Some of you probably remember the highly suspect operation known as "Poker by Proxy". If you were a gullible idiot, you sent them money (or bitcoins) to play poker for you, despite the fact that you had no idea of who they were or which people were playing for you. You were simply supposed to send them money, and watch the profits roll in!
Of course, it was nothing but a scam. They simply ran off with everyone's money, once they felt they had roped in the maximum number of suckers. You can read all about it here: http://pokerfraudalert.com/forum/sho...could-go-wrong
That was 5 months ago.
Now we have a somewhat more complex "poker staking" organization, but again highly mysterious and suspect: PokerApproved.
http://pokerapproved.com
For the record, I don't believe PokerApproved and the now-defunct PokerByProxy to be related.
PokerApproved is actually a lot more complicated and clever.
PokerByProxy simply asked for your money and said they'd play for you, making it an obvious scam to anyone with the slightest clue about poker staking.
PokerApproved reverses that model by claiming they will give you money. On their website, they promise the following:
While it's hard to believe that they would stake people these amounts of money, what do you really have to lose?Poker Approved, has an active primary focus in sponsoring & staking developing career poker players and skilled poker professionals and in funding their poker bankrolls. We stake poker players and fund bankrolls for live cash games, major tournaments and online poker.
Poker Approved will stake poker players for live cash game levels of 10/20 NL to 2000/5000 NL. We also stake poker players for online poker in the U.S. and worldwide. We fund bankrolls to developing players & skilled poker professionals for cash games and main event tournaments in Las Vegas, Los Angeles, Western Europe and Macau.
Available Bankrolls: $10,000 to $250,000 (Non-Pro Players)
Available Bankrolls: $100,000 to $6 MILLION (Pro Players)
After all, if they are the ones staking YOU, then there's absolutely no way you can lose, right?
Of course, like most internet offers of pennies from heaven, this comes with a catch. Taking a page from the classic Nigerian "advance fee" scams, PokerApproved asks for money up front prior to staking you.
According to various reports I received, PokerApproved initially charged a $40 "application fee" to have your staking application approved. They eventually lowered that fee to $15, and then finally lowered that fee to $0.
But wait... there's more!
According to several people on Twitter, PokerApproved charges you $1000 to attend a "Poker Player Evaluation & Live Testing" session, supposedly to prove that you're worth of being staked. While their website does not quote the amount of $1000, they do indicate that there is a "Nominal Fee" for this process.
Source for above: http://pokerapproved.com/Poker-Playe...kerarticle.htmYour 3 Day Evaluation process will cover all of the above listed, to determine your level of play, skill set and overall poker abilities. Additionally, our Poker Evaluator & Instructor will assess your skills in live play action in cash game and/or tournament play.
Once you have been fully evaluated and tested, our Poker Evaluator & Instructor will advise if bankroll funding will be granted, and if so at what level of funding will be provided.
Poker Approved will only fund players that show an advanced skill set of poker abilities and players that may show good equity value in being bankroll funded.
If you want to apply and be personally evaluated (live in-person) by one of our Poker Evaluators and Instructors, please contact us using the link below.
Note: A Nominal Fee applies to our 3 Day Poker Evaluation program.
PokerApproved is apparently reaching for the stars. They are taking applications to be staked $1,000,000 for the upcoming WSOP One Drop Event.
Of course, they can't go around staking people a million bucks without some serious coin flowing into their coffers.
For that reason, they are also seeking investors, who are willing to throw their hard-earned money into the staking pool.
Now, are you ready to laugh? Let's say you are foolish enough to want to INVEST in this company. In fact, let's say you're beyond foolish (and very rich), and want to invest $3 million. They won't let you! Apparently the investment limit is $2,000,000 per person. If you try to invest more than that, they will tell you "Thanks but no thanks. We only want $2 million max." But good news if you're willing to invest corporate money! They will take up to $15,000,000 in that case.
