A casino can issue W2G's if it wanted to I guess. But no casino I've been to in the US does so for cash poker games. When you take chips to the cage, there is no way for the cage (the casino) to know what portion of those chips are actual winnings. I can buy into a poker game for 3k, lose it, rebuy at the table for another 3k, lose that, rebuy again for 3k, win a 1k pot and get up with my 4k and cash out. Is that 4k income? The cage cannot track winnings at the poker table, therefore they do not issue W2G's for cash poker games, as W2G's actually withhold taxes. Meaning when I take my 4k to the cage, they give me 4k less withholdings: that would create a very undesirable situation for live players. Cash poker winnings are self reported in the US. But just because I get my wife to cash my chips does not mean I didn't report my winnings.

While I believe the limit for reporting is $10K within 24 hours, California casinos (at least the commerce) 100 percent starts tracking anytime you cash out more than $5K.

In California casinos, tournament cashes, jackpots, high hand, and table drawings that are 5k+ are auto taxed on the spot.

While 10k cashouts at the cashier are reported to the IRS.

Postle knows this well. He mentioned he would keep chips in his back pack or pockets during the Mouth podcast. I’m sure he’s had a lot of experience with that 5K daily limit after his god sessions...

It's not for withholding. They require your license to note the transaction. I believe it is a federal law as it's happened in most states I've played.

Some casinos do start tracking at 5k, just to keep track and make sure you don't go over the 10k mark in a day. Sportsbooks in vegas start tracking at 3k. Anything that looks overly suspicious could be reported as SAR and you would not know it, even for under 10k.

Structuring is serious and that is mentioned in that doc for Mike. He could do jail time just from IRS if he wasn't filing completely and was structuring.

If he was fully reporting everything then there is no reason to structure or worry about cashing out 5k or more.

What you're saying wrt winnings is of course true, but twice over the summer (at Rio and Wynn) I had to fill out some form and give my ss# when cashing out >$10k from a cash game

Message to Godeep Aka Mike Postle:

Lemme just start off by saying the scheme u pulled off for over a year was pretty brilliant. As far as beating the game itself, it was absolutely foolproof and cud net a uncapped winrate. The game and casino selection, which was certainly by happenstance rather than choice, was still nonetheless perfect. In no world does this go down at LATB or televised high-stakes, but the Stones stream was ideal. The system u used was also very effective bc despite everything that’s been uncovered, we still don’t have a smoking gun. So well done. Fyi tho, I’m not going to address the fact that it takes a morally bankrupt person to fleece $$ from innocent, everyday poker players. That part is bw u, the mirror, and a Higher Intelligence than any of us.

Ok, so when it comes to deception and cheating, u r an absolute fish. I get that ur an early pioneer of using RFID live-streams to cheat, but u still suck at it. The visual adjustments u made did u little service. Clearly u never considered that all of yr actions were being recorded for eternity, and thus cud be meticulously scrutinized. U went from phone on table pre-God, to solely staring at phone in crotch Post-God. The timing of your crotch stares were always telling, as pointed out by all the hand analysis. I will say tho, this prob wasn’t obvious at the time to you or anyone else bc u were never called on it by other players or commentators. However, when u watch the recordings, there is no doubt. I’m also guessing u made the mistake of never going back to watch your streams in detail. If u had, u wud’ve made adjustments, played on ur phone now n then to mix it up, been aware of the hat bulge (made it less conspicuous if possible), and just try to continually improve your optics. But other than wisely moving to the better seat 2, u continued wth the same fixed phone crotch God-mode thing we all know to well. U never thought past level 2, whereas the sleuths r already on like level 6+. Fish rarely think past level 2, so no surprise here.

The biggest reason u r a massive fish at cheating is the actual play itself. Your lines and moves were just way too thin and flawless to past muster, especially when viewed collectively. To quote one of several awesome memes of u: “Postle’s biggest mistake was that he never made any”. I have a few theories on why u wud be so stupid here, other than the fact that u just seem pretty stupid and greedy: 1) since the $ was being split among the other douche canoes involved, there was a greater incentive to milk every penny, 2) God-mode is a powerful feeling like no other, and can’t simply be turned down once blood is tasted (Daenerys destroying Kings Landing comes to mind here), and 3) like many criminals who inevitably get caught, u grossly overestimated yr own intelligence while underestimating everyone else’s.

