PS has no incentive to catch them until they win.

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I've considered the issue, and your estimations on raw player numbers are not right. It is possible that the pros play more hands/volume, but if you're doing it just on player numbers, you can't be right.

This is false.

Seems strange that they only caught the guy that won the tournament and not the other 49.

Also, why is it that players had to hear about this due to a lawsuit rather than from PokerStars itself? Does PokerStars not have processes in place to alert its customers when players are cheating, scamming or otherwise breaking the rules like this? Seems shady as hell.

Again, see Benson lawsuit (which he won against Stars) a few pages back

Stars just don't have any interest in doing the right thing anymore after the Scheinbergs cashed out

Does your number 49 come from anywhere in particular, or are you just playing off an earlier poster's speculation? Just curious if I missed something.

That aside, how do you know they didn't catch others?

Seems standard to me - I've never heard of a site announcing publicly or to their entire player base that they've caught cheaters.

This is a good point. We don't know. We have no way of knowing how many players are breaking the rules. Who knows how many players have been busted for collusion or how many bots they've had to give the boot. It's pretty scary to imagine the amount of shadiness and illegal behavior that is likely going on that they just want to sweep under the rug.

Standard doesn't make it right. Particularly in this industry where the standard has been to steal money, commingle funds, and do everything in one's power to skirt laws or just outright break them.

this guy was engaged in a fairly dubious practice of using his affiliate account to transfer other player's balances to so that he could facilitate cashouts for them and subtract a commission- subverting normal FTP review/verification processes and profiting from it, and then things got super messy when black friday hit and creditors started sticking their hands in what was left of the pie and legal agreements re: USA players started tying the company's hands in various ways. looks like a settlement was reached and there's a bunch of confusing legalese in your link that i am unable or unwilling to spend the time parsing because i'm not a lawyer and also who cares

i'm not sticking up for stars, they suck, but i dont see how this is related in any way shape or form to gordon vayo getting caught VPN'ing.

What Vayo did was wrong but it is nothing compared to speech play.

Agree, calling somebody out for stupidity, and can't spell the word....

account old enough to get it but still doesnt.. not sure if troll or not

Don't know the moran stories?

Hint: tree fiddy

Hint: St Louis Cardinals fan

It was inevitable the day would come when those who used moran would once again be called morons.

Really. Why won't people focus on the real issue, which is that we are all in it together. Except for the one player we don't like.

well played

Here's a follow-up article from Haley Hintze (who independently discovered Vayo's change of legal representation and broke the story about the forged documents) that shows the extent of the forgeries.

http://www.flushdraw.net/news/gordon...-over-forgery/

"The letters from Stern and the stories about the forger and tipster allude to a large, organized VPN-based effort designed to enable illicit play on PokerStars’ site. (There are likely several such large, VPN-based rings.)"

Stars is "shocked, shocked to find out there is VPNing going on".

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SjbPi00k_ME

Aside from the Claude Raines moment, one might think that "several ... large, VPN-based rings", whatever that means, would have been detected previously.

At what point did Vayo consider himself pot-committed such that he could not walk away, an option reportedly offered twice ?

I'm just curious, as I don't know how the legal system works. If I submit a pdf proof of my bank statements, does anybody ask the original bank for those same statements? They should have them in their computer system and would have to respond to a court order. Seems like it would take like an hour of work to verify the documents, and should be obvious thing to do in a case over 100s of thousands when that's one of only a couple pieces of evidence, but maybe I'm missing something.

Probably not, 'cause the penalties for such fraud are so high (especially considering the high chance of getting caught), that you'd have to be a complete numbnut to do this.

Good point, especially if the figures do not add up. The irony here is that neither the submitting counsel nor Stars counsel caught what has been described a clear errors on the face of the documents.

To be fair, Stars might have given them more scrutiny on its own, had not someone dropped a dime on it first and perhaps provided the originals.

The short answer is, yes, the bank could be asked to provide originals and might do so with dispatch upon service of a subpoena from Stars counsel. (Not sure from the posts what bank the originals were from, whether Vayo actually had a Canada bank account, address, etc. Without forged documents, my uneducated, speculative guess is that some settlement could have been reached between willing parties.)

Ok, not that I want him to go to federal prison, but if Vayo ever admits to VPNing, is that using the internet to commit fraud?

