Column: Naming And Shaming

We seem to be seeing more and more poker players being called out for scams, theft, bad debt, and bad behaviour. Barry Carter asks if poker is getting darker, or are we just exposing it more?

Brad Booth is the latest player embroiled in scandal

Has poker gotten shadier? That's a question I have found myself being asked a lot in 2012. It is easy to understand why, because the frequency with which stories of poker players scamming other poker players are being reported is higher than ever before. So far, it seems like the WSOP is going to be the catalyst for even more exposés.

In recent months, we have seen Erick Lindgren getting called out for having millions of dollars of debt and the Epic Poker League going under after being terribly mismanaged. During the WSOP we have seen Sam Trickett revealing he had a large sum stolen by another player, and just this week Brad Booth was outed as a scammer. And these are just the names we know, there are even more online poker scams being announced all the time.

When money is passed around in as carefree a manner as it is in poker, there are always going to be thieves, debt, and scammers. When hundreds of players walk around casinos with wads of cash in their back pocket, keep equally jaw dropping amounts online, and happily stake people they barely know with no formal contracts, it is always going to attract bad people. When having such a cavalier attitude towards cash is often a prerequisite for success, there will always be the risk of scams, thefts, and degenerate behaviour.

But I don't think poker is any shadier now than it ever has been; you only need to listen to some of the stories people like Doyle Brunson and Amarillo Slim would tell about life as a road gambler to see how dangerous life as a poker player was. Not only did you run the risk of being cheated or robbed, you also were in genuine danger of getting beaten up or shot too.

The difference today is that the culprits of these scandals are getting called out more readily than ever before. What once was an "honour among thieves" type of culture, where the only thing worse than the crime itself was to be a snitch, has now fast become a much more community focused "name and shame" culture, designed to protect each other from known scammers.

As odd as it sounds, it is probably a good thing that we are seeing so many poker players being called out for being less than reputable. It means such behaviour is no longer tolerated. 

Old School vs New School

Poker is much safer now than  in the days of the road gamblers

There appears to be a clear distinction between the "old school" and "new school" poker players in this issue. Daniel Negreanu alluded to it when he was discussing his friend, fallen from grace Full Tilt pro Erick Lindgren, where he said the ettiqutte of lending money and paying it back was a lot more relaxed among old school live players, than it is among the online generation.

In his interview with Tobias Block the victim of the Brad Booth story, Douglas Polk, offered a good explanation for this. He mentioned that online players have usually grinded up a bankroll from low stakes, so they tend to have a greater respect for money, and should they fall on hard times they have more flexibility about how to grind it back. Compare this to a live player who has a limited choice of stakes they can grind, and you can understand why some of the old school guys can resort to more desperate measures to stay in a chosen game.

Then of course, an online player is in a much safer position to name and shame a fellow player than a live player. If you out another player on the live circuit, you likely will find yourself bumping into them now and then, which could be socially awkward, and could even lead to violence. When you are online, most of the time the worst thing you have to worry about is cyber bullying, and a lot of the time you can expose someone with complete anonymity.

The Black Friday effect

More scandals have surfaced since Black Friday

Black Friday almost certainly had an influence on why we are seeing more names getting shamed today, for a number of reasons. Perhaps most importantly, after everything that happened at Full Tilt, we are more cautious and scrutinous about what happens with our poker money than ever before, and less tolerant of people we think are taking the piss with our money.

Also, the fact that so much money from the poker economy is still stuck in limbo on FTP, and Americans can't play online, has probably brought these issues to the surface much quicker. People who are owed money want it back sooner, and people who owe money have less avenues with which to grind it back. In the case of someone like Erick Lindgren, the collapse of FTP probably exposed his own issues sooner because he was always able to use his status there as clout with the people whom he owed money to.

Finally, there simply are much less players sponsored, or realistically looking for sponsorship, in the post-Black Friday poker world, so they have less reason to remain tight lipped. Sponsored players are usually very careful with what they choose to say, and tend to sit on fences as much as possible, so the last thing they want to do is call out another player. For example, this probably made it easier for Sam Trickett to mention he was robbed by another player, because he had recently parted ways with his sponsor Titan Poker. 

It may seem like dark times, but I don't think poker is any more or less disreputable today than it was a couple of years, or decades, ago. We live in a time where more news gets reported in general, and bad news tends to command more attention, so it just seems like the times are shadier, because we are hearing about shadier things more often. Instead of worrying that poker is getting darker, we should be happy that we are finally naming and shaming the players that are harming the game like this, because poker will get much cleaner the less we tolerate such behaviour.

By Barry Carter