Lastly, u really suck at lying and trying to convince ppl that u r innocent. The Matusow interview was a bonehead move. Nothing u said raised any doubt about your guilt or really even addressed it. The statements u put out there, while barely relevant, were still quickly disproven thereby burying u even further. Everyone knows now and forever that Mike Postle cheated innocent ppl out of $300kish. Welcome to yr life. Ironically, the most damning piece of evidence was not even your doing, rather it’s when yr boy Taylor f’ed up and changed the RFID graphics bc ur play was just too horribly obvious otherwise. But as I stated earlier, the scam itself was ****ing brilliant. Had they chosen a smart and cunning pointman, this could’ve gone undetected indefinitely earning modest but consistent loot. But clearly u suck at life Postle, so ur out, it’s over, and u ****ed the thing u love, poker.

Wonder what's going through Postle's head right now?

Your extraordinary reading ability won't help you now buddy :-)

you guys take civil lawsuits way too seriously (whether content or outcome). They just put everything in these papers they could find. Suits like this can take years and Most of them end up nowhere. Even if one judge makes a jugdement it doesnt mean anything regarding guilt nor payment.

Yeah but how do you know you didn't? You report a million in wins, a million in losses, and it costs you almost nothing (you miss out on some deductions because your top-line income is too high)

If you reported it wrong, but the difference between what you owed and what you paid is almost nothing, the IRS may come after you for the difference, plus some penalties.

The reality is that almost every gambler is a losing player, even though they book some wins. Almost no one reports it correctly. Actually reporting it correctly requires a level of record-keeping that almost no gambler does (think of the average slot player, not a pro poker player). They report their total W2Gs as total wins, and report equal amounts of losses. That's wrong, but the IRS doesn't care, because the end result is almost the same. The right way to do it is to report the results of each session. So if you put $100 into a slot machine and cash out $200, you need to report a win of $100. Then if you move to the adjacent slot machine, put in your $200 ticket, play a bit, and cash out $50, you need to report a loss of $150. If you are bouncing from machine to machine, each one of those needs to be a line item in your records. You see people doing this all the time in casinos -- what you don't see is them carrying a notebook and keeping track of each of these. Again, the IRS doesn't care.

Now if you are actually a big winner and you report nothing, then they care.

Don't know if this has been posted already, but this could explain the blue screen on his phone the time it was seen when he stepped away from the table

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7qar90n6teQ

Guys don't get too hung up on the John/Jane Doe 1-10. That's completely standard.

Those would most likely be anti-money laundering forms and not tax forms. Yes, they require ID, but it's not meant to track winnings, just large amounts of cash. Of course, since everyone today wears tinfoil hats, many people believe "a paper trail" means big brother is after them. In fact, those forms are quite helpful if you cash in say 30k and take the 30k to deposit at your bank, because, you guessed it, sometimes the bank will want you to fill out a declaration as to where you got 30k in cash.

OJ's life is in a shambles due to the civil case against him, despite him being found not guilty in criminal court. Even though he can't pay the total civil judgement, he basically can't have anything because every time he comes into some money the family's lawyers go after it.

You are right. And while we were all sure Postle was a cheat. The biggest piece of news for me here is that Veronica, the other commentator, the regs, the lawyer, all suspect Justin was the main accomplice. That's just been speculation so far.

Then they shouldn't have alleged that when Mike doesn't cheat it's because "John Doe isn't in the Sacremento area", which is very specific. They even say 'not in the area' instead of 'not in the casino'. It happens multiple times that Mike doesn't cheat when Justin is around. Here i.e. (cap backwards, phone mostly on the rail, no suspicious plays afaik, even calling $300+ preflop with J9 v JJ). If that is imprecise and only based on the single WSOP period it isn't a well grounded accusation and nothing more than a phishing expedition.

It's anti-money laundering forms, not tax forms that you are filling out. More and more, governments are getting more serious about tracking large amounts of cash. Why didn't you just ask what the form was for? Lol

^ Complete myth. If you write zeros or even better /dev/random to the disk, the data is irrecoverable. It is gone. This is what the guy meant by “wiping.” And it’s usually multiple passes of overwriting zeros/random (3 or more passes usually; DOD will have an even higher standard).

Formatting or just deleting are obviously very different than what is described above.

Anybody remember the freeze frame of MP's phone from a couple of days ago where the screen is bright blue? Can someone bump that if they have it to hand (I'm on phone)? Looks mighty close to what we see here no?

Punitives are highly unlikely against Stones. You have to show "malice, fraud, or oppression" under California law, which basically means the casino set out to intentionally harm the plaintiffs. That's not going anywhere.

If they prove a criminal conspiracy involving a Stones employee acting within the scope of his employment, they get $750,000 (trebled damages). Otherwise they get $250,000 for the casino's negligence.

edit, there is the blue screen on his phone imo

If this were an episode of CSI, we could zoom in and see perfectly what he had on his screen. Too bad this is the real world, and pixels dont work like that.

No. He is a named defendant. John Doe 1 is, in theory, unnamed.