{"id":14127,"date":"2011-08-02T10:00:22","date_gmt":"2011-08-02T09:00:22","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.partypoker.com\/blog\/en\/?p=14127"},"modified":"2021-02-04T07:03:52","modified_gmt":"2021-02-04T07:03:52","slug":"beverly-hills-home-games-as-a-poker-player-this-fries-my-case","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.partypoker.com\/blog\/en\/beverly-hills-home-games-as-a-poker-player-this-fries-my-case.html","title":{"rendered":"Beverly Hills home games: As a poker player, this fries my case"},"content":{"rendered":"<p style=\"text-align: justify;\"><img decoding=\"async\" loading=\"lazy\" class=\"alignright size-full wp-image-14333\" title=\"Mike Sexton Beverly Hills home games\" src=\"https:\/\/www.partypoker.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/07\/mike-sexton-wsop1.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"300\" height=\"450\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.partypoker.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/07\/mike-sexton-wsop1.jpg 300w, https:\/\/www.partypoker.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/07\/mike-sexton-wsop1-200x300.jpg 200w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 300px) 100vw, 300px\" \/>Some celebrities and prominent businessmen play in private games in Beverly Hills (which I play in on occasion myself).<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\">About 4 years ago, a losing player in these games was embezzling money from his hedge fund and is now in jail. A lawsuit now exists against players who played in those games and got checks from the embezzler.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\">Lawyers for those swindled by the embezzler claim these poker winnings were &#8220;ill-gotten gains&#8221; from an illegal casino and want the money back. Well, as a poker player, this fries my case.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\">These poker players did nothing wrong. They didn&#8217;t know the guy was embezzling funds. A lawsuit exists ONLY because these are very successful people. (I&#8217;m sure there are checks from the embezzler to Nevada casino&#8217;s. Do you think the lawyers are suing them?)<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\">Celebrities and prominent businessmen can&#8217;t go to regular casino&#8217;s and <a href=\"https:\/\/www.partypoker.com\/\">play poker<\/a>. They would be besieged by autograph hounds, picture takers, and what they won and lost would be tweeted to the world.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\">They like to play poker like millions of others, so they must play in private games &#8211; either in a hotel suite or a private home. Money is taken out for hotel expenses and food but pots are not raked in these games.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\">Everyone settles up by check at the end of the game (which was a paper trail for the lawyers). And how&#8217;s this? One guy in the game lost a couple million over the course of the year. One night he won $200k but the embezzler lost $300k. He wrote out a personal check for $100k to another winner and took a check from the embezzler for $300k &#8211; and now is being sued to get it back!<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\">These people may settle the suit to avoid publicity, but just on principle, I hope they don&#8217;t. They did nothing wrong.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Some celebrities and prominent businessmen play in private games in Beverly Hills (which I play in on occasion myself). About 4 years ago, a losing player in these games was embezzling money from his hedge fund and is now in jail. A lawsuit now exists against players who played in those games and got checks<\/p>\n<div class=\"read-more\"><a href=\"https:\/\/www.partypoker.com\/blog\/en\/beverly-hills-home-games-as-a-poker-player-this-fries-my-case.html\" title=\"Read More\">Read More<\/a><\/div>\n","protected":false},"author":24,"featured_media":14333,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[2182,300],"tags":[],"yst_prominent_words":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.partypoker.com\/blog\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14127"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.partypoker.com\/blog\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.partypoker.com\/blog\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.partypoker.com\/blog\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/24"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.partypoker.com\/blog\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=14127"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.partypoker.com\/blog\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14127\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":108040,"href":"https:\/\/www.partypoker.com\/blog\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14127\/revisions\/108040"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.partypoker.com\/blog\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/14333"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.partypoker.com\/blog\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=14127"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.partypoker.com\/blog\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=14127"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.partypoker.com\/blog\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=14127"},{"taxonomy":"yst_prominent_words","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.partypoker.com\/blog\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/yst_prominent_words?post=14127"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}