Seals With Clubs (SwC Poker) under fire for allowing racial epithets in player chat

[Dan Druff]

Interesting controversy brewing today regarding Bryan Micon's bitcoin-based Seals Wtih Clubs site (now called SwC Poker, and "supposedly" not owned/run by him anymore).

A poker player named Katie Chandler, who apparently streams SwC sessions on Twitch, became offended after seeing the chat room full of words like "n-word", "idiotic", and "kike". She raised an issue on Twitter, and someone at SwC responded by stating that chat is "uncensored", and therefore such language is allowed.

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https://twitter.com/twt/status/1215768106989236224

Who is Katie Chandler? I hadn't heard of her before, but she appears to be a lesbian online poker player, and her Twitter is mostly filled with sports picks. I expected her Twitter to also be filled with social justice type tweets, but surprisingly I didn't find any, so perhaps she isn't really into all of that.

Katie then called out to ACR to add mixed games, so she could abandon SwC for good.

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https://twitter.com/twt/status/1215814229493604353

A Twitter user named "Alee Yah" (@ElleSriracha), has since taken up the cause, and is going hard on SwC. Another user agreed, and called on Joey Ingram to publicize the issue.

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https://twitter.com/twt/status/1215787374912966661

Alee Yah called out James Urbanic, a SwC regular/affiliate who was mistaken for being a pro there, and they got into a debate:

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https://twitter.com/twt/status/1215784402111696896

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https://twitter.com/twt/status/1215785544472379392

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https://twitter.com/twt/status/1215788939828715520

At the moment, it seems SwC is standing firm, and is refusing to censor such language or behavior.

[SPIT this]

And you get a stars ban for saying g-a-y. Sad!

[big dick]

The chat is the only reason I play on swc. Im tjslurk210

[Dan Druff]

So how do I feel about this?

I see both sides, actually.

PokerFraudAlert is a free speech forum. Like SwC, I do not censor racial epithets in this section of the forum -- something which has led to similar criticism against me in the past.

However, on the other hand, this is a forum and not a poker site. People are on here for one reason and one reason only -- to read and post messages. Poker is a different story. Many people want to play poker peacefully without having to see racial epithets in chat.

Furthermore, I should point out that I do NOT allow racial epithets or trolling in the "serious" parts of this forum. Trolling and nasty language is only allowed in this "Flying Stupidity" and the anonymous "Bathroom Wall" subforums -- the two free speech areas of the site. I disallow it elsewhere because I don't want trolling and racist language to distract people from serious poker/gambling being discussed in the other forum sections. Additionally, I also don't allow such language on my vegascasinotalk.com forum, for the same reason.

So I'm torn here. Much like this is a free speech forum, SwC purports to be a free speech poker site. So I suppose I can't really criticize them too harshly for that.

At the same time, the chat room is only a secondary feature on poker sites. In fact, some sites like Bovada have completely eliminated chat entirely. It's a bit baffling why SwC is letting immature trolls drive away good customers, especially since the site is kind of a ghost town already. They need every player they can get. I doubt they will lose any business if they put a few rules in place against epithets and severe trolling in chat. As much as I love free speech, if I ran a poker site, I wouldn't allow this sort of thing to occur.

I believe this all stems from Micon's longtime libertarian-esque ideological commitment to free speech. This was an area where we initially agreed, but eventually I came to believe that Micon was overly committed to it without also utilizing common sense. This was what eventually held back NWP from growing further during the poker boom. The cool/outlandish free speech environment eventually transformed into a place where trolls would simply post obscene/gross pictures and gratuitous epithets for the sake of being shocking. You couldn't scroll through a single thread without seeing big black dicks in your face. It became a mess. Eventually Micon and I came to be at odds about this, where I wanted a more common sense free speech approach (free speech while disallowing shock pictures & posts meant to disrupt), while Micon more wanted the Wild West.

When I started PFA, I took the former approach, and I think it's worked well.

Anyway, this current controversy really makes me think Micon is still involved, and in fact the SwC tweets read like something he would write. I have no proof of this, but that's my gut feeling. I do know other people are operating SwC on a day-to-day basis behind the scenes. Micon's level of involvement -- or lack thereof -- has never been fully clear, which is by design since his legal trouble in 2015.

