Sounds like structuring which is a very big no no and a federal crime. The whole “withdraw from other players to avoid financial scrutiny” is the same as any other form of structuring/money laundering. They are basically using Zelle to launder the proceeds of their criminal enterprise.

A great majority of these Youtube Vloggers are degenerate gambling addicts up to their throats in all sorts of unethical and illegal activities to fuel and fund their gambling habits. Everyone knows Johnnie Vibes and several YouTubers have been running the Scam Squad a.k.a Splash Squad club on ClubGG for years. These YouTubers use these clubs to make obscene profits by gouging recreational players with rake while running a Ponzi scheme and robbing Peter to pay Paul to fuel and fund their degenerate gambling addictions. This reasonably explains how a $2-$5 player like Mariano started turning up at cash games with 5,6,7 figure buyins right after both him and Rampage started shoveling the club down the throats of their followers on social media.

These guys then take all of their illegitimate proceeds and launder their money with the blessing of Doug Polk at the Lodge or at the Hustler Casino that has been involved in more cheating and collusion allegations than any other casino that I can think of at the moment. Doug Polk, Andrew Neeme and Brad Owens are also super shady characters running around the poker community basking in all of the fanfare they receive from their followers while they too are involved in shady schemes behind the scenes. Right now Doug Polk is being sued for his incessant fabricating and slandering on his Youtube channel, in addition to allegations of money laundering. It is also clear and obvious that both Andrew Neeme and Brad Owens collude and soft play each other when they sit together at a table. The usual don't take money from your friends at the poker table scheme often times found at underground home poker games.

lol what’s with the guilt by association? seems like you’re just parasocial and taking a scattershot approach to getting angry at vloggers. the criticisms of these underground clubs are strong enough without adding all this nonsense about Neeme and Brad softplaying each other.

This is no different than WPT Global and GGPoker who appear to do the exact same thing through agents making financial transactions on and off the site to customers, agent transfers back and forth to player X account and player deposits to agent via e-transfer or cash, withdrawls is same transfer method. This can be for large sums of money. 30K plus…There are players in restricted locations of Canada doing this on both sites.

Neither of those poker sites are available in the US anyway so not sure how it applies to a discussion on US federal law.

It applies to sites offering games to restricted areas of a country through agents, knowingly and not verifying the accounts, because all financial transactions of those specific accounts are done through agents

Just when I get the poker buzz again, and read this thread. this shits wack

First of all, I have played in cash games at least 4 different occasions with both Andew Neeme And Brad Owen and they both clearly soft play each other at the poker table. I cannot say I have met Mariano, Rampage or Johnnie Vibes, but can say with certainty that both myself and many others have been scammed by the club they operated on CLUBGG. A person does not have to have an established relationship with anyone mentioned in this thread to share facts and observations.

This is the second misinformed statement you have submitted on the thread. PPPoker, CLUBGG and Pokerbros can be played anywhere in the world. All of these illegal clubs are structured to take a wide variety of different payment methods such as Crypto, Venmo, Cashapp, Zelle, PayPal, etc. Some of these clubs are 100% legitimate (run by groups of friends who want to play poker together without having to travel far distances for live meetup games) while other clubs like Splash Squad are total Ponzi schemes whose operators are using the "rob Peter to pay Paul" business model while making obscene amounts of income with outrageous rake fees and using player funds for their own personal expenses. The moment players start requesting payment these clubs start scrambling to pay back players with deposits from other incoming players.

Some parts of the US have restricted online play (which can be circumvented by using a private residential VPN and software that spoofs a players geolocation) and some countries have outlawed any type of gambling altogether, both online and live. The aforementioned is also how these clubs cheat players through collusion while running multi-accounts and bot farms against unsuspecting players.

Just play regulated poker if you’re worried. You really don’t need to play shady underground app games to win. The average poker player is still complete **** at playing poker.

He was referencing WPTGlobal and GGPoker specifically, which both officially don't accept US players.

And yes I'm obviously aware of the agent back-ends/loopholes before someone mentions them* haha

I was going to point that out but it just kind of shows he’s not even reading my responses so why bother

Scammed how?

NPO, can you clarify those "receipts?" I see a post indicating you sent some money via Zelle, and a whole bunch of your side of a chat conversation. The first thing doesn't prove they stole anything, it only shows you sent them money. Note that I'm not in any way suggesting you're lying. I'm just saying what you shared in this thread doesn't really prove anything.

