Jami Lafay Daniels asking for $50k via gofundme due to cancer surgery, but a lot doesn't add up

[Dan Druff]

In case you're not familiar, in the past two months Jami Lafay (real name Jami Daniels) has caused drama at a poker room by yelling out loud that a player smells bad, then she drove a fellow Native American female poker player off social media after allegedly harassing her at the poker table, and capped it all off with a fake suicide scare, where in reality she was just traveling from LA to San Francisco.

I know this is going to shock you guys, but now Jami is posting "cancer surgery" pics and asking for $50k on gofundme.

Yeah, absolutely nobody in the world saw this coming. I'm as floored as you are.

Embedded Tweet

https://twitter.com/LafayJami/status/1627036567239020547


Here is the gofuckme that her "sister" set up:

Welcome: Thank you for listening to Jami's story. Those of you who know Jami Lafay know that she has an incredible gift for bringing laughter and joy to any room. Long story short: Jami has run into terrible, terrible luck - if you could spare just a buyin or two for your main game (or even just a few big blinds!), it would make a world of difference.

What happened? Earlier this year, Jami was diagnosed with "metastatic papillary thyroid carcinoma" on the left side of her neck and a "pleomorphic adenoma" on the right side of her neck. This was going to require hours and hours of very risky surgery, as the growths pressed against a major artery in the neck and several nerves that impact the ability for her face to function.

These masses in her neck have been causing her severe pain for months, and needed surgery immediately despite the risks to her life and ability to function.

She did all the “right” things…eating well, sleeping well, exercising, going to doctor appointments and health screenings, and managing her stress. And yet, life is unfair and CANCER SUCKS!

What's the latest status? The first operation lasted about 10 hours and initially went well, wrapping up around 6PM. Unfortunately later that night, there were complications with swelling that happen about 10% of the time, and she needed an additional urgent operation at 11 PM that night that went until 2AM.



Since then, she's also had adverse reactions to most of the medications typically used for pain - which as you can imagine, has been insanely intense. Can you imagine recovering from getting your body cut up and not being able to use pain killers as they're intended? Jami has barely been able to sleep or function.

She's been so strong throughout and luckily she's doing better now, but it sounds like recovery (from just this surgery) is going to take another ~3 months or so - and there's still another surgery that's still to come.



What can you do? Even the smallest donations will make a world of difference. You can donate here or via crypto to this BTC address: bc1qtvzaxmzp34zwdkyzhkzaxusse0f2x0d3qeca07.

Jami has the kindest heart out of anyone I know, and now she needs our help and support. Your generous donations will help with the following expenses:

Medical expenses not covered by insurance
Travel expenses to the cancer center and hospitals
Loss of income due to inability to work
Medications

Thank you so so much for your donations, prayers, well wishes, support, and positive thoughts as we join together to support Jami and her family!

https://www.gofundme.com/f/pf3xn-hel...bad-imaginable


This was supposedly started by "Julie Daniels" (Daniels is Jami's real last name), but oddly at the bottom it says it was organized by "Julie and Daniel". What? So it was co-organized by Daniel Daniels?

Notice the part which says, "if you could spare just a buyin or two for your main game (or even just a few big blinds!), it would make a world of difference". As far as we can tell, her sister Julie doesn't play poker. Would a non-poker player really suggest that people spare "a few big blinds"? Also, the title of the gofundme mentions "the worst run-bad imaginable" -- again, a poker term by a supposed non poker player.

And why is this entirely aimed at the poker community? Why isn't this gofundme also aimed at her friends and family outside of poker?

Oh, and she wants to play the WSOP Main before she dies. Just to let you know that.



https://twitter.com/i/web/status/1627084954525126657


Obviously very sketchy.

Oh... and look at this:

Embedded Tweet

https://twitter.com/PokerCookieM/status/1627074307083112449

... and this:

Embedded Tweet

https://twitter.com/hoewithacamera/status/1627329781762072577


So apparently she's been asking for money due to "cancer" all the way back 2017, at one point claiming to have beaten stage 4 cancer (???) with a dietary change??


