A huge error in judgement, I made the mistake of using Mamacita (Vanessa Alvarez) as an agent on the Pokerbros app. This arrangement began in the Spring of 2021. I have used many agents and this is the only issue I've run into of being completely worried that my funds are gone.

In November of 2021 I met Vanessa in person at the Wynn/Encore poker room to collect $5000 in cash.

By March 2022 her communication was becoming less reliable, and rakeback for many weeks of play was failing to be deposited. I decided I wanted to cash out and be done with this agent. At the time my balance with her was over $14,000 USD, and a close friend also had $6,000 USD that she wanted to collect. After weeks of not responding, she called me to say that she was the victim of some Bitcoin scammer and promised that we would be paid.

Since then it has been mostly stalling and empty promises, other than the occasional small payment. In 7 months I have managed to receive $3000 in small payments, bring the current balance for me down to just over $11,000 USD. My friend has received nothing.

A reminder to anyone out there using these agent run apps to be very careful who you trust.

What? A broke poker player? Deadbeats everywhere.

Surprise, surprise, yet another dishonest poker player.

Assuming the allegation is true, I hope you are made whole in this situation.

I will also add, and I aim this at all poker players, not just you..... just stay away from these poker apps.

1) They are a cheats and colluders charter.
2) You may not get paid by the agent, or the whole operation folds (all the money is stolen by those running it and/or their agents)
3) By playing on an app, you are sometimes indirectly involved in loan sharking and therefore the physical harm or intimidation of other players.

I get it, it's a way of playing poker from the US or from somewhere else where it's difficult to play regulated poker from, but are you or others using these apps really that desperate to play poker, so desperate that you'll just ignore 1), 2), and especially 3).

Sometimes in life you simply can't get what you want, and you need to stand up and show character and find another way, a better way.

Playing on apps is just a bad thing period IMO. It's like being involved in something bad and pretending that you are not, when you know, or you should know, that you are.

Isn't this just a cost of doing business?

Playing for real money on these apps is anywhere from grey area to outright illegal. Games must be worth it to deal with all the risks.

Looked her up and recognize her from the HCL streams.

As unfortunate as this situation is, it did make me chuckle when you also texted her in Spanish lol

Hope you get ur funds back my dude!

you were still getting payments so you probably should have had your friend go public who got no payments. Most people would have collected what they can and not gone public so thanks for that

have you tried contacting union owners or clubs where mamacita worked for as agent?
sometimes they will figure out a paying plan and since you mentioned she is still working as an agent, keeps brining players in , collecting rake & not paying , thats very shaddy.
You should def try this option cause maybe the owners don't even know she scammed/ is not paying her players.

Literally a Ponzi scheme

Unsurprising and best of luck getting paid.

IMO always assume all agents are out to scam you. If that's the agents intention or not from the outset its irrelevant, the end result is nearly always the consumer getting hustled.

This. Every time you needlessly introduce additional hoops to jump through in order to chase a bit of extra +EV in the games, there is always the -EV risk that something like this happens. Sucks for the OP, but it is not the slightest bit surprising that this happens, the only surprising thing is that this similar things with all this sort of app/crypto/agent/union non-regulated nonsense isn't reported much more often

Curious as to what you thought the "agent" was getting and who you thought was paying it? Ponzi schemes pay out all the way until they don't get enough new customers to satisfy the old customers and the scheme runners.

Agreed with the previous posters.

Not all of the app games/clubs are a Ponzi, but every single one of them is wide open to become a Ponzi at any moment.

We might joke and call it ponzi bros…

But I’ve been playing app poker and have had 99% good experiences where I get paid in full every time.

Yes there is some human error part of it but this is totally unacceptable.

Especially since people have spotted her playing events recently.

Victim shaming and making fun of app poker and telling OP it’s part of doing business is BS.

Mamacita is a known poker player who is continuing to do business.

This is one of the good uses of 2p2 to call out potential scams.

I support OP. I have no dog in the fight except being a fellow app poker player and wanting to see people do the right thing.

Mama.. if you’re reading this…

Pay the man his money!

1. Same as all sites.. poker bros upgrades weekly and has a bot test which other sites don’t have.. games are also way softer

2. Yes there is a risk of not getting paid.. but if you choose a reputable agent this risk approaches 0. Most agents see the money maker long game of keeping customers happy. Agents actually treat you better and have a more personalized relationship than actual poker sites. Some agents will send you cash out within seconds and because you know them personally there’s no security checks or delays like other poker sites.

3. The same can be said for any form of poker. If you think loan sharks aren’t playing in your live games or private games you got another thing coming.

1. Saying PokerBros has the same level of bot and collusion issues as "all" sites is ridiculous, I have never heard any reasonable person say the level is similar between the apps and the legit legal sites. If you're saying similar to the semi legal sites then more reasonable, but still, don't know anybody who doesn't acknowledge the risk at apps as higher.

2. "If you choose a reputable agent this risk approaches 0." This is nonsense for a ton of reasons. You can't know for sure who is 100% reputable, the club or app could go under and you could not get paid having nothing to do with the agent, the agent's financial situation could change making running off with your money a more appealing option, as we're seeing here agents can rip people off and continue to make money, as we've seen in other poker scandal scammers and thieves don't always make rational decisions so they could steal from you even if it's not their best option, and assuingn having a 1:1 text, email, etc relationship with an agent means you know them personally and there's less chance of getting scammed is a wild assumption.

3. Private games different, but if a loan shark plays in my game, and I don't borrow money from them, why would I care?

If OPs story is accurate then Alvarez is obviously in the wrong and needs to pay OP and I hope that happens. But the only reasonable way to play on apps is to keep an amount on there that you assume is going to be stolen at some point and win enough that you don't care when it gets stolen. That isn't victim blaming, it's the same thing as knowing there are bots and collusion and choosing to play because you have a positive win rate anyway, if the bots and collusion made your win rate go below zero, you shouldn't play the game.

Agents typically get 50% of the rakeback for their players. Then they give the players 20-40% rakeback, pocket the rest, and handle a few transactions.

The main draw of the apps was softer games. Especially back in 2019 on PPP and 2020 on poker Bros. And in 2018 and before on the Chinese pokermaster app. Way more action than stars or whatever legit sites.

This thread would get cleared up pretty fast if we get paid.

Unions were Diamond, PanAm, and RGS. How do I contact union heads?

In life its very important to fully understand who you are going into business with.
If you don't fully complete your due diligence, then you are responsible for the risks involved.

In the future, take Shakespeare's advice: "Neither a borrower nor a lender be. " Sounds preachy, but the way things are in the poker world is probably the best advice.

what I mean is your probably not getting paid now that **** mostly works as a threat now its out there she has nothing to lose. most people would have milked her for 500 at a time which is what you seemed to do at first anyway

Yeah sure I'm gonna do nothing while I get ignored for months in the hopes that one day I might get a few hundred more.

I mean sorry OP but how can you trust someone whose like this
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GRx1sjuXUi8


Vouching is number 1 priority in any poker App games from peers or friends. You cant even take this type of thing to small claims court.