Also, are you sure the account you're dealing with is the same Splash Squad that Vibes was pushing on his socials (albeit more than two years ago)? Or is it someone using a fake name (TJ Durgin) to pose as the Splash Squad so that you'll send money? This is the exact M.O. that scammers from Indian call centers use.

It's also a tactic that scammers use to fool parents of high school and college athletes in the U.S. They create social media accounts that appear to be actual governing bodies (e.g. the NCAA, the CIF for California high schools, NYSPHSAA for New York high schools, etc.) They also create landing pages that look legit enough, including logos of actual streaming services (e.g. ESPN, CBS Sports, NFHS Network).

Anyway, just curious... and interested. If nothing else, this could be a good cautionary tale for others to heed.

I joined 2+2 after googling Splash Squad poker club and having found endless poker players that have taken to a variety of different forums to allege that they had funds stolen. These are not false allegation because I am also someone who played in this club and was screwed out of $2,000.

I played in this club for about two months depositing between $300 and $500 per session. The rake is highway robbery! At best I would break even on my poker sessions. As countless people have accurately claimed, this club is, in fact, a total Ponzi scheme. I would request cash outs for my mostly break-even sessions and it would take almost a week to actually get paid. For example; I would request a cashout for $500 and receive a half a dozen or more micro payments from random people. As long as I got paid I didn't care. It wasn't until I bought in for $300 and turned it into $2,077 after about 5 hours of play that out of nowhere the club decided to steal the money. That is exactly when this poker club decided to do the exact same thing that was done to another person who posted in this thread.

When I requested my cashout for the $2,077 the person(s) on the end of the Telegram chat began spewing nonsense about my cashout needing to be reviewed by their "security team". A complete lie if I ever heard one because these apps do not come equipped with any security software to monitor gameplay. I was ghosted for over a day before the chat came alive again. I was told that may account was linked to a banned player, and that the club was going to forfeit the money that I had won, and the $300 that I used to buy into the games. Thereafter, I was completely ghosted and all of my messages on Telegram were completely ignored.

As soon as you make any real profit on this club your money is going to be stolen. I am not sure as to who the real owner(s) of this club are, but all fingers seem to point at Youtube streamers like Mariano, Johnnie Vibes and Rampage. This club has thousands of members that have been led into the void by these individuals who use their Youtube presence to recruit new players to join their online poker club on CLUBGG. The club operators will wait until they build up your confidence by paying out cashout requests for petty cash, but as soon as the amount reaches 4 figures these charlatans just steal your money.

So yeah, the rumors are true. Splash Squad is a total scam run by degenerate YouTube streamers. The club even goes as far as attaching different emojis to screen names so the agent who brought you into the club can receive kickbacks from the rake YOU as a player produce for the club. The funny thing is that while searching for information about this club I found posts where this guy rampage is accusing other players of scamming him out of large sums of money.... If that isn't the pot calling the kettle black. After reading through several posts across the internet, this forum in particular seems to censor posts shared by victims, in addition to victim shaming them and claiming that they are just "jealous" or "haters" against these asswipes that they worship. Yep, it is one big conspiracy amongst people from around the country that have never met each other that have the common agenda of libeling this club and it's owners for absolutely no reason.... No, it is because the club is a SCAM, Ponzi scheme, and fraud operation being perpetrated by degenerate gamblers who will lie, cheat and steal to fund their personal expenses.

The bottom line is that Splash Squad is a total SCAM, end of story.

If you look back through some of the most viewed threads on this site you’ll see that these forums have a great track record of exposing some of the most significant frauds in poker history. The common characteristic of those threads is well-researched and documented allegations. Feel free to post any and all evidence, with your personal info redacted. As far as I know to date nobody has actually done that.

I cannot speak to the veracity of claims made by other people. But I have seen posts dating back several years that broadly accuse a variety of different poker players and Youtube streamers of severe improprieties and illegalities in terms of how they are generating money outside of their live poker playing. I found found out about this club while searching for online clubs for Pokerbros and ClubGG on Google. Everything seemed to be going smoothly until the day came where I actually turned a decent profit, then out of the blue this club just hijacked the chips out of my account and refused to pay me. There are just way too many people who have alleged very similar stories time and time again.

If a club scams as little as 10 players a month out of $1,000 that is $10,000 a month that the operators pocket while knowing that once the money is stolen the players have little to no recourse to recover their money. You can't sue and you cannot go to the police and claim fraud while participating in illegal online gambling. I took the risk and got burned in the end. Like I said, this club and it's operators build up your confidence, and once you hit a major score they simply ghost you on Telegram and abscond with your money.