Was listening to Only Friends Podcast Episode #443 and at approximately 16:52 an accusation is made about Anthony Zinno.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NtZGIOVUXAI

I'm having a hard time believing the accusation made, that Zinno took some dude named Corel's backpack during batting up of a 3k at Encore during WPT.

Does anyone have additional information or context?

I know the victim, Corel. He's an Incredibly nice guy, and a true gentleman, fwiw. He's a businessman, not a grinder, but he has some decent results, not that that matters in a case for theft. He's played a few high rollers too, so anyone who knew him might surmise that his bag would have significant cash.

I haven't spoken to him directly, but I did speak to a good friend of his, and I believe the allegations to be 100% true. Corel left his bag at (under) the table, Zinno took it to the bathroom, and emptied it of all, or nearly all, of the $ - approx 19-20k. Wynn caught him red-handed on the cameras, and they questioned him. A police report was filed. I believe Zinno admitted taking the bag (kind of hard to argue against the camera evidence), but denied the amount. As a law school graduate (according to his wikipedia entry), he probably knew the threshold for petit larceny vs a felony:

[NRS § 205.220 defines the Nevada crime of (felony) grand larceny as intentionally stealing someone else's property worth $1,200.00 or more. If the value of the property is less than $1,200.00, the offense would be the lesser crime of misdemeanor petit (petty) larceny.]

I was surprised Berkey did not make a bigger deal of it, considering his crusades against other forms of poker chicanery. He seemed to be influenced by his personal relationship with the thief. And of course Zinno's recent score at Borgata just shows that karma isn't really a thing.

Per HendonMob:
TOTAL LIVE EARNINGS
$11,459,193

A L L E G E D L Y

Wild for someone with 11.5 mega in cashes

He plays a lot of volume tbf so I doubt his net is as high as most with that much in cashes.

shows you how little class and ethics some people have , and while this might be a humble brag on my ethics , its definitely a beat on my financial situation. i found a bookbag at Mandalay bay last week , it had at least 5 purples and a phone i saw through a semi open pocket.

what did I do , I returned it to security even though my bankroll is way less than what zinno tried to steal.

greed is a mother****er

Wild for someone to walk away from a table and leave behind their bag.

But I know people leave keys (and kids) in the ignition of their car so maybe I shouldn’t be surprised.

Some people have more dollars than sense.

Source:

I can confirm the story is true, Zinno is banned, there was $20k in the bag and of course Berkey’s take/skimming over the issue was horrible per usual (likely due to his personal relationship with Zinno). Stealing a bag in the casino has to be one of the more desperate if not outright stupid things an individual can do.

Zinno has a history of this so I’m glad he’s being outed. At the very least, his reputation will be seriously harmed and he will ideally lose eligibility to play at other venues once the case begins. Hopefully, the charges will lead to way more than petty theft (ie the casinos can look at Corel buying into events that day and see cash being taken out / put in bag at the cage, etc).

The fact that people are fixated over someone leaving a bag in a casino at the poker table is insulting. I have left a bag many times and the fact that someone took/stole the bag trumps someone simply leaving it at the table. Victim blaming is awful.

Also, if the casino decided to ban this guy, they would only do so if they had hard proof. The police are investigating and actions have apparently already been taken. They apparently caught him on video taking the bag into the bathroom after picking it up from the table. He then tried to return the bag (minus most of the money) probably to avoid a charge. Clever but dumb actions nonetheless.

I don’t care how liked this guy is, bad people do bad things. Who cares if he’s popular or a good poker player? He’s a bad person and we should all be warned while he is allowed to play around us (in any place besides the Wynn).

Post under your regular account, what or who are you afraid of lol? What needs to happen to him or anyone who tries something like this is for the absolute sh 1t to get beat out of them or worse. Vast majority of poker players won't do that as we all know, but put somebody like the accused away in a county jail even for a couple months and that'll happen

Why hasn’t this been covered anywhere else? Dan Druff where are you? Poker News? Poker.org? Very weird this story hasn’t been covered anywhere else yet.

Ah, you seem to be one of those “high intellect” types.

The word is spreading now, Corel had wanted to keep it quiet while the police go through their regular processes.

Why does Berkey even still have a personal relationship with Zinno at this point?

Lol at people being fixated on “victim blaming!”

I think one person said it and yeah it’s probably not a good idea to leave a duffel bag full of cash under the table.

Could have been swiped by some random who they might not know who it is and decides he already has final table money, swipes it, and never comes back.

Mentioning this fact really isn’t victim blaming, just a simple commentary made in a thread on the situation.

Perplexed at what Zinno was thinking. Sure he might have a lot of volume but he also has a ton of earnings. And how would he expect to get away with it. Of course the cameras would get it.

Yea i dont think its a big deal either, it happens both as a mistake or because people arent that worried. Most poker rooms are very safe environments and/or its not unusual for people to keep an eye out especially if you are a regular and/or have a good reputation. Plus cameras are everywhere, so the biggest risk is from a complete unknown person identifying a good grab+run opportunity, that's a very high bar.

I've had acquaintances ask me to keep an eye on their bag under the table with 10k+ while they take a 30-60 minute break. Not a big deal.

Vegas is full of unknowns, many of them from different countries. Cameras everywhere wouldn’t help in most cases if guy gets final table money without tax forms to fill out…

And he did not have anyone watch the bag

hey anthony zinno thief anthony zinno scam anthony zinno stole , when you read this: you're a shitreg loser piece of human garbage. stupid too! quite the combo.

berkey: "...not to like drag zinno, i think he's, y'know, a great guy. i love zinno to death, he's super nice, uh, and I think everyone has that opinion of him..."

everyone in this pos "community" should be considered compromised until proven otherwise. protect yourself at all times

Doesn’t matter how many cashes someone has on Hendon. If it’s someone who regularly plays mtts and doesn’t have income outside poker, good chance they are broke or close to it.

i mean i've said i think almost every full time tourney grinder is broke. but if even this guy is broke they really all need to pack it in.

At some point the amount of cashes and money has to matter. If this guy doesn’t have any life leaks he should have a couple million at least

But something has to be going on here. It is also surprising to me, struck me as a distinguished little gentlemen buying sweaters from j crew and investing in T Bills

Because Berkey is a scumbag too. When are people going to realize this? I’ve never understood why he had a following.

Exactly 👍🏼

💯