On the flip side, you're out of luck if you want to invest less than 5 figures. The minimum investment is $10,000 for individuals and $100,000 for corporations. It's not clear why they are willing to take $10,000 from individuals, yet corporations don't get to join in the fun unless they thrown down a cool $100k.
http://www.pokerapproved.com/poker_i...the_terms.aspx
Currently Fully-Funded for Sponsorships
Individual / Private Clients: Institutional / Corporate Clients:
Minimum Sponsorship Investment: $10,000 Minimum Sponsorship Investment: $100,000
Maximum Sponsorship Investment: $2,000,000 Maximum Sponsorship Investment: $15,000,000
They also keep scheduling live events, but none ever seem to actually take place. For example, they had a "Top Gun Challenge" event planned at the Mirage, with an estimated $500,000 prize pool, as well as the opportunity to fly in a fighter jet for the top 5 finishers! Your tournament ticket also was to include a "gala pool party" at Bare Pool Lounge in Mirage.
Sadly, now the event is "postponed": http://www.pokerapproved.com/Hollywo...kerarticle.htm
An inside source at the Mirage told me that this was never scheduled there. The source told me that PokerApproved approached them about this, but Mirage turned them down.
I was also told on Twitter that you cannot register for these tournaments at the time they take place, meaning you would have to prepay if you want to participate (LOL).
They apparently also rent "hotel rooms, mansions, and condos" in Vegas: http://www.pokerapproved.com/Las-Veg...kerarticle.htm
Oh, and apparently they also run high stakes private games: http://www.pokerapproved.com/Club-Ro...kerarticle.htm
It is not clear who runs this company. Supposedly a guy named "Sergio" tried to arrange an event at the Revel in Atlantic City.
Also, nobody has found any poker players that are staked by this company. I'm not saying that they aren't staking anyone, but nobody has come forward indicating that PokerApproved is staking them, nor does PokerApproved list any players they stake.
This whole thing just looks incredibly shady to me. Let me count the ways:
1) The ownership and staff of PokerApproved is doing their best to hide their identities. Never a good sign.
2) The website promises too many grandiose things. $1,000,000 OneDrop stakes? $100,000 to $6,000,000 stakes for pro players? Gala pool parties and flying in fighter jets? This looks like a lot of hype with little substance.
3) They charge "evaluation fees" if you want to get staked. Whether it's really $1,000 or not, no actual stakers work like this, as very few competent players would ever pay this. It's the same reason companies don't charge you to go to job interviews. While all potential stake recipients need to go through a vetting process to decide who is stake-worthy, that is something that needs to be done at the staker's own time and expense. You can't charge someone to prove themselves so they can come work for you. This looks incredibly shady. (Interesting side note: 20 years ago when I was looking for a job out of college, I was approached by various headhunters who offered to find me a job. The legit ones charged the employer for matching me with them, while the scams were the ones asking for me to pay them to find me work.)
4) The "investor" element is very suspect. Why would they require a $10,000 minimum? Why on earth would they ever impose a maximum that a person or corporation can invest? It just looks like they wanted to throw big numbers up there, so as to come off looking like a large operation.
5) Why the weird side business of finding people rental homes in Vegas? This gives the impression that they are finding any way to make a quick buck.
6) The application fees, while no longer being charged, were again indicative of someone trying to make small amounts of money quickly, rather than putting together a serious, large-scale staking operation.
7) There are no poker players currently known to be staked by PokerApproved. Thus, despite supposedly being a large staking operation, they have zero references.
I could go on and on, but I'll stop here.
Amazingly, this organization has been around for at least 3 years, as I see posts about it on 2+2 dating back to 2011. However, there really hasn't been much discussion of them until recently, and that only occurred because a few poker players are taking to Twitter to debate with them.
Oh.... and speaking of that, PokerApproved has protected its Twitter, after noticing that their critics were screen-shotting their tweets and posting them elsewhere.
http://twitter.com/PokerApproved
Lots of legitimate companies protect their tweets, right?
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Originally Posted by Dan Druff
