Originally Posted by
Dan Druff
Great article, as usual, Haley.
For those who don't have time to read the whole thing (though I suggest you do, because it's interesting), it appears that Vayo had someone forge bank and phone company documents in order to "prove" he was in Canada.
Shockingly, that forger somehow made contact with Pokerstars and spilled the beans. Not sure how or why this happened. Was the forger mad at Vayo? Haley's article describes that Pokerstars claimed a "third party" led them to the forger, but it's unclear why the third party did this, or why the forger cooperated. Perhaps Pokerstars threatened legal action against the forger unless he cooperated.
Anyway, the forger told everything to Pokerstars, and Vayo's case came crashing down. Laughably, the forgery wasn't even very good, and some of the numbers on the bank statement didn't even add up properly, after various California transactions were photoshopped out.
Over 10 years ago, I was playing on a network which no longer allowed US players (this was shortly after the UIGEA). The "skin" into the network was fully aware that I was still in the US, as I was friends with the owner. Even upper management of the poker portion of the network were aware I was bullshitting, and they were fine with it, because I was friendly with them. I was even listed as "Canadian" when I went to go play a live tournament associated with the site, and I had a forwarding mailbox in Montreal. (Nowadays this trick wouldn't work as an address, because it would come up as a forwarder when googled!) Anyway, when it came time to cash out, the cashier department wanted "proof' documents, which I hadn't considered, because I had been on there for years (when they accepted US players) and they never asked for it before. I went on to forge two documents, but I made sure that each and every detail was consistent and real-looking. I was able to get my money, and they never caught it. I quit playing on the network at that point, and decided I was permanently done with playing in jurisdictions in which I wasn't allowed.
JoeD and other attorneys here: Do you think Pokerstars has a good chance of prevailing in their claim to recover their attorney's fees and other costs? I realize that Vayo falsified evidence, but could he claim that he simply did so in order to bolster his case, but was actually in Canada when he played on Pokerstars and simply couldn't prove it? Or would the forged evidence submitted to the court allow them to have a slam dunk to recover those hundreds of thousands of dollars in fees? And being a foreign company, could they use the US court system to compel him to actually pay?