I was not talking about a civil case.

I would hope that, for such actions to be prosecuted as a criminal offense, the rules of criminal procedure or whatever would require direct evidence.

In their briefs and at oral argument, both sides
substantially relied on the California Court of Appeal’s decision
in Kelly v. First Astri Corp. 72 Cal. App. 4th 462 (4th Dist.
1999), review denied, No. S080081 (Cal. Sept. 1, 1999). In
Kelly, three blackjack players sued a casino, the casino’s
manager, and one of the casino’s employees for intentional
misrepresentation, fraudulent concealment, conversion, money had
and received, negligence, negligent supervision, and civil
conspiracy following the discovery of a marked card scheme at the
casino. Id. at 468. The court upheld the trial court’s grant of
summary judgment to defendants because plaintiffs’ action to
recover his gambling losses were barred “under California’s
strong and long-standing public policy against judicial
resolution of civil claims arising out of lawful or unlawful
gambling.”

This is a horrible law by the way.

But given the political power casinos have in state legislature (especially because Indian casinos rich and in sparsely populated districts so have major power with state legislators) I doubt it will change in any way any time soon.

I haven't been following this at all, any updates on how he cheated exactly?

no, none. other than knowing the cards of his opponent.

Just read the thread, only 13k posts jheez.

tl;dr basically Mike Postle really loves looking at his own dick

CTO is real

1. Be Poker God
2. Stare at own dick
3. ????
4. Profit

Veronica and her lawyers have been attempting to collect the $55k from Postle. In the US legal system, winning a civil case and enforcing the results are two different matters (see the Goldmans vs OJ for example).

Postle has been claiming he is busto and has no money, so the lawyers have filed an involuntary bankruptcy procedure, in an attempt for force him to declare bankruptcy to get a bankruptcy trustee to liquidate his assets to pay the $55k. He has multiple other debts as well, according to his latest filing.

As of last week, Postle was granted a 1 month extension to file a brief to oppose the involuntary bankruptcy procedure.

https://www.poker.org/mike-postle-re...nkruptcy-case/

I think that's a universal issue or at least in the western world. It's basically impossible to collect from a degenerative gambler or from anyone who is able to move their assets out of reach.

Most practicing people of some religion believe gambling is immoral. They believe it for a number of reasons but it is so. The state tolerates gambling but does not want to encourage it by making it safer for people. That is in line with the wishes of the people of the states with laws like this. It's not the casinos. It's the idea that the courts would become a common forum for disputes it is ill equipped to handle. Law suits are expensive and a burden on society.

No thanks.

Pretty sure the law dates back to CA's first couple of decades as a state. I honestly don't know if there was a huge moral and institutional rejection of gambling in gold rush-era California. My impression is no, but maybe too much of my understanding of that setting is from the movies.

Good, he deserves the pain. Life must be tough when you can no longer rely on 100% guaranteed earnings from poker cash games.

I do agree with this but would have been much better if there was a hearing to determine if he cheated. It is quite disappointing for all those following this saga that we didn't get a trial. And obviously a shame for those who were victims of his alleged cheating that they don't get proper compensation

Get used to disappointment.

Also, wtf, who is this "we" within which you include yourself as spokesperson ?

You think there should be a trial for your amusement ?

Be satisfied with the 2+2 coverage. It is free.

There is no law.
It is based on a decision from the 1850's that in turn was largely based on British common law.

Thank you.
Please keep us posted.

A pretty strange thing to get triggered by. "We" all follow this case and have an interest in it

It's not a rejection of gambling, it's a rejection of the idea that people should be drug in for jury duty and the apparatus of the court tied up to deal with gambling disputes. For the same reason, gambling debts are not enforceable in many jurisdictions.

This is a perfect example of why gambling disputes should be kept out of the courts - there appears to be zero evidence of the supposed cheating scheme other than the amount of money that changed hands. The phone thing is speculation with only indirect evidence - he may have just as well been watching the stream as some magic hole card readout. The idea that he was hearing through speakers is pure conjecture - the "evidence" there is that he wore at hat!!!

No citizen of California (or any other state) should lose their day to dealing with this bullshit. Did he cheat? Probably. Has enough evidence to do anything about that been discovered? No.

Move on.

Thats a lot of evidence. Check the evidence on some murder trials that get overturned, and it could be for less. I think the math alone would be enough to win a civil trial. Let alone staring at hat, lack of results in any other games, 15 strange plays, the issue of changing card when he knew it couldn't have been misread...

Only need 50.01 % more likely he cheated than not.

You said he probably cheated and thats enough to win a trial by preponderance of the evidence standard.

Literally every single poker expert in the world who has said something about the Postle case has said he 100% cheated. That expert testimony of the collective expertise of an entire field means something. I think you're downplaying the importance of that.

I don't know if this is a good analogy but when people cheat at chess we trust computer analysis and expert testimony on the matter and let it literally settle the issue. No actual evidence is needed. Hell the same happens in murder trials. I don't see the obsession with "but there is no REAL evidence against Postle" - we don't treat any other area of life in that way.

That is most certainly not the case. Most criminal prosecutions rely, at least partially, on circumstantial evidence. Further, defendants can be, and are, convicted based upon on circumstantial evidence alone.

The difference
Direct evidence would be witness x testifying that "I saw it snow last night"
Circumstantial evidence would be witness x testifying that he looked out the window last night and there was no snow in the yard. When he looked out the window the next morning there was snow in the yard with footprints in it. The witness did not see it snow or see anyone in the yard. However, a reasonable fact finder could infer that it did snow and that someone walked through the yard.

This example is actually used by judges in my jurisdiction to explain circumstantial evidence.

That being said, I posted early on in this thread why I believed (as a former prosecutor) that criminal charges were unlikely. Of course, I was shouted down by the "internet lawyers" so I gave up. (I also remember some actual lawyers with no prosecution, or even trial, experience claiming that it was an easy prosecution).

One of many reasons why I rarely post, even in my area of expertise.

I think the chess analogy here is valid and may help to have the unknowing poker population better understand the situation. Let’s say you had a chess tournament that was a true "open" tournament of all ratings. And a player who was rated 1500 won the event somehow and beat grandmasters throughout the tournament all with ratings of 2500+. Even though the tournament was an in person, live event, the grandmasters that were beaten all thought that the player must have been using computer aide somehow during the matches.

As a result, an investigation was launched where the top 100 players in the world analyzed the matches won by the 1500 rated player. All 100 thought the player was somehow using a chess engine during play due to some of the moves that couldn't be consistent with a player of that rating or for any human for that matter. The elite players couldn’t figure out the mechanics of how such an engine could be used in a live format but 100% of them agreed that computer aide was involved. There would be no "smoking gun" here but we can all agree that this would be damning evidence that would be overly convincing, even to the general public that had no knowledge of chess.

A direct parallel can be made to the Postle situation except that we have enough information to strongly hypothesize how the cheating was done (interception of the live, un-delayed hole card graphics to his mobile device.) Again I will reiterate that there isn't a single respectable, winning poker player that has come out publicly to say that they thought Postle didn't cheat.

Yes, and there would be no case in court, just the same. The governing body of the chess world would suspend or ban the player or whatever. No court would ever be involved. This is exactly the same thing, well done, you just need to continue to the end.

That's fine, but everyone in the chess world would know the guy was a cheater and he would be ostracized.