... and none of that applies to someone prior to signing the contract.

Has the EPL issued an official ruling?

In the case of the Chino Rheem probation, the ruling was eventually posted on their site.

For the time-being, there is no mention of any barring of Divita there.

They have simply deleted his records from the Pro-Am. The final recap has Kaplan being the bubble-boy, then it goes on to list him as one of the nine qualifiers, without further explanation.

I think Mike Johnson's theory that there was some back-room arm-twisting is plausible, but I doubt there will be an official pronouncement stating that ex-cons will have their seats forfeited and that Divita was forced to withdraw.

Y'all are reading too fast and missing the facts. He was convicted in 1994. That means the charges DID stick. The case from 2008 was never taken to court.

But back to the "fact" that EPL made him leave, after reading the whole thread, I'm not convinced that he didn't just up and leave on his own. I mean, did Kessler post this just to get a rise out of people or what?

The Davita guy is clearly a scumbag and the EPL is an epic fail. Wheeeeeeeeeeeeee.

Haha

Damn since when did they do background checks for poker tournaments? I guess they should start doing drug tests, too.

80% of the field would be banned.

It's just the ultra-high moral standards of Annie Duke's Epic Poker League.

How can the owners of the EPL set a standard for proper sexual activity? I mean I guess Annie gave recommendations of proper sexual favors on "The Apprentice", but wow this is taking it to a whole new level.

So if you take Annie's advice and get caught in a public place you will not receive the winnings you just made.

This really is odd.

And by the way mod holly cow 12 is way too young. That's sick Mr mod. Your a sicko man.

I hope they get sued so hard. Jeeeeezus I hate Annie Puke

And how exacly do you look worse than a pedo... ? Robbing the guy of 25k ?

Yipes. I think I would feel safer hiring the 54 year old as a babysitter, judging by the pictures.

Some posters are completely missing the point. Whether they wish to ban him from their little private club of so-called 'pros' is irrelevant.

They let him play in the Pro/Am. They accepted his $1500 entry fee. He won the pro/am with a seat valued at 20K(actually 24K with overlay). They owe him 20K.

If they want to ban him from their clubhouse for future events, bon appetit, but they ran an 'open to anyone' satellite, and he won it. Whether he should be banned from their private poker parties is neither here nor there in the question of whether they owe him the 20K that he won in an event they allowed him to enter.

He could have been Charles Manson out on a day pass and they would still owe him 18.5K.

Agreed 100%. They definitely owe him the full money.

It'd be cool if other Pro/Am deviants came crawling out of the woodwork looking for $1500 refunds, seeing now that they never had a real chance of being accepted into the tourny.

Facts as explained to me from an employee involved:
(I am not confirming any of these statements to be true).


1. His crimes were in no way borderline. He raped young boys on separate occasions without anything that could ever be considered even remotely close to consent.

2. The player did not sign anything before entering the tournament. However, there is literature all around the tournament area, as well as online talking about the code of conduct which has a clause about criminal behavior that makes it clear he is not welcome in the EPL.

3. The 20k was passed down so the players were not hurt.

4. A pre-selected ethics committee of the EPL voted on what to do with help from a lawyer. They were unanimous, or at least close to it.

5. The man was given several options. The option that gave him a chance at getting the 20k also involved a lot of negative publicity for him. He willingly accepted the $1500. The employee that told me this was very clear that the man did not want anything to go public, and was happy to take the $1500. [a non EPL source suggested that maybe he was also given something under the table? Obv just speculation]


I believe the reason his name was googled in the first place was because of a previous incident at the poker table. A female player was sexually harassed by him at a Venetian tourney and the floor refused to act. She couldn't take it and moved all-in every hand until she busted. This was only a couple months ago.

FWIW, all of the players in the tournament agreed that we didn't want him playing in the EPL event. There was of course disagreement on whether it was legal to take his money and whether or not the seat should have been passed down.

If we assume the facts the employee told me to be true, it sounds like the lawyers played hard-ball, the man agreed to their offer, and there's not much more to the story than that.

Too much speculation ITT without any accurate info.

So basically EPL stole the 18.5k from him, and he didnt want the negative publicity because he's a scumbag and it would ruin his life more than not getting the 18.5k so he let them.

Basically, both parties involved are scum and it doesnt make what EPL did any more right (although if they're going to steal from someone it may as well be from a worthless excuse for a human being I guess, but it's still blatant stealing)

My take on this is the guy is an obvious scumbag and doesnt deserve to be brathing in my opinion BUT!.... he put up $1500 he played poker, he won the prize:20k! He should get paid his money, the scumbag risked his $$$ to win $$$ PAY HIM. If you do not pay him, you are letting this scumbag play for what? if he wins he gets his entry back? if he loses then what..? You cant run it like that. Also i agree the casino can turn down any business but they found this out after, this should be illegal and considered ROBBING the guy out of 20k and im behind him fully if he wants the 20k, he earned it.

Also, to the people who think he doesnt deserve the money... do you think if a sex offender bought a lottery ticket and won 10million, should he get the $$? my answer to that is, uhhh yah

im just sayin

The man made a stupid decision that would have him pitted against a multi-billion dollar company. The casino looked out for its bottom line and found the most +ev play without concern for the Pedophile.

It's a little unclear whether it was the Palms or the EPL behind this decision, but in either case public perception is huge to their business.

I'm not saying it doesn't suck for the dude, but he made a lot of mistakes to get into this position, and the obvious / most likely outcome is exactly what happened.

Could the casino have been nice and given him the 20k? Sure. Would you ever to expect a major casino to do that? I certainly wouldn't.

If someone does something that can hurt a casino, they won't get treated well, and that's a fairly obvious response from a business perspective.

To look at it another way, what if he were an underage gambler? Clearly they would take his money and not refund him a cent.

The EPL is a private tournament with rules that are VERY CLEAR in saying he's not welcome. Pretty akin to being underage IMO.

Underage gambling is illegal, having a criminal record isn't.

It's against the rules of the private tournament that he willingly entered.

This sounds vaguely familiar, there may be a thread on it. I could be thinking ofanother, totally unrelated to Divito incident, though.

ZeeJustin commenting on the rules of a poker tournament...

How ironic

is howard lederer allowed to play??

how about mike matusow ?( was in jail due to drug abuse).

People keep saying, "he should have been given the money."

This can be interpreted 2 ways that I can think of:

1) What was done to him was illegal.

He agreed to it, and I assume he signed something. If that's the case, it probably wasn't illegal.

2) The casino should have given him the money back for ethical reasons.

The casino industry isn't known as the most ethical industry. From a business perspective / responsibility to share holder perspective, the obvious decision was made. You really can't expect a casino to do anything other than "look out for #1".