PokerApproved.com: Get staked up to $6 million... sounds legit, right?

[Dan Druff]

I was contacted by respected poker pro Matt Glantz, who listens to PFA Radio on a weekly basis.

He forwarded me an e-mail Sergio sent to a director of poker operations at a casino Matt is associated with. (Even if you figure out which casino I'm talking about, please don't post it here.)

Sergio was attempting to put together a $3500 buyin tournament at this casino. This was about a year ago.

From: "Sergio - (Poker Approved)" <sergio@PokerApproved.com>
Sent: Tuesday, April 09, 2013 4:47 PM
To: <EMAIL REDACTED>

Subject: Sponsored Tournament - (******* Casino)

Hi *****,

I wanted to reach out and see if you would have any interest in having us produce a feature Sponsored Tournament at the ******* Casino, sponsored by Poker Approved.

In this sponsored tournament, we would propose doing a $3,500 Buy-In Event, in which Poker Approved would like to add a $250,000 Tournament Bankroll that will be won by a player and also add a feature "Bonus Grand Prize" to be won as well, from a listing of seven (7) Grand Prizes to choose from.



Our seven (7) Grand Prizes that a player may select from, are the following:

1) NASCAR Daytona 500: which includes, two (2) Sprint Tower Tickets, Exclusive FanZone Passes for two (2), Roundtrip Airfare for two (2), Hotel Accommodations for two (2) Nights, Deluxe Transfers to/from Daytona International Speedway, Gift Bag and Official Daytona 500 Race Program.

2) Indianapolis 500: which includes, two (2) Tickets in Paddock or C-Stand (seating), Roundtrip Airfare for two (2), Hotel Accommodations for three (3) Nights, Deluxe Transfers to/from Indianapolis Motor Speedway, Indy 500 Victory Dinner, Souvenirs including Indy 500 Race Program and Gift.

3) SuperBowl XLVIII: which includes, two (2) SuperBowl XLVIII Premium Tickets, Roundtrip Airfare for two (2), Hotel Accommodations for two (2) Nights.

4) Adrenaline Rush (Dream Car Racing): which includes, choice of five (5) Dream Cars to race from (incl: Lamborghini, Ferrari, Porsche, McLaren, Aston Martin, plus more) on Las Vegas Motor Speedway for one (1) person, Five (5) Laps to race in each five cars, (for a total of 25 laps), Driver Instruction, Racing Certificate, Roundtrip Airfare for two (2), Hotel Accommodations for two (2) Nights, Limousine Service to/from Airport and to/from Las Vegas Motor Speedway.

5) Luxury Villa/Mansion: (for 1 Week, during WSOP Season) which includes, a Luxury Villa or Mansion for one (1) week during WSOP Season in Las Vegas NV, Roundtrip Airfare and Ground Transfers for one (1) person.

6) King & Queen's Royal Treatment: which includes, 5 Star Hotel Accommodations for three (3) Nights in Las Vegas NV, any Cirque du Soleil Show for two (2) persons (with preferred seating), 5 Star Dining for one evening, Spa Package for two (2), Roundtrip Airfare for two (2), Limousine Service for airport transfers in Las Vegas.

7) Dream Cruise (Royal Caribbean): which includes, seven (7) Nights Caribbean Dream Cruise for two (2) persons aboard Royal Caribbean Cruise Lines (RCCL) in a Superior Room with Private Balcony, Roundtrip Airfare for two (2), Ground Transfers to/from Airport to Port, All Meals including daily breakfast, lunch and dinner.



The $250,000 Tournament Bankroll: (added)

The $250,000 Tournament Bankroll that Poker Approved would put up for grabs, would be applicable to tournament entries into our upcoming High Stakes Poker Championships (HSPC) series, scheduled for Punta Cana, Dominican Republic with buy-ins from $25K to $100K levels. (Note: this is an exclusive High Roller tournament series)

See our High Stakes Poker Championships overview at: http://pokerapproved.com/poker_insider.aspx



10 Bounty Seats (added) to Win the $250,000 Bankroll + Grand Prize:

Any player could play to win the $250,000 Bankroll and the Bonus Grand Prize, by winning a "Bankroll/Grand Prize, Bounty Chip" from 1 of our 10 Poker Approved designated players added in the tournament, in which that Bounty will allow them to play at the end of the tournament, on a 10 player table, where one player (the Winner of the 10 player table) walks away with the $250,000 Bankroll and the Bonus Grand Prize. By having this type of format, it allows for EVERY PLAYER to have chance of winning the $250,000 Bankroll and Grand Prize, as any player who got 1 of the 10 Bounties in the tournament, can play to win the $250,000 Bankroll + Grand Prize.