I know it is probably unlikely, but I would not want to be that one guy that gets to be “the example” to deter the rest of the VPNers.

They were from First Republic, a California-based bank with no physical presence in Canada as best I can tell. He forged in ATM withdrawals from an Ottawa ATM. Not bulletproof, but most people *actually* living in Canada even part-time would probably have a Canadian account so the fact that he didn't even bother to send Canadian statements likely threw their spidey senses up even more. Just horribly misplayed on his part.

Yet another example of poker savvy having absolutely no correlation with being life savvy.

Pretty incredible how scummy stars is. Its like how some online sites work too. Its called scumbag way of running a business.

Example- An online poker site allows a player to deposit and play cards for real money over and over, you can deposit as much as you want. Alot of sites are like this. Pretty sure pokerstars is too, however the SECOND you want to cashout, guess what? you cant you gotta prove who you are, where ur from blabla. So in other words, the site will take ur money not giving a damn who they are taking it from, then will force you and hold your money hostage until you prove to them who you said you were when you signedup. Thats them taking advantage and trying anything they can to steal your money. What sites SHOULD do is, not let your account play real money until you prove yourself to them, but thatd be the classy thing to do.

Now, Pokerstars is doing the same thing to Gordon, they let him play, waited for him to win then went out of their way to find any excuse they could, to F him outta his money.
I know nobody will agree or believe me but there are 10s of thousands of USA guys on different types of softwares to play on stars from the states, its super easy to do and im in numerous groups where people openly talk about it. Pokerstars HAS to be aware, and just "look the other way" and not give a damn until guess what? Until they HAVE to give a damn. They are giant hypocrites, Pokerstars literally has the worst security in todays industry which is pathetic, but for them to screw over Gordon over something thats their fault is ridiculous.

VPN Stables/rings? no wai

Requesting info during the deposit process is mandatory in New Jersey. You won't be able to wager real money without a SS# and other personally identifying info. Deposit/withdrawal requirements haven't yet been stipulated for soon-to-launch online poker games in Pennsylvania.

Ironically, this was pointed out (4 years ago... the video below is from Ultimate Gaming, which is no longer in service). Then-CEO Tom Breitling insinuated that such requirements are burdensome to realizing a market's potential and create "points of friction." (0:50-2:31)



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As far as your comments about TSG, do companies where rampant VPN use might be suspected truly know as a matter of default where a masked IP is playing from though? I'm asking because I really don't know.

For example, there's testimony by TSG Director of Security Services Martin Stuart (Michigan preliminary iGaming hearing -- Sept 2017 -- see video below) where Mr. Stuart suggests that PokerStars' compliance with UK Due Diligence guidelines go beyond Know Your Customer, including being aware of a customer's physical location.

He also mentions that the company collaborates with GeoComply and states it's one of the most "sophisticated" services available.

"I wish we could use [GeoComply] more in other parts of the world." (10:05-11:15)



Maybe the tools online poker sites have available to them in RoW markets to detect actual are inferior to what is available elsewhere? Again, I don't know. I'm just asking.

What you're implying is that poker sites are, by default, aware of where each customer is playing from at all times, in all markets, and simply wait for a time appropriate for them to pull the plug on unauthorized wagering that they should already be blocking. What I'm saying is that I haven't seen any evidence that backs that notion up in the RoW market. Is there any?

If that were the case, then (a) VPN users should be made aware of these risks, and further discouraged from masking their location -- particularly when within the United States, and (b) such practices by sites that seek formal licensing should be frowned upon -- as that could be interpreted as illegal in certain markets? A regulatory lawyer would have much better insight on this than I would.

Unless that's provable, then I don't see the Gordon Vayo being victimized card getting a lot of sympathy. His actions pretty much speak for themselves. If he hadn't pulled what he did, then perhaps the dispute could have shed some light on whether iGaming patrons are truly obligated to initiate litigation in a jurisdiction of that company's choice in RoW markets via ToS agreements.

Haley Hintze's summary made note that TSG reached out to him twice after the forgeries were discovered. They wanted the suit dropped with prejudice. She explains that it would have meant Gordon Vayo couldn't refile. He refused. What more can TSG possibly do here to be beyond reasonable? He already dragged the company's talent, intellectual property, and corporate security through the mud and was obviously f-o-s in his arguments, right?