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A professional poker player has filed a lawsuit against online poker room PokerStars for not paying out $692,000.
Gordon Vayo claims he shipped a $1,050 buy-in 2017 SCOOP title but never got his $692,000 from the world's largest real money online poker room
The lawsuit, which is pending in the U.S. District Court for the Central District of California, alleges fraud and deceit, false advertising and breach of contract. PokerStars claims Gordon violated its policy by playing from the United States where the company is prohibited from operating.
Vayo told Forbes.com that PokerStars had no grounds to withhold payment after he provided evidence showing that he was in Canada during the entirety of his play in the SCOOP tournament and that PokerStars had previously authorized such play within Canada's borders. Stars responded by saying that Vayo likely played a portion of the tournament within the U.S.
Vayo claims that PokerStars,
"[H]as engaged in a practice of approving U.S. citizens and residents for play on the PokerStars.com site, allowing and encouraging them to play on the site, happily taking their money – in many cases for years. Then, after a U.S. citizen or resident wins a significant amountof money on the PokerStars.com site, Defendant conducts a sham investigation into the user’s activities and the location of the user’s access of the site, placing the onus on the player to retroactively prove that it is “inconceivable” that his or her play could have originated from within the United States, in order to gin up a pretext to deny payment."
- Ace King, Gambling911.com