[Dan Druff]

And you get a stars ban for saying g-a-y. Sad!

I hope that's not true nowadays.

When I played there up to 2011, when it was more okay to make gay jokes, I was never once warned for typing



after taking a bad beat.



However, I will admit that Stars once had a meeting about me, where they discussed "what to do about Dan Druff typing g-a-y and site=joke". The conclusion was just to ignore it. I was told this story by a site insider. They were more upset by the site=joke part, though.

[zealanddonk]

Micon's always been niggardly.

[TheXFactor]

Surprised that the state of Nevada or U.S. government didn't seize and shutdown http://www.SealswithClubs.com for good and take every last Bitcoin that Micon made connected to that website.

[Dan Druff]

For those interested in the Seals With Clubs history, here is a brief summary:

2010: Some unknown guy starts Seals With Clubs, a bitcoin-only poker site, but it has almost zero traffic and is poorly marketed.

2011: Micon gets involved and agrees to be the face of the site. This, by coincidence, was right when we stopped being friends, but our issues were totally unrelated to Seals.

Feb 2015: Micon gets busted by the state of Nevada for running Seals. They seize a bunch of his stuff, and he flees to Antigua before they can arrest him. He then makes a defiant video where he announces he is starting SwCPoker.eu to replace Seals.

March 2015: After giving a rather narrow timeframe (30 days) to get the bitcoin off of original Seals, the site closes, and the owners keep the unclaimed bitcoin, which was probably a lot. I always felt this was really crappy. Later, Jesse Martin complained he was stiffed out of $4k because he was getting errors cashing out, and everyone had refused to help him. Micon claimed to Jesse that all of this was the doing of the other Seals owners, and he was just a figurehead promoter. I'm not sure what to believe.

May 2015: SwCPoker is announced "sold" to unknown parties supposedly in Europe, and Micon says he's no longer part of it.

June 2015: Micon, via hotshot Vegas attorneys Chesnoff and Schonfeld, gets a sweetheart deal where he pays a $25k fine and gets 2 years probation. He returns to the US to complete the deal, and he is required to live there for the next 2 years and "hold a steady job". He gets a sham job at a drone store through a friend to satisfy that requirement.

Mid-2017: Having successfully completed probation, Micon leaves the US and moves to Antigua.


That's where it stands right now.

SwCPoker has never been very active, but it has chugged along for years with 50-100 cash players on at once, mostly at low/micro limits. It clearly makes money, but I don't know how much.

The site does not require any kind of documentation to sign up and play. You can play completely anonymously, and never tell them who you are. All transactions are in bitcoin.

[Gordman]

Pooh, what did you do now?

[TheXFactor]

Feb 2015: Micon gets busted by the state of Nevada for running Seals. They seize a bunch of his stuff, and he flees to Antigua before they can arrest him. He then makes a defiant video where he announces he is starting SwCPoker.eu to replace Seals.

I believe that Micon was more than the face of SealsWithClubs, Micon actually bought SealWithClubs and ran the website himself.

Now Micon travels the world on other people's private jets to promote Bitcoins and other shady cryptocurrencies.

[badguy23]

And you get a stars ban for saying g-a-y. Sad!

This is totally false Yebsite his Aspergers friend and I have been running wild on Stars and we use way worse language. Fck u Bovada/Ignition u fucking wanna be cunts. U think I forgot about my 12k Ill be getting that back soon enough from you fckers.

SWC is like the old forums.

Fck all the ppl offended

[badguy23]

Feb 2015: Micon gets busted by the state of Nevada for running Seals. They seize a bunch of his stuff, and he flees to Antigua before they can arrest him. He then makes a defiant video where he announces he is starting SwCPoker.eu to replace Seals.

I believe that Micon was more than the face of SealsWithClubs, Micon actually bought SealWithClubs and ran the website himself.

Now Micon travels the world on other people's private jets to promote Bitcoins and other shady cryptocurrencies.

Anyone with half a brain would be waiting for this plane to land in Antigua and get all Bitcoins on board. I mean is that lolomon in the back?