On behalf of Poker Approved, I truly believe that both the $250,000 added Tournament Bankroll and the "Bonus Grand Prize" added for players to win, would create a great value-add component to our proposed tournament for your Poker Room.


Please review our proposed sponsored tournament for your poker room and let me know of any interest you may have in discussing further?



For immediate contact, I can be reached at: (PHONE NUMBER REDACTED)

Look forward to hearing from you soon!

Thank you,

Sergio Guimond
Managing Director
Poker Approved

Matt, Sergio, and this poker director all had an hourlong conference call, where they agreed to hold this tournament if PokerApproved would escrow all cash and prizes. Of course, that escrow never happened, and the whole thing fell through.

Once again, Sergio appears to have been big on ideas but low on actual cash.

Interestingly, he identifies himself here as "Sergio Guimond" -- the first time I've seen an e-mail where he uses his last name.

[Dan Druff]

Here is another interesting series of e-mails involving Sergio and PokerApproved.

A poker player named James applied to get staked by PokerApproved in July, 2013. I have James' full name, but he's not well known and there's no point to post it here, so I will redact his last name, phone number, and e-mail address. I am also redacting Sergio's phone number and bank account number.

You will get to see the process in which Sergio attempts to extract money out of James.



July 22, 2013

James submits the following to PokerApporved through the contact form:

Name: James ******

Email: <E-MAIL REDACTED>

Comments: Hey! Really don't mean to bother just want to make sure my email went through. I am 100% confident in my skill level and believe I would be a perfect candidate. My dream is to be a professional poker player but I've never had the right opportunity. Need some help please. I can be reached via email or you can call/text me at <PHONE NUMBER REDACTED>.

About 8 hours later, James receives an e-mail from "Michelle" at PokerApproved:

From: "Poker Approved" <comments@pokerapproved.com>
Date: Jul 22, 2013 6:58 PM
Subject: Re: Poker Approved
To: <JAMES - EMAIL REDACTED>

James,

We did receive your bankroll application form and our poker analysts will review your application for bankroll funding purposes.


Thank you,

Michelle
Poker Approved Support Team
www.PokerApproved.com

Poker Approved:
"Staking Poker Players and Bankroll Funding for Live Cash Games & Tournaments"

James then writes back a few minutes later, expressing continued interest in being staked:

From: "James" <E-MAIL REDACTED>
Sent: Monday, July 22, 2013 2:38 PM
To: comments@pokerapproved.com
Subject: Re: Poker Approved


Oh great! Thank you so much for the response. Figure im going to need the evaluation because of lack of documented history so is there anything else I can/need to do? Really appreciate it. Have a great week!

July 26, 2013

Sergio asks for $750, to be deposited in cash at a Florida-based Bank of America account!

The bolding of certain text in this e-mail was done by Sergio, not me.

From: "Sergio - (Poker Approved)" <sergio@pokerapproved.com>
Date: Jul 26, 2013 2:58 PM
Subject: Banking Info - (Bank of America)
To: <James - EMAIL REDACTED>
Cc:

Hi James,

Please make your cash deposit of $750 to the account at Bank of America as follows:


We only accept CASH deposits. (No personal checks, or other forms of payment)

Bank: Bank of America
Type: Checking Account
State: Florida
Acct #: ****-****-****


PS: Please email me tomorrow to confirm the deposit.

Look forward to meeting you in Miami!

Thank you,
Sergio

July 27, 2013

Just one day later, Sergio is in a panic that James hasn't deposited his $750 cash into that mysterious BofA account.

At 3:07pm, Sergio sends James this message:

From: "Sergio - (Poker Approved)" <sergio@pokerapproved.com>
Date: Jul 27, 2013 3:07 PM
Subject: Deposit - (Bank of America)
To: <James - EMAIL REDACTED>
Cc:

Hi James,

I have not noticed the $750 Deposit to our account, listed below. I know you said you were going to do that this morning ...let me know the status on the deposit?

See instructions below.


Thank you,
Sergio

And like a junkie badly needing his fix, Sergio e-mails James AGAIN just 8 hours later, telling him that James left him in "a bad situation" by not sending the whopping $750!

