- Oct 05, 2019 Stones Gambling Hall in Sacramento, California says it will not livestream poker games pending an investigation into cheating allegations made against one of the game’s players, Mike Postle.
- Sep 16, 2020 Last month, poker player Mike Postle sensationally beat a $30 million civil lawsuit after nearly 90 fellow players accused him of cheating. Now, the Sacramento card player says he plans to tell his.
Despite a court not finding that he was innocent of the allegations of cheating at the table, Mike Postle just can’t seem to let the subject drop. The disgraced former star of the Stones Gambling Hall online streaming program Stones Live has sued for libel against a litany of defendants. In the court papers for the case, Stones alleges that the defendants have defamed him and “caused him emotional distress.”
Postle Goes After…Everyone
The $250,000 to $300,000 profit number(s) have been referenced numerous times in determining Postle’s guilt, see examples here, here, here, here, and most recently in an article on PokerNews.com entitled “ Top 10 Stories of 2019: Mike Postle Caught Cheating On Livestream “. Oct 11, 2019 Sacramento poker player Mike Postle and Stones Gambling Hall are named in a $30 million lawsuit accusing him of cheating in online poker games streamed by the Citrus Heights casino. The suit claims. Mike Postle’s fraud can be also indicated by the fact that RFID streams (radio frequency identification is a system through which players’ cards are read and displayed) made a mistake three times during Postle’s games.
The list of people that Postle is going after with his lawsuit are pretty much everyone who has said he was cheating during the infamous Stones Live programs from 2019. The defendants in the case are:
Veronica Brill, who was a player/commentator on the Stones Live broadcasts who first posited that Postle could be utilizing methods of cheating on his way to winning almost $300,000 at the Stones $1/$3 tables,
ESPN and PokerNews.com (under their business name of iBus Media Limited) for their reporting on the case and resulting editorial commentary,
Joey Ingram, Haralabos Voulgaris, Daniel Negreanu and Todd Witteles, for their personal commentary on the Stones Live broadcasts,
Upswing Poker, Seat Open LLC, Jonathan Little Holdings LLC, Solve for Why Academy LLC and Run it Once, Inc., owned by various poker professionals such as Jonathan Little and Phil Galfond who have analyzed the video from Stones Live and offered their opinions on the case.
In the lawsuit, Postle is seeking damages because he states his reputation has been damaged and that the case has caused him extreme emotional damage. The charges that he alleges are as follows:
Defamation – Libel
Defamation – Slander
Trade Libel
False Light
Intentional Interference with Prospective Economic Advantage
Unfair Competition
Intentional Infliction of Emotional Distress
He is seeking a jury trial in the case and is being represented by Lowe & Associates, P.C., in Beverly Hills, CA. No exact amount for damages is known at this time.
Defamation – Slander
Trade Libel
False Light
Intentional Interference with Prospective Economic Advantage
Unfair Competition
Intentional Infliction of Emotional Distress
He is seeking a jury trial in the case and is being represented by Lowe & Associates, P.C., in Beverly Hills, CA. No exact amount for damages is known at this time.
For his part, Witteles has stated that the suit is “frivolous” and that he will fight it. Although the other defendants in the case have yet to respond, it is expected they will vigorously fight Postle on the charges.
Case Never Litigated by California Courts
Mike Postle Cheating Update
While Postle, floor manager Justin Kuriatis and Stones Gambling Hall saw the class action lawsuit against them dismissed, they WERE NOT judged to be “innocent” or “not guilty.” The courts in California simply dismissed the case against them because, under California law, you cannot utilize the legal system to recoup gaming losses. In that class action suit, more than 80 players tried to sue the trio, unsuccessfully as it turned out, and another case brought in Nevada was dismissed on jurisdictional issues.
In neither case were Postle, Kuriatis or Stones found innocent of the charges against them. But this hasn’t prevented any of them from saying that they are innocent. Stones Gambling Hall settled with over 60 of the plaintiffs in the class action suit while not admitting any guilt in the case. Kuriatis and Postle, instead of remaining silent on the case, have since loudly and incorrectly proclaimed on social media that they were found “not guilty.”
Whether a judge or jury will hear this case is the unknown. A judge may throw it out on several aspects (the players were offering their professional knowledge, the media companies were reporting on the news, etc.) and, even if it makes it to a jury trial, it will be highly difficult to get 12 people to unanimously agree against the list of defendants. Thus, Postle may be wasting his and other peoples’ time in a pursuit that the courts may find isn’t worth the paper it is written on.
