Lawsuit: Poker Influencers Allege Millions In Unpaid Wages

Poker pro Scott Ball has sued ACR Poker and company CEO Phil Nagy alleging breach of contract after his End Game Talent agency was contracted by the online poker site to hire streamers to represent the brand. The streamers, including Twitch star Ludwig Ahgren and chess streamer Alexandra Botez, have alleged that they were never paid.

Ball also sued International Processing Services and Foozle Ventures, a digital marketing company. Ball, a two-time WSOP bracelet winner, revealed that his company had worked with ACR for several years with multi-million dollar contracts arranged during that time.

However, Ball noted that all payments stopped in June 2023, including nine invoices for $3.3 million for June 2023 to April 2024. The suit also includes claims of libel and seeks $30 million in damages.

“Defendant published false and defamatory statements about Plaintiffs, including but not limited to public statements attributing payment failures to Plaintiffs’ alleged failure to ‘follow through on their commitments’ and claiming Plaintiffs ‘dropped the ball,’” the lawsuit noted.

ACR Denies Allegations

Nagy has denied the allegations and said his company lived up to their end of the contract. Earlier this year, Nagy appeared on Matt Berkey’s Only Friends podcast episode to deny that End Game had not been paid.

"ACR Poker engaged a third-party agency to arrange brand marketing by streamers they purported to represent,” a statement from ACR noted. “Every streamer worked under their own talent agency. ACR paid the central agency, which was to pay the streamers through their respective talent agents. That arrangement unfortunately ended with serious disputes about whether the central agency stiffed or underpaid the various talent agencies or their individual streamer clients.”

“ACR stands by our positive track record with sponsored players, marketing campaigns, and streamers’ talent agencies. The company that reportedly failed to pay talent agencies is believed to have been sued by the streamers’ talent agencies.”

Ball, who is the former head of poker on Twitch, has faced criticism for his dealings from other pros in the past including Doug Polk, Markus Gonsalves, and Mike Matusow. Poker.org also reported that the Loaded LLC talent agency has a default judgment from June against End Game for more than $700,000 due to breach of contract.

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