I just contacted Justin Wade Smith

[Pooh]

Pooh, what did you do now?

I'm fully on board with their policy however if they don't have an ignore chat button I'd suggest they implement one. Problem solved. Always fun to read Druff's posts regarding Micon's site as well as Galfond's. He tries his best to remain "neutral" but anyone with two brain cells can see through these posts for what they are. Back handed compliments and subtle jabs aplenty in this "neutral" posts. I bet if Galfond had given Druff that job things would be different. As much as I enjoy radio shows the segments on run it once poker are cringe worthy and we all know the reason why.

The truth is nobody can hire Druff because if you didn't run the site his way he would quit and trash you non stop, and he'd be a good manager for the most part in my opinion but you can't take that chance in hiring him. Personally I would hire him but I'd have to probably give him the keys to the kingdom until he really fucked up.

[nunbeater]

that's crazy that people just say n-word on the Internet

[PLOL]

Fun fact, I was chat banned from SWC back in the day. And then later on I was forced to change my username multiple times because they found it offensive. Guess they didn't like my usernames of "Bryan Micon" or "BryanMicon"

[Dan Druff]

Fun fact, I was chat banned from SWC back in the day. And then later on I was forced to change my username multiple times because they found it offensive. Guess they didn't like my usernames of "Bryan Micon" or "BryanMicon"

I remember you also did that on the Donkdown forum.

[Dan Druff]

I'm fully on board with their policy however if they don't have an ignore chat button I'd suggest they implement one. Problem solved. Always fun to read Druff's posts regarding Micon's site as well as Galfond's. He tries his best to remain "neutral" but anyone with two brain cells can see through these posts for what they are. Back handed compliments and subtle jabs aplenty in this "neutral" posts. I bet if Galfond had given Druff that job things would be different. As much as I enjoy radio shows the segments on run it once poker are cringe worthy and we all know the reason why.

The truth is nobody can hire Druff because if you didn't run the site his way he would quit and trash you non stop, and he'd be a good manager for the most part in my opinion but you can't take that chance in hiring him. Personally I would hire him but I'd have to probably give him the keys to the kingdom until he really fucked up.

Look, I can only be as neutral as I can be when it involves someone with whom I have history. I think I've done a great job being objective regarding Micon.

Regarding Galfond, I'm really not bitter about not being hired there. It was a shot in the dark to get the job, and I pretty much just cold e-mailed him out of nowhere once I heard about his site being in development. I didn't expect much. He did write a nice, long response to me. No issues with the guy personally. I do find it funny that a lot of the site's fail would have been averted if he hired me (or someone like me) to advise him away from some of the awful decisions they made.

I also wouldn't bash former employers unless they screwed me over in some way (or did really unethical things to customers).

[Zap_the_Fractions_Giraffe]

micon sold me a bitcoin for 26 dollars so I could play on SWC. i rolled it up a little bit but got bored with the site, withdrew it to an ewallet and forgot about it. I forgot about it, then when bitcoin started blowing up I somehow remembered my login to the exchange site and I ended up selling what I had for 798 dollars when bitcoin was around 400 dollars. And of course, roughly one day later it was at 1200. i wish i would have forgotten about my bitcoins for longer, and i also wish i would have been a true believer in bitcoin, but it was just a way to play microstakes online for me

[ftpjesus]

Why should anybody be surprised. Come on we all know the original black cock racist and other shit that went on with NWP. And as much as Micon can claim he’s not involved I think we all know the truth off the record even if he’s just a silent partner now it’s no secret those who run SWC now are from the NWP and Donkdown family. Obviously she’s not educated about the background of the site and it’s birth and the folks behind it.

[ftpjesus]

Surprised that the state of Nevada or U.S. government didn't seize and shutdown http://www.SealswithClubs.com for good and take every last Bitcoin that Micon made connected to that website.

Maybe that’s because it’s run under a .eu domain and has for awhile. US has no jurisdiction over EU domains hence why somebody registering a EU domain if they hypothetically live in the US has to have a domain agent for that domain in order to own/control it. 😏

Sealswithclubs.com isn’t active it is however registered through sometime in 2022 though a proxy privacy agent out of panama in Central America