From: "Sergio - (Poker Approved)" <sergio@pokerapproved.com>
Date: Jul 27, 2013 11:05 PM
Subject: James
To: <James - EMAIL REDACTED>
Cc:

James,

What is going on with your situation? We have not received your deposit and you are no returning any calls or emails?

Please call me at ***.***.**** asap.

Thank you.

ps: You're leaving me in bad situation here again. Your deposit was due this morning.

====================================


My take: It looks like Sergio needed the $750 really badly, and was in full blown panic mode when he didn't get it. The demand to deposit in cash is likely because Sergio needed the money so immediately that he could not wait for a check or money order to clear. Either that, or he didn't want James to be able to change his mind and put a stop on the check, but I'm guessing it was more because Sergio needed the money RIGHT NOW, given his aggressive, panicky e-mails. Note that Sergio was chiding James for "leaving him in a bad situation" just one day after sending him the banking information! So not only was James being asked to pay $750 CASH to be "evaluated", but Sergio was angered that James didn't pay him within one day.

I am not sure if James was ever serious about getting staked, or if he was just doing this for fun to see what Sergio would demand out of him, but either way it's very telling. As far as I know, James never sent him any money.

[Dan Druff]

I asked James if anything happened in between July 22 and July 26. If you follow the e-mails, "Michelle" tells James that he might have to be evaluated, and on July 26, Sergio sends James the instructions to deposit the $750 cash.

I inquired if there were any other e-mails between that time period, and James told me that the rest of it was via phone. Interesting story follows in James' e-mail to me:

No was all via phone. We actually probably spent a total of 3 hours on the phone. Originally he said that it would 2500 for the evaluation. When I explained im looking for a stake and that amount was out of the question he said ok give me just a moment and ill call you back. 10 min later he calls and says that he has another prospective applicant in Miami and that he could reduce it to 1500 since there was another applicant in my area. Then it just got weirder and weirder. Also had contact with Gabby on Facebook and pretty sure I still have those on there as well. Truly a long story but bottom line is that Sergio does actually know some deep strategy in regards to poker because of the amount of time we spent talking about it. It's my belief that he also plays full time as well. I was never big into forums and sites so never really understood how big this scam was until I saw Jeffs tweets.

Im no fool and when I realized it was a complete scam.... I won't lie I kinda toyed with them and gave them a dose of their own medicine. Had I known all the BS that followed was gonna happen probably wouldn't have. Crazy random texts and phone calls. Threats and defamation. All kinds of wild shit. Was like the mob lol

[TheWookieWay]

My impression, is that this is typical scam 'sales' tactic, to get someone to do something before they have time to think about it or check with friends for a 2nd opinion. If they are going to "fall for it" (the scam), it is usually early in the process.
The longer it takes, the less likely the person is to "fall for it".

I have yet to see ANYTHING that shows this is a legitimate company, and MANY red flags that say this is a scam.

[Dan Druff]

More from James:

Threats were on my old phone and may be able to pull them off. Basic stuff about ruining my rep and name "which was stupid because no one knows except other live pros in the area" and that I was going to be sorry for wasting his time. "Still coming to Florida. See you soon." Along with a google maps screen shot of my address.

Apparently Sergio likes to intimidate people with "see you soon" type threats (see his threat to Anna Khait where he claims he will "come back to collect our debts later"). He also likes showing people that he can find where they live, as evidenced both by his tweets to Chris Baud, as well as his google map screen shot sent to James of his address.

[Dan Druff]

Looks like Gabriela is/was deeply involved.

Here is a snippet of her Facebook conversation with James, from July 2013:

[Kevmath]

Some other people Sergio have attempted to scam:

Ryan Riess: https://twitter.com/RyanRiess1/statu...65349494521856

Chris Moneymaker:

Embedded Tweet

https://twitter.com/CMONEYMAKER/status/464870822591856640

I wrote a tweet back in

Embedded Tweet

https://twitter.com/Kevmath/status/446382395567390720 because I had recalled the company and had a couple of noted names among the poker media community hit me up privately, saying they had been contacted about being involved with the event.

[Dan Druff]

They think their tweets are protected, but I can still see everything.

Here is a laughable screen shot of their Twitter, where as recently as Friday, 5/9 they were still trying to find players to "stake" people in Macau.

[Kevmath]

Curious how one can view protected tweets.