Oh, and she needs the $50k despite not having seen a medical bill yet from her recent hospital stay. And apparently she needs money to gamble with when she gets out?

Yeah... not shady at all.

[Dan Druff]

Here is Jami's explanation for why her last name "Lafay" isn't the same as her sister Julie Daniels:



https://twitter.com/i/web/status/1627081839088390144




https://twitter.com/i/web/status/1627159910315327489



But wait!

First off, her Facebook URL is facebook.com/jami.daniels.52




Second, here's the People Search entry for Jami from when she lived in Bigform, MT (remember, that's where her boutique was once located):




Notice she is listed as "Jami L Daniels", with the L standing for Lafay.

Lafay is her middle name. Daniels is her last name.

So she's just flat out lying that her sister "Julie Daniels" has a different last name because of having a different father. They have the same last name -- if Julie even exists, which I haven't bothered researching yet.

This is too easy.

[garrett]

hey everybody so what's going on in this thread

[Dan Druff]

Here's her Yelp reviews, ranging from 2012 to 2020. Aside from the one she wrote for her own botique in 2014, let's look at a selection of some of the rest:

https://www.yelp.com/user_details_re...view_sort=time

2/24/2020
Northern Quest Resort & Casino
Airway Heights, WA 99001

1 star

Worst poker room around. The service is horrible. The wait staff is slow and unhappy. The dealers have screwed up more than anyone I've ever seen. They don't opEn tables when they have more than enough people to. The staff is lazy. Good dealers would make a huge difference. The chairs suck. They are so hard on your back. Horrible poker room!
They have a woman named sarina who talked so badly about me behind my back that I will never ever play poker there again. I will play other poker rooms like Black Pearl poker room.

6/30/2019

Rio Hotel & Casino
Las Vegas, NV

1 star

The poker here is so bad. The service is not good and they are very very sexiest to women. I had a situation where this guy was harassing me so I asked for a table change. As I was leaving the table he started in on me more. Instead of dealing with this guy and asking him to stop being confrontational at the table they allowed it. They didn't ask him to stop or leave

7/23/2015

Bigfork Family Practice
Bigfork, MT

1 star

I have cancer in my throat with a sinus cyst. I got a very very painful sinus infection and after three days on the antibiotic with no pain subsiding I called in asking for help.
I have been seeing Michelle for 4 years. No problems as long as I was healthy.
I got into so much pain I called her up crying at 3:30am. She told me to go to the ER.
I went. They told me I had sever sinus infection and to fallow up with Michelle.
When I woke up in the same pain and called Michelle asking for a antibiotic that was stronger she said she had no reason to believe I was in pain. When my son tried to talked to her she said she was calling the cops and hung up on me.

12/8/2012

American Cancer Society
New York, NY

I had a caregiver that was abusing me and so t
Instead of supporting me when I had to ask them to leave they kicked me out during hurricane Sandy. I had to pay an outrageous price for a hotel next door and move all my stuff by myself and the wouldn't even let me use the luggage cart to take the stuff right across the street. I was almost hospitalized from the whole ordeal.
They were not nice, or helpful with anything.
They also never clean the bending and the floors were never cleaned but always covered in hair. The showers had mold growing in them.
Yes it's free but that's I guess what you don't pay for.

Seemingly lots of people abusing and sexually harassing her. Recall that her recent gripe with the Aria was quite similar -- a guy was sexually harassing her, she complained, and SHE got banned for it.

Not sure what the deal is with her cancer, but I see she's had it for at least 10 years (see review above from 2012), and yet here she is looking healthy on poker streams in 2023.

I have no doubt that she has SOME health issue, maybe even some kind of slow moving cancer, but obviously there's a huge part of the story missing here.

