Mike Holtz, an online poker pro who puts in a ton of volume, wrote the following in a Facebook poker group:

As some of you know I’m the current WSOP online player of the year. I’m currently up well north of 150k since January. On Monday I logged into my account and saw it was temporaril my disabled. I checked my ceasers rewards account which is well on the way to seven stars this year (connected to my wsop account) and it was also deactivated.

I called wsop they could give me no answers and assured me I would get a call within 72 hours to get to the bottom of this.

My next step was to go to caesars palace where after 10 min of waiting I was escorted off property by security. Two days of phone calls, handwritten letters and emails and I was finally promised a phone call from Danielle Barille over at caesars/wsop.

Today (Friday 4 days after my ban I receive the call) I was informed that because I withdrew several amounts in February under 10k that my account was now frozen until I provided tax returns from the last two years, even tho the vast majority of my wins are in 2021. I have several withdrawals north of 10k including two above 35k. All my recent withdrawals have been 13k+.

They demanded I send them my last two years of tax forms which I did immediately but they won’t give me an answer till next week.
The whole thing is absurd, has anyone heard of this happening? They removed me from player of the year and the circuit leaderboard as well. I’m just at a loss for words

TLDR: wsop player of the year banned for taking too much $ out of my account, losing valuable time on the leaderboard
We're going to have him on radio tonight.

This is an interesting situation. The reason WSOP.com was concerned that he withdrew "several amounts under 10k" was because of federal structuring laws. "Structuring" is a crime where one does cash transactions specifically in a way to avoid the $10k+ reporting requirement to the IRS.

Holtz claims that he has several withdrawals above 10k in 2021, including one for as much as 35k, so this concern on their part is unjustified.

I will ask Holtz if he withdrew these sub-10k amounts in cash at the cage, or if he did it via EFT or other electronic transfer. If it wasn't in physical cash, I don't even understand WSOP's concern, because the reporting requirement only applies to physical cash.

He is especially pissed because he's currently the WSOP Online Player of the Year, and is afraid that the time to sort this out will allow someone else to pass him. The online player of the year wins various prizes, including $10k cash, online tournament entries, and a special ring.