No give, all take?
One aspect of the professional poker world that you won’t find in most other industries is that players frequently loan money to one another. And while this certainly comes with its benefits, the clear downside is that when it comes to gamblers, sometimes someone is left holding the bag. Recently, some of the poker world’s top players have spoken out against Tom Dwan, who they say owes them obscene amounts of money and has owed them for years.
High stakes poker pro Peter Jetten kicked things off in mid-February when he posted on X: “Would caution against doing business with Tom Dwan. He’s owed me 226k for 4 years and continues to use delay tactics to avoid payment. He says he’ll pay next week, next triton poker stop, etc. but never does.”
Reactions were mixed, as one might expect on the internet. Some empathized and appreciated Jetten providing a warning, others did not like that he aired his “dirty laundry” in public, and some felt he got what he was asking for, loaning money to a gambler.
Jetten continued a couple days later, saying, “I decided to tweet about Tom Dwan because I think there’s zero chance of him actually paying me if I don’t. My view is that he’s got such a massive ego that even if he makes 20mm tomorrow he’ll punt it off gambling before he pays. When I get a min I’ll share texts that show how awful it’s been dealing with him.”
He has yet to post any texts.
Then, on Monday, Jetten followed up, saying that Dwan paid him $30,000 after seeing the social media posts.
“Things aren’t looking good tho,” Jetten added. “One of our recent convos went something like this: He says he’ll pay remaining balance in Jeju [South Korea]. I say no I don’t believe you. He says if I don’t I’ll add 25k on top. I say no. He then switches gears and says he doesn’t owe the full amount and that I’m a liar/scum etc.”
Jetten finished by saying, “He was always civil when I was giving him more time but when I put my foot down he changed tactics completely. I’ve never dealt with someone this unethical.”
NBA betting legend has beef
Today, famed sports bettor and former Director of Quantitative Research and Development for the Dallas Mavericks Haralabos Voulgaris told his story, publicly asking Dwan, “Can we finally get the last 350k that you’ve owed me since 2010. Pretty Please.”
Voulgaris actually recounted the situation about a decade ago, but didn’t actually name names. Most guessed it was Dwan, though.
According to Voulgaris, Dwan served as a “beard” for him, placing bets with a huge bookmaker in order to hide Voulgaris’ identity. They won in the “high 7 figures” and Dwan received 25% for his services. All of the winnings, though, initially went to Dwan since he was the one placing the bets.
Voulgaris claims that Dwan lost the winnings “betting on sports bearding for another group with the same bookmaker” and therefore did not have the ability to pay Voulgaris his portion. Through much effort, Voulgaris said he has collected most of the money, but there is still $350,000 left to be paid.
“Tom does not dispute the debt, he knows he’s responsible for it, our last conversation after the HCL Million Dollar match was me requesting him to pay a small monthly amount at which point he ghosted me,” Voulgaris added.
He also said that Dwan “very rarely” offered to pay any of the money he owed and Voulgaris only got a big chunk of it through someone who actually owed Dwan money and agreed to pay Voulgaris, instead.
And then there is poker pro Daniel Cates, who was famously trouncing Dwan in the Durrrr Challenge 11 years ago when Dwan upped and quit. Cates has said in the past that Dwan did pay him penalties for delays, but in the end, the challenge, which Cates likely would have won, never concluded.
Cates added to the Dwan conversation today, telling Doug Polk, who is trying to collect a list of Dwan creditors to cover on his podcast, “You are missing many, many more. I don’t know if it does much good to actually go after him though.”