



I got not much to offer other than start by sharing all the emails, but this seems like a bit of an uphill battle.