Doug Polk confirmed a spot in high stakes hustler whale games in return for not exposing to casual viewers the fact Nick acquired all his wealth from a real estate seminar scam screwing poor and working class people

"Calling out" Vertucci is an obvious PR stunt to deflect attention away from this trainwreck. And you guys are taking the bait? Come on.

Let's stay on topic: Doug Polk's involvement with CoinFLEX, and his actions so far after the fact.

EDIT: I was unaware of the full context of their bickering so the above might not be accurate.

Doug Polk is over on Reddit still posting things like that he did his due diligence.

Doug seems to think due diligence = making sure the company could technically be something other than a scam (i.e. he determined that the business model isn't inherently a scam)

But IMO due diligence = making sure the company isn't a scam (i.e. determining that that money is being handled properly, that there are checks in place, that the business model is actually being followed, etc.)

There's a big gap between the two

Obviously, doing proper due diligence would be quite difficult, so he probably should have just declined the CoinFLEX deal.

It's the reason why accepting sponsorship deals from poorly regulated companies is a bad idea.

The excuses so far are mostly that it’s too hard to get a private companies financials(lol) and because it is so hard, Doug didn’t need to do it. So he didn’t. And it’s not his fault.

This is such a joke. We all know how Polk really felt about Vertucci based on his tweets from last night so this kiss and make up tweet changes none of that.

Obv unrelated to Coinflex but I'm trying to decide who I feel more sorry for. Vertucci or Polk. They're both scammers now in my book, they both show no empathy when called out and both deny any culpability on their respective accusations.

So to me they are both 1 in the same.

Yep, pretty stupid. Even if CoinFLEX wouldn't share it's financials (which is an obvious red flag)... easy solution: just refuse the deal. Don't shill some poorly regulated crypto site to your followers.

Like when Penguin and Joker team up to REALLY try and scam Batman

If you have to pick between two scammers Vertucci is far worse, scamming old people's last savings and ruining them to the point of Medicaid nursing homes, etc. That dud should be in jail. Doug not quite at that level of scumbaggery.

Exactly what do you think the result will be to any that followed the advice on his podcast of invest EVERYTHING in Coinflex?

i think it's fair to critique doug for not holding himself to same standards that he held others to

but i don't think it's fair to say he could have just reviewed the financials - that's just a non starter - no company, legit or not, is going to share that stuff with a spokesperson

and lets say that they do show him the books like they would to an investor, well then they'd just show the same crooked books that they must have showed dragonfly and polygon when they raised millions in funding from them

if you genuinely want to "get doug" then keep the vitriol within a reasonable scope - this pie in the sky "he should have looked at the books" undermines everything

it's fair to critique doug for promoting something he didn't fully understand, something he didn't invest his own money in, something that could do real harm to his followers if they engaged in schenanigans - so just keep it focused on that, none of this absurd "should have looked at the books" nonsense that simply exposes you have no idea how the real world functions

but for the record, i don't think it's right to call doug a scammer, yes he showed poor judgement chasing a payday and undermined the "scam buster" image he had been cultivating, but he wasn't in on it, he was just another rube who got taken

True. Although Doug is getting there

https://www.pokernews.com/news/2022/...ypto-41624.htm

As I said, if he couldn't verify it for himself, there was an incredibly easy solution: he could simply decide not to shill a poorly-regulated crypto company to his fans.

If he felt that it was necessary to make a deal to promote something he could simply have chosen to promote something other than a poorly-regulated crypto company which said that people should invest 100% of their money into the platform.

I really don't get the apologia.

It's not that he is a scammer. But it's also not just that he showed poor judgement. He showed extremely, almost incredibly, poor judgement, and then refused to admit that his judgement was poor, and refused to admit any wrongdoing, and refused to apologise, and has continued to come after at least three or four others for supposedly being bad at poker, scamming, promoting LTNM, etc.

95% of people upset with Doug would be willing to forgive him if he just admitted he screwed-up and apolgised. And maybe calmed down with going after others for minor things for a while.