[Crowe Diddly]

Curious how one can view protected tweets.

they'll approve pretty much anyone, so any anonymous dupe works just fine. they approved my normal twitter acct, then I called them turds and bullshitters, then they blocked me again. And yet, I can still see their shit just fine.

[Dan Druff]

He just doesn't quit.

[vegetera]

Why doesn't companies like Bluff or pokernews investigate this further?`They have more resources then PFA

[Dan Druff]

Why doesn't companies like Bluff or pokernews investigate this further?`They have more resources then PFA

This is actually a good question, and one I have wondered myself.

While Bluff and Pokernews tend to stick to more "mainstream" stories and don't like to speculate about scams, I am surprised that the independent poker news organizations, such as Pokerfuse or Haley Hintze's Flushdraw, haven't touched this story.

I am especially surprised about Pokerfuse, as they seem to be a bigger operation than Flushdraw (which appears to just be Haley), and it would be understandable if Haley only has limited time to devote to covering matters like these. However, I keep searching around the web to see if anyone else has picked up on this, and no one has.

And it's not like anyone should be doubting the credibility of this story. Not only has it been corroborated by various well known names in poker (Jeff Madsen, BJ Nemeth, Matt Glantz, Kevmath), but also by two WSOP Main Event champions.

You would think that a scammy staking company trying to trick Chris Moneymaker and Ryan Riess would be big news, but apparently not.

(Ryan Riess tweeted that they tried to get him involved, and claimed they were already staking Sam Trickett -- something Trickett personally told Riess was 100% false.)

It's okay. I'll keep hammering this story myself.

[Steve-O]

Why doesn't companies like Bluff or pokernews investigate this further?`They have more resources then PFA

This is actually a good question, and one I have wondered myself.

While Bluff and Pokernews tend to stick to more "mainstream" stories and don't like to speculate about scams, I am surprised that the independent poker news organizations, such as Pokerfuse or Haley Hintze's Flushdraw, haven't touched this story.

I am especially surprised about Pokerfuse, as they seem to be a bigger operation than Flushdraw (which appears to just be Haley), and it would be understandable if Haley only has limited time to devote to covering matters like these. However, I keep searching around the web to see if anyone else has picked up on this, and no one has.

And it's not like anyone should be doubting the credibility of this story. Not only has it been corroborated by various well known names in poker (Jeff Madsen, BJ Nemeth, Matt Glantz, Kevmath), but also by two WSOP Main Event champions.

You would think that a scammy staking company trying to trick Chris Moneymaker and Ryan Riess would be big news, but apparently not.

(Ryan Riess tweeted that they tried to get him involved, and claimed they were already staking Sam Trickett -- something Trickett personally told Riess was 100% false.)

It's okay. I'll keep hammering this story myself.

I'd be surprised if PokerFuse doesn't have something on this soon. definitely a story that takes a couple days to unravel

[haleylh]

Why doesn't companies like Bluff or pokernews investigate this further?`They have more resources then PFA

This is actually a good question, and one I have wondered myself.

While Bluff and Pokernews tend to stick to more "mainstream" stories and don't like to speculate about scams, I am surprised that the independent poker news organizations, such as Pokerfuse or Haley Hintze's Flushdraw, haven't touched this story.

I am especially surprised about Pokerfuse, as they seem to be a bigger operation than Flushdraw (which appears to just be Haley), and it would be understandable if Haley only has limited time to devote to covering matters like these. However, I keep searching around the web to see if anyone else has picked up on this, and no one has.

And it's not like anyone should be doubting the credibility of this story. Not only has it been corroborated by various well known names in poker (Jeff Madsen, BJ Nemeth, Matt Glantz, Kevmath), but also by two WSOP Main Event champions.

You would think that a scammy staking company trying to trick Chris Moneymaker and Ryan Riess would be big news, but apparently not.

(Ryan Riess tweeted that they tried to get him involved, and claimed they were already staking Sam Trickett -- something Trickett personally told Riess was 100% false.)

It's okay. I'll keep hammering this story myself.

We've picked up a couple of new writers, so there'll be more time at FD to look at things like this... maybe later this week. For a while it -was- just me, after Ftrain decided to concentrate on his lawyerly gigs and PN made Shamus an offer he couldn't pass up, on the condition he no longer write for us. Good thing it wasn't this past weekend, when travel and Midwest storms conspired to keep me almost completely off the internet for five days. Shit happens.