So far Mars and Ryusuke are the only players with proof of any scams. I doubt we will be seeing them again on HCL anytime soon.

Ryusuke played on LATB + PokerGo, so it's not just HCL that has given scammers the opportunity to play.

For players like Wesley and Mikki who have been accused of scamming and may well have, there's no solid proof or accusations against them as far as I know.

It seems kind of ironic as most professional players would probably dream of having these whales at the table in their local casino.

A den of ****ing thieves. they all deserve each other. anyone who sheds a tear for someone who is "cheated" in an illegal chinese private game is dumber than fuqqing ****.

Lol "Lucky" from HCL's most popular live stream ever was a literal scamming rapist kidnapper
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bG7K_zq0MoQ

https://abc7chicago.com/sweetheart-s...ction/2678265/

Yea true, I thought of him after I made that post.

There was also that cheater skillsrocks.

Lots of $$$ available.

The Chinese money broker takes a commission of 10 percent or more. How hard is it to launder $100 million for a $10 million fee?

HCL is basically a Tragicomedy where we get to see people like Nik deceive themselves into thinking they can beat the game, while unkowingly they are the reason the game happens.

Who cares- all of those players have more money than brains. You play home games, you get cheated. Pretty simple

What about Dustin da Closer? You also forgot about him and I’m sure there’s many more.

The sheer absurdity of these peoples' narratives may be a good thing. These characters are so small-minded and so lacking in intellectual depth that it makes poker look like a game for low IQ scumbags. Any well-meaning middle-manager type may be disincentivized to blow his kids college education.

I mean, come on. Does anyone believe that Alan Keating is some sort of a finance guru outflanking the likes of Renaissance Technologies with his banal and vacuous chit chat.

The seediness of everything makes for a great show, even if Nick V. feels that he's not part and parcel joke material with his tats and truisms.

The rate at which they can win money is infinitely higher with a mechanic than with just marked cards. They make the coolers happen rather than simply waiting for them. You can achieve in a night what might take weeks or months otherwise. Also with marked cards you still need someone who is somewhat decent at poker to make it work.

Why is he saying this like it’s a known fact? lol

Sia the Bot said we should wait for evidence so I will wait.

Never play in private home games.

Yes you are right there's probably loads more.

My point is that having shady players isn't exclusive to HCL.

I doubt any of the streams really go far in their vetting process, as it would be hard for them to get a game running.

Take Triton for example, a bunch of the players there have been accused of stuff like Human Trafficking, extortion etc.

Also there was a guy on LATB who was jailed for running a load of Covid relief scams.

Unfortunately it comes with the territory.

Never play poker unless you are the cheater.

I worked in casinos for a while, on table games. There are conventionally rich degenerates, but we got a lot of gangbangers and drug dealers and stuff.

Conventional wisdom is, these people didn't work hard for their money so they are more willing to risk it.

I think that's true, though it's more complex. For example, criminals are risk takers by nature, while people who get rich legally are often penny pinchers by nature. Business people are more likely to have traditional families that depend on them. etc.

If you take a step back, it's actually a very odd thing that someone would be willing to let poker pros fleece them for 10s and 100s of thousands of dollars again and again. You're going to need some "odd" people to fill that role.

yeah i think this deserves its own thread, first i ever heard of it

it's massive, several companies sell an entire range of products which are everyday working items like clocks, lamps, microwaves, money counters, etc which are scanning ids on cards that are invisible to people and feeding the card info to a phone or computer

there's even a ted talk demonstration on it

sia was a dealer in those games and dating tony mars so she's obviously going to say this regardless












bottom line is i don't know a single person who ever played high stakes poker at home games and didn't eventually come across cheating - once the stakes get big enough, the incentive for the host is insane, just doing one cold deck can mean thousands of extra dollars and it's nearly impossible to get caught if you're smart about it

this is why i stopped playing home games in mainland china and started playing regulated games in macau instead

The frauds and scammers in LA make the frauds and scammers in Vegas look like choir boys.

The reason you avoid 'private, high stakes home games' is they're trivially easy to rig.
At least state run card rooms VERY rarely have those kinds of problems.

Sia the bot that plays on HCL no pain Monday is his girlfriend. Wonder if she was ever in the games?

I think that relationship is no longer current. And I thought I saw it somewhere that Sia won’t be on HCL again.

she was one of the dealers according to rina - rina did not know if that meant she was one of the dealers who was in on it though as there were 4 different dealers

Chino says hi to everyone ITT.

Also Im pretty sure Gold was cheated in private games not the other way around.

They're the world's dumbest cheaters. I've played with Gold 30 or so times over the years. All in casinos. I've literally never seen him have a winning session which is pretty incredible. To be fair I havent played with him in 5 or so years at all.

HCL is probably the nut low though, it’s like getting dealt A2 in omaha8

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