Well, your bar has been set at an impossible height (proving that something doesn't exist). Everyone suggesting Doug should have had access to the financials of coinflex are completely out of their minds. Due diligence does not mean getting a forensic audit of a company, you look at what information you can get, the background of the people involved, and like any diligence you make a judgement call. In the end it turned out Doug's ended badly but that doesn't mean it was the wrong decision based on the information. Come on guys, this is a poker forum, I shouldn't need to explain how a game of incomplete information works.

However, I do feel doug hasn't handled this situation well, I imagine an initial apology for promoting a company that has gone tits up, would have been a good start (I would not be totally surprised if his legal team have told him not to do this). Suggesting it's his direct responsibility that this happened is absurd, but the lack of apparent contrition and empathy with those caught up in the drama is not a good look and reflects poorly. Jmo pretty much nailed this whole scenario in his break down a couple of hundred posts ago.

james, you simply don't understand how the real world functions, i'm sure you genuinely believe that doug was in a position to reasonably ask for the books and then turn it down when they say no and/or hire a forensic accountant to review the cooked books they show him and expose the fraud

but it doesn't work that way, that's only how people with no understanding of how things work would think

go ahead and find one product spokesmen who has asked to see the books of a privately held company and was then hired a forensic accountant to review them - i'll wait and give you some time to research this one

James is right. You love apologizing for Doug don't you.

I have no idea if it's feasible to have access to the financials of a private company. Others have suggested that it is. Based on that information, I concluded that it is a red-flag if a company refuses to provide financials. But it's beside my main point either way.

My original point, and my main point, is that promoting a poorly-regulated crypto exchange is very different from promoting most other products.

Most other products generally involve much less money, or are much better regulated.

If you're going to suggest to your followers that they invest a significant portion of their net-worth into anything, and you don't want to be considered partially responsible for their losses, you should be very sure that the company is not a scam.

The "let's wait and see" approach to discovering whether or not it is a scam is totally unacceptable if you're going to promote the platform.

Again. Doug didn't have to promote an unregulated crypto site. No one forced him to do this. If he couldn't be sure that CoinFLEX was handling depositor's money properly, he could very easily have chosen to promote one of the countless definitely-not-scams that would be happy to pay him well.

Which part are you not understanding?

Doug should have just highlighted the tremendous risk associated with the interest account. He should have thoughtfully differentiated the crypto account from that of a traditional savings account. Instead, he led people to believe that the CF account was as safe as a bank.

Yes, another option was to accept the deal but include proper disclaimers in his promotion. It's what Phil Hellmuth does:



Which is one of the reasons it's so embarrassing for Doug to go after Hellmuth (and Doug is still going after Hellmuth NOW...)

If Doug had simply included a Hellmuth-style disclaimer in all his promotion of CoinFLEX, he would not be catching nearly as much flak as he is now.

If Doug thought it was such a great deal why did he not put his money where his mouth was? Basically it looks like he was getting a free roll that if the scam lasted long enough so he was allowed to sell the tokens he was paid with he did VERY well but the suckers he advised were the ones footing the tab for his free roll. Some might not feel this is a scam but then there are still those that believe pro wrestling is real.

What you're saying is true most of the time but

new company in a poorly-regulated space that sees scams far more often than not =/= established company in a well-regulated space that only rarely sees scams

The bar for due diligence obviously has to be extremely high for you to follow through with a deal despite all those major red-flags

Doug did not have enough information to make the decision though. Just because the people running the show have a good reputation does not mean its wise to swallow any BS they are shovelling especially in the crypto context. From the limited information Doug had, he should have been far more restrained , rather than blind shilling, which is why the 'due diligence' excuse is BS and why he overstepped the line, which he keeps denying as do you.

Nobody ever has been able to give 20% interset as standard in a completely above board way

It is unlikely Coinflex would be the first company in history to do this

For that reason alone shilling these magic beans was unwise

Can't believe people still have their panties in a bunch about this minutiae. He was paid for publicity, nothing more, nothing less. When he found out the company was up to shenanigans, he immediately quit. Big whoop. Some of you snowflakes calling for his head need to get out into the real world more. This is nothing; a bit embarrassing for him personally and professionally, but that's it.