[Dan Druff]

Luke Vrabel, aka Slaydog, is taking a lot of shit for his criticism of Jami. Luke called her out over the fake suicide a few weeks ago, and now he's been calling out the gofundme grift. Many people can't take it, and are accusing him of being heartless, a misogynist, etc.

Not fair. When someone sticks their hand out for $50k to a bunch of strangers, we have a right to question them, especially if they have a recent history of shady behavior.

Here's a video of Luke talking about it:

Embedded Tweet

https://twitter.com/slayAbidesDOTL/status/1627458731226136577

[garrett]

Druff if you ever need a 2nd job be a Private eye lol you're pretty good now gotta catch up on thread.

[Small_Banana]

She doesn't have the looks to get money off of the simps so she went the fake cancer route.

[Dan Druff]

She doesn't have the looks to get money off of the simps so she went the fake cancer route.

She looks pretty good for someone who's 43.

And she clearly has some medical condition -- perhaps even cancer. She's posted a lot of very real pictures of herself in the hospital, with what appears to be authentic cuts from surgical incisions.

The problem is that we're not getting the whole story here, and she's lying seemingly on a daily basis. The gofundme seems to have been posted by a fake sister. Her explanation about the difference in last names was 100% a lie, as I already demonstrated. She committed fake suicide last month, and left people twisting in the wind for 24 hours worrying about her. And this cancer, whatever it is, dates back to at least 2012, yet she appears healthy and able-bodied when she goes to play streamed poker.

If she does have cancer, it appears to be slow-moving or non-life-threatening, and is not the urgent matter she portrays. She was asking for cancer-related gofundme donations 6 years ago, also on Twitter, before she was part of the poker community.

The "suicide" and the appeals for money are conveniently following some recent beatdowns on live streams.

She has never once posted a medical bill, or any other proof that these treatments are bankrupting her. In fact, we don't even have proof that she will really spend this money on her hospital bills. For all we know, she will bring it to another high stakes cash game and fire it off.

Given her history, the burden of proof is on her, and we're not seeing any.

[Dan Druff]

The problem with Kat Armsby's point is that it enables scammers to get away with stealing from people, as long as the scammer utters the big "C" word as part of the scheme.

If people ask for money of strangers for ANY REASON, they automatically open themselves up to scrutiny. There is no such thing as a taboo topic. There is no such thing as something you can't question. If you want the hard earned cash of strangers, then you're going to have to answer some questions and justify your story if there are doubts. And if you don't like that, it's very simple: Don't take to social media asking strangers for money.

In general, I don't like any narrative of, "You can't question someone about ______."

Liars and scammers love those taboos, as they exploit them knowing that people will be afraid to pick apart their stories.

[ReformDorm]

Nadya Magnus donated $10,000 to this scam Gofundme lol. So pathetic.

[ftpjesus]

Here is Jami's explanation for why her last name "Lafay" isn't the same as her sister Julie Daniels:



https://twitter.com/i/web/status/1627081839088390144




https://twitter.com/i/web/status/1627159910315327489



But wait!

First off, her Facebook URL is facebook.com/jami.daniels.52




Second, here's the People Search entry for Jami from when she lived in Bigform, MT (remember, that's where her boutique was once located):




Notice she is listed as "Jami L Daniels", with the L standing for Lafay.

Lafay is her middle name. Daniels is her last name.

So she's just flat out lying that her sister "Julie Daniels" has a different last name because of having a different father. They have the same last name -- if Julie even exists, which I haven't bothered researching yet.

This is too easy.

I pointed out on Twitter her hospital arm band was visible and it showed her real last name as Daniels and that she might want to remove the photo before her real last name was exposed.

[splitthis]

The only smell that beats cancer smell is gangrene.

When in Rome.

