Mike ‘The Mouth’ Matusow has gone to YouStake to raise money for his run at the 2021 World Series of Poker (WSOP) which starts on Sep 30 at the Rio in Las Vegas, Nevada and comes to an end on Nov 23.
Matusow Selling WSOP Poker Action
Mike Matusow plans to play at a number of WSOP events and a lot of them are high stakes poker events. Poker players who need to raise funds for their bankroll go to poker staking websites like YouStake to reach out to financial backers who are willing to stake them in return for some of the action.
Some people look at it as investing when they back reputed poker players and get a percentage of their wins while others consider it gambling as the investor gets nothing if the poker player does not end up in the money. A lot of financial backers on platforms like YouStake wait for the opportunity to buy-in to some action from a big name player.
Matusow has just under $10 million in career prize money and 4 WSOP gold bracelets to his name. He certainly qualifies as a big name poker player and hence his WSOP package on YouStake did get a lot of attention – a lot of that attention was negative though.
A total of 14 events have been posted on YouStake and most of them have a markup of 1.5 while a few have a markup of 1.2. The 2021 WSOP Main Event has a markup of 1.5.
Matusow put out a tweet which said “I’m selling 50% of all my wsop 10 k or higher @YouStake   come checkout my package!  I’m giving a free 25%  in  my smaller tourneys for free to anyone who buys half of my 10 k or higher events! My poker games been real sharp & I’ve only lost 1 yr  @wsop! Good luck us! #positivity”
Criticised For Robbing People
His post got a lot of attention on social media and a lot of it was negative. One user said that big names in poker were robbing people out in the open and that the markup situation on staking sites was not going away.
The criticism is justified as there are a lot of stakers who don’t fully understand how the action works and are more than willing to back a big name like Matusow to get on some of his WSOP action.
Some Twitter users called him out for being broke and turning to YouStake to boost his bankroll while some criticized him for being an anti-vaxxer. Some of the comments include I would rather set my money on fire, not going to pay a 1.5 markup and will buy-in only if you wear a mask.
Matusow received support from his friend and Poker Hall of Famer Phil Hellmuth who put out a tweet to promote Matusow’s package on YouStake. As a result, Hellmuth also got a bit of criticism for backing the YouStake package which a lot of players thought was unfair.
While Matusow did get a lot of flak, there were a few who came out and supported him. One of the comments said that Matusow should not be labelled as a scammer or a robber because at the end of the day a player can receive funds if there is someone out there willing to back them.
This is not the first time that staking action on YouStake has come in for criticism. During the 2019 WSOP series, Shaun Deeb went after Allen Kessler and called him out for his high markup package.