Casino Claims No Foul Play In Poker Cheating ScandalLegal Team For Casino Filed Motion To Dismiss The $30 Million Lawsuit Over Possibly Compromised Live-Streamed Cash Games |
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Stones Gambling Hall doesn’t think highly of the poker community’s intelligence.
While the poker world overwhelmingly believes that Mike Postle cheated others out of their money on live-streamed cash games at the Sacramento-area cardroom, the room itself said that there was no wrongdoing.
The Sacramento Bee reported Thursday morning that Kings Casino LLC, owner of Stones Gambling Hall, submitted a motion to dismiss the $30 million lawsuit against Kings Casino, Mike Postle and Stones’ Tournament Director Justin Kuratis, who was in charge of the live stream.
“This lawsuit reflects the oldest complaints of gamblers – that their lack of success means they were cheated,” read the filing.
Stones’ lawyers are asking for a hearing on April 16 to hear arguments on their motion to dismiss the case. The casino’s legal team stated that under California law, damages are not awarded for gambling losses.
In 2018 and 2019, Postle had won roughly $250,000 in mostly $1-$3 no-limit hold’em cash games on Stones Live Poker. After more than a year of almost exclusively winning sessions on the stream, former Stones Live commentator Veronica Brill made her cheating concerns public.
According to an October interview with Brill, she had initially brought up her concerns privately to Kuraitis. Kuraitis assured her that there was no cheating involved and that an internal investigation cleared Postle of any suspected foul play.
When she made her concerns public, however, Stones announced publicly that it would run a third-party investigation. The last tweet from Stones Gambling Hall was on November 8, 2019, that said it would be shutting down its streaming operations while the investigation was conducted.
In a statement Wednesday, Stones once again said that it found no cheating.
“We have found no evidence that indicates there was cheating in the games in question,” read the statement. “Stones is confident that it will prevail in this unwarranted lawsuit.”
Brill’s allegations sparked the dissection of hundreds of hours of Postle’s live-streamed play by some of poker’s best players and brightest minds. After seeing Postle’s ability to nearly always make the right decision on every street combined, his astronomically high win-rate and his unorthodox strategy, the consensus from several high-stakes pros was that he was cheating.
Even though several top pros, including Scott Seiver, Matt Berkey and Doug Polk, believed he cheated, there was still a question of how, which wasn’t as easy to pin down.
There were several theories floated around, including the hole cards being streamed right to his phone or that he was receiving information from a bone conduction headphone located in his hat. Both of these theories were supported by video footage of Postle on stream constantly looking at his phone located in his lap or the appearance of a bulky device located in his hat that he would constantly touch during tough decisions.
Since Kuraitis vehemently defended Postle to Brill and others in the community, it was widely believed that Kuraitis was the one behind the scenes that helped Postle cheat. After the allegations went public, Kuraitis made his Twitter account private and has been silent on the issue.
Card Player reached out to Stones Gambling Hall Thursday morning and they would not comment on the status of Kuraitis’ employment with the company.
According to court documents, Postle is representing himself in the matter, confirming what Mac Verstandig, the lawyer for the numerous plaintiffs, suspected when he was having trouble serving Postle legal notice of the suit earlier this year. Postle has until March 24 to file his response to the lawsuit.
Diving further into the filing by Stones, it is clear that while they are claiming that there was no cheating, the property is doing its best to distance itself from the accused cheater.
“Stones had no stake in who won money or lost money in the poker games,” the motion stated. “All Stones did was provide a venue for the poker game.
“Plaintiffs do not allege that Stones benefited from Mr. Postle’s alleged cheating. No Ill-gotten profits or sinister motivations are imputed to Stones. Plaintiffs even tacitly concede that cheating by players harms Stones’ business and reputation. It is confounding that Plaintiffs now sue Stones rather than seeking its assistance in their shared goal of preventing cheating in poker.”
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