ESPN, Covers.com's, 'Poker Pro' Sarah Phillips and Beau ‘Bonnie and Clyde of Social Media Ripoffs’

ESPN columnist Sarah Phillips has chosen a real winner (in more ways than one).  Deadspin.com doesn’t exactly paint a good picture of his supposed “better half” either, referring to the duo as the “Bonnie and Clyde of Social Media Ripoffs”. 

Phillips beau is supposed “puppet master” and alleged scammer, Nilesh Prasad, claims to be a successful online poker player. 

In a nutshell, Deadspin.com is alleging that Ms. Phillips, along with Prasad, is in some way perpetrating a social media version of the “Nigeria Prince-email” scam.

Phillips reached out to a 19-year-old college student with a popular Facebook page, saying she had “an extremely lucrative business opportunity for him”. According to Deadspin, she said that if he could write some "memes" for her new site in the same vein as his Facebook page, there'd be a chance to make fast money.

"Much-like ESPn.com, pay is determined by views, so the better the meme = better viewership = better pay," she wrote. "It's a quick way to make some money, and also get your name out there in case you're interested in working with the sports world."

From DeadSpin.com: 

Is Sarah Phillips for real? Thirteen months ago, she was an unknown message-board participant at Covers.com, a gambling website. Then Covers plucked her from the boards and gave her a weekly column, sight unseen. Five months after that, she was tapped by Lynn Hoppes, an editor for ESPN.com, to write a weekly column for ESPN's Page 2—once the home of writers like David Halberstam, Ralph Wiley, and Hunter S. Thompson, and which has now been rebranded as ESPN's Playbook. The swiftness of her ascent gave her that weird sort of internet half-celebrity whereby she became moderately famous before anyone really knew who she was.

Or before anyone was sure that she existed at all. In message boards over at Covers and websites like Beyond the Bets, you'll still see questions about things that should be elementary: Is she actually in her 20s? A college student? Does she actually gamble as much as she's claimed? Why doesn't she ever appear on videos or podcasts? Has she harassed people? Is she actually a scammer? Is she really who she says she is?

Readers of DeadSpin.com were quick to write in following their news report. 

Chris from Eugene, Ore., knows a number of Sarah's and Nilesh's friends. He emails:

Everyone here readily admits that Nilesh is more or less the "puppetmaster" in this situation. According to [a friend], Nilesh "threatened" people in the past who knew of his involvement with Sarah when Sarah was in middle school and Nilesh was in high school. I use "threatened" in quotes, cause [the friend] said he would be surprised if Nilesh ever did anything violent to anyone who spoke out about his relationship with Sarah, but that he'd definitely be pretty angry.

Another reader chimed in after the initial Deadspin report:

In your article yesterday, it kind of hinted that Sarah/Nilesh was rather proud, if not boastful about their betting acumen. [The friend] says that falls in line directly with the way Nilesh was back in high school when he would play poker frequently. According to [the friend], Nilesh would always say to [him], "'I made all this money off these guys,' or, 'You guys should go play him (in poker).'" For [the friend], the way "Sarah" talked about "her" bets in your piece was eerily familiar to the way Nilesh would describe his gambling conquests.

Jon Campbell, Phillips's editor for her column at Covers.com, says the angst could all stem from jealousy.

"I'm not one to believe where there's smoke there has to be fire. We were hearing so many crazy things and there was a lot jealousy where a girl was coming in and having success in the sports-betting field."

Campbell said he had "several" conversations with Phillips over the phone, but he never met her in person.

- Jagajeet Chiba, Gambling911.com