Last year, Veronica Brill blew the lid off a massive cheating scandal at Stones Gambling Hall, involving no other than American poker pro Mike Postle. The expose which erupted on Twitter, resulted in a multi-million lawsuit filed against Postle, Stones, and tournament director Justin Kuraitis. The defendants recently gave their oral arguments before a hearing last week, in a bid to dismiss the lawsuit.
Perkins Exposes New Cheating Scandal on Twitter
Now, a new cheating controversy has come to light, involving another high-profile poker pro. The alleged cheating was also exposed on Twitter by hedge fund manager Bill Perkins. The 51-year-old high-stakes regular recently to social media to reveal that he had fallen victim to cheating, carried out by someone widely considered as a “poker hero”.
Perkins provided further details of the alleged cheating in his subsequent tweets, but he refused to directly identify the culprit. He also initially claimed that the newest scandal would make the Mike Postle cheating controversy look like a “church service”.
According to Perkins, the alleged cheating took place during a private game on a poker app, in which he was one of the participants. The person allegedly used an amateur’s account to compete with high-stakes players. The tweets caused quite a stir within the poker community, creating speculations. Perkins later spared Jason Koon from the controversy, saying the player acted in integrity and wasn’t the person he was referring to as the alleged cheater in his tweets.
The businessman also said that there was physical evidence to support the accusations, and that the culprit admitted his guilt. Perkins accusations gained a lot of reactions, with other popular poker pros also joining in on the discussion.
Some of them hit out at the incompleteness of Perkins’ posts, including Doug Polk, who said the hedge fund manager was only “stringing people along” by failing to reveal the identity of the alleged cheater. The three-time WSOP bracelet winner also said ghosting always happens on apps anyway.
The person to eventually name names was Instagram King and high-stakes gambler Dan Bilzerian. He said that the player at the center of the scandal was high stakes poker pro Dan “Jungleman” Cates. Bilzerian also claimed in his now-deleted tweet that Cates cheated him after the latter used another player’s account while competing in a private game on the Fun Ocean poker app.
With names being dropped, Cates came up with his own response and denied that he had played poker against Bilzerian.
Dan Cates Issues Apology
The 30-year-old, considered as one of the world’s best heads-up No Limit Hold’em players, later published a long post on Twitter this week, explaining his connection with the “fish account” named “Sina”. Cates also admitted he played few hands against Perkins, but he pointed out that these types of games are frequented by poker pros who were ghosting, and this quite justified him using another player’s account to play.
Dan Cates apologized to Perkins for being “caught in the crossfire”, but he cried foul over the apparent singling out, when in fact there were many more who must be guilty for committing such act. He also accepted that his punishment should be disproportionate in comparison to a normal player, but he also said that while he holds himself to a high standard of ethics, he is still prone to committing mistakes, and that’s something he wanted to apologize for.
While there were some who supported Cates, some popular pros also criticized him for not setting a good example to the poker community. Shaun Deeb said just because others are doing it doesn’t mean you should do it too, eventhough you know it’s wrong. Others were also disappointed that some players were actually throwing their support for Cates’ misbehavior.
In his long tweet, Cates promised that he’ll do better in the future. This is not the first time that Caters has received flak. He was also involved in a poker scandal back in 2011, alongside Haseeb Qureshi and Jose Macedo.