Very interesting read: https://vegasadvantage.com/wsop-poke...-legal-threat/

John Mehaffey was known as "Pokeraddict" on 2+2 before changing his name there to simply "John Mehaffey".

He writes blogs and articles about casinos and Las Vegas, and tends to be fair and thorough when he does so. Occasionally his articles have sparked some controversy, but for the most part, he is well respected and not known as any kind of provocateur.

He has posted a few times over on this site, and I've always respected the guy.

The problems all began in July 2017, when Mehaffey wrote an article bashing the support on WSOP.com.

The article complained about an experience John had there at the time, where he had deposited $400 cash at the Rio cage, played a fair amount on there for a few weeks, and attempted to cash out $411 ($11 profit plus his original $400). WSOP.com refused to let him cash out, stating that he hadn't played enough to cash out so soon -- which they're not allowed to do. Eventually WSOP.com dropped that angle and started making him jump through ridiculous hoops to "prove" the $400 deposit and a previous $25 deposit were legit. This was especially ridiculous because a cash deposit at the Rio cage clearly couldn't be fraudulent in any way!

He wrote the above-mentioned article about his experience, and shortly after that, received an e-mail telling him that his self-ban request was honored. When he replied that he never asked for a self ban, he was then told that he was actually banned for breaking their terms of service.

He attempted to report this to Nevada Gaming regulators in September 2017, but didn't follow up because of the October 1 Mandalay Bay massacre, and felt that he didn't want to cause a further distraction at the time.

In April 2018, John claims to have contacted Seth Palansky, VP of Corporate Communications at Caesars. Palansky has deep involvement in both the WSOP and WSOP.com. He appears to be on the same level as Jack Effel (WSOP tournament director), though his role tends to be more involving marketing and media. John claims that, while Seth was professional and polite in their April conversations, they also went nowhere. He claims that Seth justified the ban, and also stated that WSOP.com was very unhappy about his unflattering 2017 article.

I should stop and point out that I also had some customer service issues with WSOP.com (back when it first opened), and like John, I also published unflattering posts about my experiences. Seth Palansky e-mailed me at the time and stated he wanted to have a phone call with me about it, which we did. The call lasted about 45 minutes, and while Seth and I didn't see eye-to-eye about everything, the call was cordial, and Seth also gave me permission to discuss the call publicly (which I did). Admittedly, my issues were not as serious as the ones John faced, and they had mostly been resolved by the time I talked to Seth. But I stood by my criticism, even on the phone with Seth. I haven't played a lot on WSOP.com since then (it's fairly dead), so my interaction with them has been minimal.

Anyway, back to John's situation.

He e-mailed Seth that he would be taking the situation to gaming regulators. He claimed that it wouldn't be a formal complaint, but that he would be notifying them to basically force change going forward.

Palansky allegedly didn't take kindly to that, and according to John, Seth wrote this in response on August 6:

Of course, you can take any course of action that you feel you must. We aren’t threatened by any of it. We will take actions from this point forward to prevent you from spreading misinformation about our company and will do what we feel is necessary, including refusing your service at all our land-based properties as well, in addition to pursuing legal action against you.


John reports that he has not been sued and not been banned, as of the date of his article (September 27).

John is also not backing down, and cites current "anti-SLAPP" laws which he claims are on his side.

Nevada does have anti-SLAPP laws in place, which punish plaintiffs for filing frivolous lawsuits meant to chill free speech. Anti-SLAPP legislation first came into existence in California, meant to provide ordinary defendants an easier way to defend themselves against well-heeled individuals or companies attempting to use the legal system to silence people. When an anti-SLAPP motion for dismissal is filed, the court determines (through various mechanisms) if the lawsuit appears to have been filed simply to intimidate someone from exercising their right to free speech. If it is determined that's the case, the lawsuit is dismissed, the plaintiff has to pay the defendant's legal fees, and sometimes other penalties are assessed. Mehaffey already has some recent history in activism in support of anti-SLAPP laws in Nevada.


How do I feel about this whole thing?

Looks to me that John Mehaffey is in the right. It appears that he reported the true and accurate circumstances of his illegally delayed cashout, and then was banned from WSOP.com for no apparent reason, after writing an article about that experience.

WSOP.com has been around for years now, and it's time for them to clean up their customer service issues.

Rather than get angry at John for sharing his substandard customer service experience with the public, they should have reached out to him, made the issue right, and issued an apology.


I will concede that I am only reading John's side of the story. It is possible that certain details were left out, or perhaps John's claims are exaggerated. However, I don't find this to be likely. John has a great reputation in the poker and gambling world, and he has never been known to be dishonest or grossly inaccurate.

I hope that WSOP.com sees the error in their ways, and issues an apology to John about this entire mess.