UPDATE 8/12/18:

iNinjaPoker has restarted under completely new ownership, and Isaac Tucker is no longer involved. The new owners have also made whole everyone who was previously affected by Tucker's issues.

While still operating under the same name as before, the current incarnation of iNinja seems trustworthy, and all of the current owners have good reputations.

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(November 2016 post is below)


Here is the story. WARNING: This is a LONG read ---> https://docs.google.com/document/d/1...Ic/mobilebasic

Cliffs:

- iNinja Poker Leagues was founded by Issac Tucker (@IssacTucker on Twitter) in 2014. It primarily operated out of Minnesota. They signed a bunch of pros, though none of them were very well known. The pros were promised partial WSOP buyins, other tournament buyins, etc, in exchange for being associated with the brand. Here's a puff piece written by Pokernews (likely paid) about iNinja in May 2015: https://www.pokernews.com/news/2015/...wsop-21376.htm



- Issac seems to be having a hard time paying its pros as promised, and gives lots of sketchy excuses. This goes on throughout 2015, though most people eventually get paid, albeit after a lot of hassle and often very late.

- Some people who won WSOP seats at league events did not get their seats, or they flew to Vegas to claim them not knowing whether they would actually receive them or not.

- Pro Kou Vang was about to leave iNinja, but was talked into staying. As a condition of him staying, he was promoted to general manager in February 2016.

- Kou Vang did a good job, and the league ran smoothly for the next 4 months.

- In June 2016, Issac started asking pros to exchange cash for Paypal, at an event at Planet Hollywood. Players found this odd, but they found it even odder when the same requests came in at other iNinja events around the country.

- In July 2016, team pro payments stopped:




- He then claims he is being "audited" (by the IRS?) and his money is frozen:




- Issac holds a heads-up tournament and is suddenly able to pay the pros the money he owes. They suspect he is using tournament funds (which have not yet been distributed) to pay the pros. Issac denies this.

- Issac is arrested for an unrelated matter: http://forumserver.twoplustwo.com/29...-park-1625825/ ... This sends pros into a panic that they will never see that heads-up tournament money. (Turned out the arrest was just over traffic tickets.)

- Issac indeed claims that the St. Paul police are denying him access to the money, because it's locked up in a storage locker in St. Paul, and the key was lost while he was in jail.

- Issac supposedly was able to get to the money, but when he showed it to the team, it was clearly new $100 bills, and not the mishmash of $20s, $50, and $100s in that storage locker.

- Kou was talked into buying 50% of the company in April for $40k, in exchange for 50% of the ongoing revenue. He did not receive this revenue.

- Desperate for money, Issac started selling off portions of the company again:




Anyway, I guess the story isn't finished yet, but Kou tweeted out the link to this expose today.

You should stay away from the iNinja Poker League at this point.