[BetCheckBet]

I came here cause I saw some posts on twitter with druff being attacked and not looking good. I admit after reading this thread I get where druff is coming from and recognize Jami is indeed very shady. But if she has legitimate cancer well that kinda gives her a free pass honestly. And as far as i can tell she hasn't done anything illegal, albeit clearly deceitful. Nobody is gonna come out looking good from this thread and its a lose lose IMO.

[SlowRoll]

I came here cause I saw some posts on twitter with druff being attacked and not looking good. I admit after reading this thread I get where druff is coming from and recognize Jami is indeed very shady. But if she has legitimate cancer well that kinda gives her a free pass honestly. And as far as i can tell she hasn't done anything illegal, albeit clearly deceitful. Nobody is gonna come out looking good from this thread and its a lose lose IMO.

The past gofundme campaigns + the drama she's constantly creating + the victim mentality + the gaslighting about the name

What does that add up to in your mind?


We had a guy in our poker game who also had cancer. He ran a gofundme and immediately jumped back into poker / losing. Everyone know what was going on.
Tough situation.
He was actually sick but clearly using his 'medical funds' that were given to him as a charitable donation for other things, which is not what was agreed to.

Once he recovered a few people asked him if he felt he should make a plan to repay the ~$7,000 that he collected for medical bills and lost at the table. He deflected over and over and eventually people stopped asking and now he's just a losing scummy poker player again.

I tell this story to show that it's not at all unheard of for people to be opportunistic when dealing with medical issues.
A history of framing oneself as a victim publicly and often is a person who is going to create some suspicion of being capable of this behavior.
I hope Jami get's healthy and shows that this was not the case with her, as that seems like a very simple thing to do.

When you ask for $50,000 and target a very specific community with your charity campaign, that community has a right to ask for validation that those funds were not taken under false pretenses.
Lots of things here don't add up.
Hopefully when Jami is feeling better she can look at things objectively and realize that being forthcoming and transparent is going to get rid of any doubt that the community is experiencing as to how the funds will be used.

[BetCheckBet]

I came here cause I saw some posts on twitter with druff being attacked and not looking good. I admit after reading this thread I get where druff is coming from and recognize Jami is indeed very shady. But if she has legitimate cancer well that kinda gives her a free pass honestly. And as far as i can tell she hasn't done anything illegal, albeit clearly deceitful. Nobody is gonna come out looking good from this thread and its a lose lose IMO.

Oh hi

[JoeD]

Jami was so mad at her boyfriend Daniel/Raymond and her sister about setting up the gofundme that she broke up with Daniel/Raymond, but also

on the same day the gofundme was set up she tweeted out to all of her follows info about the gofundme?

Makes sense. Hmm.

[Jayjami]

Oh, and she wants to play the WSOP Main before she dies. Just to let you know that..

That was a goal of mine too. Won’t give her money, but I’ll give her some advice. If you’re the “winning player” you claim to be, grind it out at the tables. It only took me 15 years to get to the point where $10,000 didn’t significantly affect my bankroll.

[tigerpiper]

But if she had actually been in the hospital, you checking the IP was scummy.

That seriously is scammer logic eg I would have paid you back if you weren’t such as asshole about it.

Good job, Druff. Sorry you are catching shit.

[Sloppy Joe]

Druff officially the Andy Ngo of poker now, just dog whistles incels instead of racists.

Here's hoping he can avoid getting milkshaked.

[Dan Druff]

But if she had actually been in the hospital, you checking the IP was scummy.

That seriously is scammer logic eg I would have paid you back if you weren’t such as asshole about it.

Good job, Druff. Sorry you are catching shit.

I misread this at first, thinking you were actually saying that "checking the IP was scummy". Then I saw you were mocking that statement.

I actually didn't have to check anything, because vBulletin automatically gives me the IP of anyone who uses the contact form. Standard feature of the software.

Sloppy, regarding the incel gamer loser, no dog whistling here. Just showing everyone the type of shit I get from weirdos I don't know and have never bothered, simply because I was trying to call out what appeared to be (and was) a shady gofundme aimed at poker.