The poker world has been waiting for Mike Postle to express his thoughts about the cheating scandal he has been caught up in for the past 12 months for a very long time.
This week, the silence that has lasted through the serving of a subpoena, the attendance in a court of law and a global pandemic finally ended. Mike Postle declared his innocence.
Poker is not an exact science, and as a matter of fact, Postle will never and has never been declared innocent, because no court in the land can do such a thing. He’s either guilty or not guilty and in that sense, when his case was dismissed earlier this summer, the latter applied.
Golf betting app. Despite the judge scratching the case for geographical and evidentiary reasons, there were many questions that still hadn’t been answered. These included but were not withstanding to:
- If you weren’t cheating, how come you don’t play super high rollers and own souls there instead of $1/$2 in a specific cash game?
- Has the shape of your head or hat been influenced by an extremely starchy boil wash?
- Why have you spent a collective six hours of time during a live-streamed poker game staring at your own crotch?
We can only speculate on those posers, but Postle has declared himself ‘not guilty’ via a text message to the Sacramento Bee. That’s an odd choice and we’ll come back to it, but let’s go with it for now.
Postle text was full of self-defence, but also hints at the possibility that a documentary is in the making. Clearly, there’s a case for making the comparison between Mike Postle and Tiger King, but that’s prey we won’t pounce on. Rather that stalk a wounded animal, we’ll simply present the text verbatim.
“As much as I’d like to say, all I can really say right now is that I have my side of this entire fiasco to tell. It won’t just shock the poker and gambling industries, but the entire world.
This all goes way beyond just my innocence but includes an entire incredible 17+ year story along with it, and what’s happened since the allegations. In fact, it’s such a mind-blowing story, that it’s being told to Dave Broome at 25/7 Productions who will be producing a wild documentary for the world to see on it!
Mike Postle Cheating Update
“I’ve been waiting for many, many months on this and I’m anxious for it to finally come out. So, to all the detractors and accusers who have asked, ‘Why hasn’t he spoken or provided his evidence of innocence and explanations?’
“Well guess what? … Now you know.”
For a man who has said virtually nothing for most of a year, there’s a lot in there to pick the bones out of (enough with the tiger comparisons – Ed). We know he has his side to tell, what we don’t want is his admittance that after 12 months, he realizes it too.
Mike Postle Wiki
There’s the Postlebility – ahem, possibility – of a documentary and 25/7 Productions are making it? OK this is exciting simply because of the name of that company. 25/7 Productions? Sounds like they’ve worked out how to extend the day by an extra hour, we’re hoping Netflix sign the programme up right away. The lingering slo-mo close-ups of Postle looking at his crotch might make it a certificate-15, but we’d still let our teenagers see how the world really works, wouldn’t we?
It won’t just shock the poker and gambling industries, but the entire world? Now we’re bigpoker fans, huge, but we can’t imagine that the indigenous tribe of the Uncontacted Indians of Brazil are going to put down that kettle and toss a wet blanket over the fire to set up a WiFi connection to the story of Mike Postle. We just can’t.
As well as Postle’s teaser text sent to the Sacramento Bee, Stones Gambling Hall employee Justin Kuraitis put out the following Twitter post that led to a four-page document. Posting, ‘There are some things I’ve wanted to say for a while now’, Kuraitis has since drawn so much negative feedback from the poker community, including from Daniel Negreanu and Doug Polk that he has had to walk away from the social media platform:
There are some things I’ve wanted to say for a while [email protected] @Angry_Polak @DougPolkVids @mac_verstandig @Mike_Postle @MarleCordeiro @RealKidPoker @StonesLivePoker @notthefakeSVP @RounderLife @haralabob @espn @barstoolsports @kirkrexfordhttps://t.co/2FERsqGoFJ
— Justin Kuraitis (@JFKPokerTD) September 15, 2020
The Sycuan Clean Team will be sanitizing in between each session All bingo players will be spread out throughout our 850 seat Bingo Hall Games will be limited capacity to ensure safe distancing between. Sycuan casino bingo.
Mike Postle Jail
After an incredible year of denials and accusations, the possibility of a ‘tell all’ documentary revealing some of the poker community’s thoughts on Postle’s guilt or otherwise would be the pay-off to end them all and lead to record sales of popcorn within the poker industry. Making the programme would be simple. As well as an open and level investigation (that’s the first 10 minutes sorted) simply interview the poker world one by one, telling them as you call ‘action!’ that everyone else who’s being interviewed has the opposite opinion.
The rage would lead to a smash hit in the ratings. Never mind Tiger King, this Postle cat could sing from his cage to a captive audience.