Local Pro Alleges Widespread Poker Cheating Ring in Las Vegas
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Mike Holtz, a two-time WSOP Online Player of the Year and co-host of the PokerNews Podcast, has never shied away from speaking his mind, and on Wednesday night he did just that in a nearly 10-minute video in which he called out an alleged Las Vegas cheating ring, criticized poker room staff (with the exception of the Wynn) who fail to take action, and called for the community to come together to institute change.
The video came after Holtz participated in the $800 buy-in Poker Atlas Tour Main Event, a tournament that attracted 419 entrants and awarded a $60,250 top prize to winner Juan Campayo Hernandez.
As Holtz explained, which you can hear in his own words in the video below, he allegedly witnessed a big-stacked player in Seat 9 and a short-stacked player in Seat 2 colluding.
"Every time the nine seat opens, it seems to me like the two seat is folding in a way where he's folding his cards and showing the [other player]. So every time he folds, he folds it towards the nine seat and he can see. That's only when there's seven, eight and one seats fold that he does it every time. I saw it twice and I thought this guy's got to be — it's pretty funky, like it's a weird hand motion to do, so I decided to watch. I noticed that he started folding normally whenever the nine seat wouldn't open. Now, the nine seat [Juan Campayo Hernandez] wins this tournament, by the way, keep that in mind, he wins all the money."
"My buddy Patrick says, 'They're f****** cheating, right? Like they, they have to be cheating.' I was like, 'Yeah, they're cheating 100%.'"
Holtz stated that he called the floor over but that they didn't take action, which upset some of the players.
"So, the guy in the two seat gets eliminated, I get moved to a different table, and there's another guy who's part of their friend group. He's in the one seat and I'm in the three seat. Colin Robinson, a good professional poker player, he's in the two seat. The guy who busted earlier, the guy sharing the cards, walks into the poker room behind this guy who's in the one seat, and he's talking in a different language while cards are being dealt. I'm like, 'Yo, get this cheating fucker out of here.' Like, get him away from us. He can't be here. He gets cards on the button, the guy behind him is staring at me just like smiling like, 'Yeah, you can't do shit about it.'"
He continued: "Cards get dealt to him. He looks at it. The guy behind him is looking too, and then the guy behind him immediately just stares at Colin Robinson's eyes in the blinds and starts talking in a different language. I start yelling. What is happening right now? What could possibly be occurring other than them cheating? The guy behind him runs out of the poker room. The floor says, 'What do you want me to do? Chase him?'"
According to Holtz, that took place on Day 1c of the tournament and nothing was done. He also alleged that the players are a part of a "cheating group" of "six or seven of them" that play at other poker rooms in Las Vegas. He even claimed to have caught one of those players ghosting someone on GGPoker.
Dealers Exposing Cards
Holtz also took issue with a lack of game security, specifically with dealers inadvertently exposing cards.
"I just think we as a community need to start doing better. Somebody has to do better. There's no way we can just continue to be cheated. I'll tell you this, when I first mentioned the guy cheating at the table or next table where the guy ran, the dealer who was there starts calling me names, starts saying I'm a crybaby ... a dealer should never talk to a player like that."
"This has gotten far out of hand and people are cheating in crazy ways."
Holtz continued: "Eventually we get another dealer, he's exposing cards. I tell him five hands in a row. There are several regs at this table who can confirm this. I'm calling cards out. I'm saying black face card, red, red queen. What is going on right now? The guy won't even talk to me. The floor is watching this. I keep saying I can see cards."
Apparently, Holtz proved it by calling out cards and indeed, a player would turn over that card.
"I don't want to have beef with Resorts, but we have to do something as a community. This has gotten far out of hand and people are cheating in crazy ways. You think they don't, you think some people aren't using pinhole cameras with their phones on there? Do you think that's not happening? Because it is. We're being cheated."
What Should Be Done?
According to Holtz, the first step in doing something would be for dealers to start dealing the European style in which cards are distributed as a face-down slide, which negates pitch and any chance of a player accidentally sneaking a peek.
"What scares me is that I feel like I'm the only one, or one of the only ones, who says something. So, if I'm one of the only ones that says something and no one wants to believe me, how many other people are seeing this and not saying shit? The next time you three-bet a river and get snapped off by fourth pair, you should think to yourself, 'Did I just get cheated?' Because that's what poker's evolved into at this point. It's like who can cheat better? So, unless we as a community can all come together and say, "F*** this bullshit. Stop cheating us. We want an environment where everyone is safe. Everyone feels safe and welcome.'"
"It's a fantastic game that we all love. I just want to see us be more protected."
He added: "We want more people in poker. You know what happens when they see cheating scandals over and over and over again? People don't want to play poker. Do you want to kill the game? This is how we kill the game."
For Holtz, a daily grinder in the Las Vegas poker scene, it seems enough is enough.
"I feel like I've literally burned some of my social credit because I keep talking about this so vocally, and I don't want to be that guy, but someone has to be that guy," he said. "We need this. We need to end cheating, and when you see someone at your table talk about getting cheated or think, everyone should stop doing what they're doing and take it extremely seriously because we're playing for amounts of money that regular human beings don't see very often. So, it incentivizes cheating ... It's a fantastic game that we all love. I just want to see us be more protected."
Community Responds
One player who immediately took notice was Patrick Leonard, who said: “In the last 3 months I've told the dealers 20+ times that their pitch is too high and I can see the cards. Why do they ‘pitch’ them and not just slide them? Seems to fix a lot?”
He also tweeted:
Joel Baker, who actually finished third in the tournament at Resorts World chimed in: “I was in the tournament took 3rd place and I 100 percent felt like the guy that won the tournament was getting info from his buddies at times they would stand behind other players. I mentioned it to Kenna [James] that he needed to be more careful when looking at his cards.”
Elvis Toomas said: “Be aware of your surroundings. Take a minute and watch this video, if you notice something, speak up.”
“Shoutout to Mike for always standing up for the good of the game,” said 2013 WSOP Main Event champ Ryan Riess.
Andy Bloch added: “These things have always been a problem and it seems like it might be getting worse. Unfortunately, there's always been a lot of both poorly trained dealers and experienced dealers who get sloppy over time, and poor management who don't ever watch things like how dealers pitch.”
Other players to add their two cents included Tony Dunst, Allen Kessler, Brandon Sunshine, Lauren Roberts, Eric Zheng, Brian Hastings, and Robert Mizrachi.
PokerNews spoke with Holtz the day after he released his video and he shared:
So many people have reached out, like over a hundred. Tournament directors for multiple properties, including California, Resorts World, Venetian, and Wynn, has been collaborating with them to figure out what’s going on.
I spoke with so many people during that Resorts World tournament who felt that they paid rake to a room that didn’t really care about the players. One of my best friends is Landon Brown, he’s a poker savant, and he encouraged me to make a video, because, as he put it not everyone has a voice, but I do. I figure since I have a platform I should use it to help improve the game.
