NY Post Goes Inside the Sleazy World of Online Poker

The poker community received a jolt from the New York Post Monday morning after they published a story featuring the headline “Inside the Sleazy World of Online Poker”. 

In it we learn of Dave, 30, who works in IT.  He prefers not to use his real name.

It’s a lifestyle that attracts a particular kind of person — the kind who doesn’t mind spending eight hours every night at the casino with some shady characters with disreputable backgrounds, the paper suggests.  They offer a quote from the mysterious “Dave” in order to back up their claim.

“There was one guy, a French guy — we called him ‘Frenchie’ — he got busted scamming people with fake World Cup tickets.  Even after it became public he kept playing for two or three weeks. He was pretty shameless.”

Dave continues:  “A lot of the players have disreputable histories,” he says. “Some of the renowned players just basically scam people for money. They use [online poker site] Full Tilt as their personal bank account.”

Needless-to-say, the story has already gained plenty of attention on the forums at TwoPlusTwo.com.

One member of the site commented: “The reporter found some barely profitable unemployed douchebag for his article, no decent human being talks to the media winding up laymen with the tax thing.”

Another offered: “Man, all I got out of that short "article/story" was that Frank Chung (man who wrote the article) hates Dan Bilzerian.”

Some of those on the forum seemingly agreed with the premise that the poker world can, at times, present itself as sleazy.

"Interesting that the article is titled 'seedy world' but portrays poker as a reasonably good lifestyle if you're willing to put the work in," wrote one member of the TwoPlusTwo forum.

The original article appeared in Australian media run by Rupert Murdoch.

- Ace King, Gambling911.com