Spanky Speaks: Identifies 'John Doe' as Steve Jacobs in Suit Claiming Assault, DraftKings Data Leak

Professional sports bettor and organizer for the popular sports gambling networking event BetBash,  Gadoon “Spanky” Kyrollos, has released a statement regarding a shock lawsuit, filed in Supreme Court, Queens County, claiming he was behind an assault of an individual only identified as "John Doe".

The complainant says that on 30 March 2023 in Long Island City, New York City, a masked man grabbed and violently spun him around, then threatened to kill the plaintiff unless he paid $500,000 to Spanky.

The filing alleged that unidentified staff in the “upper echelons” of DraftKings knowingly provided the plaintiff’s address, sensitive personal information, financial history, and betting history to Spanky.

It also alleged that the same DraftKings employees later conspired to change the email address associated with the plaintiff’s sports betting account.

"John Doe" is no more as Spanky identified the individual via Twitter.

Here is Spanky's statement on the matter...

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Let’s address Mr. ‘John Doe’ aka Steve Jacobs (Yes, you read that right, the plaintiff and the plaintiff’s attorney are the same person!)

Plaintiff / plaintiff's attorney Steve Jacobs is also a Senior Attorney who works at Herbert Smith Freehills Law Firm in New York City.

As background, my buddy Oscar Jones met Steve through a personal connection and was under the impression that Steve was a "whale" that we believed we could flip to get down.

In layman's terms, a "whale" is a losing player that can bet big on all of our behalf because the sportsbook, seeing his history of losing bets, has given him increased betting limits, hoping he will lose even more.

We would send Oscar the plays, Oscar would send them to Steve Jacobs and Steve Jacobs would then punch them in his account. (For those unaware of the betting landscape, I rely on guys like Steve Jacobs to bet, given DraftKings (DK) doesn’t allow me to bet at their establishment because I win). Oscar even gave Steve $82,375 of his own money to get the partnership started.

After a few months, and with the benefit of our consultation (via Oscar), naturally Steve won a substantial amount of money.

Fast forward 2 months to when it's time to settle up the proceeds of our partnership. Slight problem – Steve claimed DK was holding up the payout. He claimed that DK was asking him to sign an “affidavit of eligibility”. Oscar and I each advised him to file a complaint with the New York Gaming Board. Initially he refused, but we were insistent that he take up the matter with the regulatory authorities, and eventually he agreed to do that.

On February 6, 2023 at 8:33p Steve filed a complaint with NY Gaming via email and BCC’d Oscar on that email to “prove” he’d filed it.

For more than a month after that, Steve told us both that he had not yet received a response to the complaint he filed with regulators, and that he was still waiting with "fingers crossed".

Oscar and I both started to get suspicious.

My strategy of following up on my suspicion was a test for Steve Jacobs. I told him -- bluffing --  that I had the ability to receive information on the status of the payout from DK (I obviously do not have that power, nor am I connected with anyone who does have that power, given I am banned from betting at DK!). I wanted to gauge Steve's response to my bluff; in particular, I was hopeful that if he was doing something wrong, that this bluff might encourage him to fess up. Steve maintained that DK was holding up his withdrawal request, and that he was waiting on a response to a complaint he filed with the New York Gaming Board.

Oscar then had a brilliant strategy for following up on our suspicion; he had the idea to use New York's Freedom of Information Law (FOIL) to request, from the regulators, copies of the complaint that Steve Jacobs said he had filed against DK. What comes next is crazy! What Steve Jacobs never admitted to us was literally 5 minutes after filing the complaint, he sent them a second email at 8:38 pm on February 6, 2023 saying that the complaint he "filed" in his first email was an "accident".  5 minutes!

In his "accident" letter, he apologized - saying he was a "gaming lawyer and drafted it for a gaming training module”. Both the complaint and cancellation can be seen attached below and can be freely obtained via FOIL.

I believe one of three things happened: Either 1) Steve Jacobs wound up stealing the money, or (2) he gambled it all away or (3) he just booked our bets himself (instead of placing the bets at DK) - hoping we would lose.

The evidence seems to show that Steve Jacobs is either a sick compulsive gambler or a thief. My bet is on both. Either way he needs help.

I wound up talking to Steve Jacobs and he admitted to me that he owes over a million dollars ($1,000,000.00) to other people. He has a reputation in the poker community of being unhinged.

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DraftKings had issued a statement earlier in the day.

“The complaint filed against DraftKings in March 2024 by an unnamed plaintiff is full of inaccuracies and baseless allegations. In the complaint, the plaintiff does not identify any DraftKings employee, but rather alleges on ‘information and belief’ that an unknown and unidentified DraftKings employee provided private account information to ‘Spanky’ and to additional unnamed third parties. DraftKings has found no evidence of anyone at DraftKings providing plaintiff’s information to a third-party, and DraftKings denies acknowledging any such ‘security breach’. Nor has DraftKings uncovered any improper activity by a DraftKings employee, or any activity on plaintiff’s account, relating to the allegedly unauthorized change of the email address associated with plaintiff’s DraftKings account. DraftKings is moving to dismiss the complaint by June 28.”