PokerStars faces US lawsuit over prize refusal

Pro poker player Gordon Vayo is suing PokerStars for “pattern of fraudulent and unlawful conduct” for not letting him collect his own winnings.

Gordon Vayo has taken PokerStars to court over a “pattern of fraudulent and unlawful conduct.” He argues that Poker Stars broke the law after it didn’t let him collect winnings from a high-stakes tournament back in May 2017.

“After a U.S. citizen or resident wins a significant amount of money on PokerStars, Defendant conducts a sham investigation into the user’s activities and the location of the user’s access of the site, placing the onus on the player to retroactively prove that it is ‘inconceivable’ that his or her play could have originated from within the U.S., in order to gin up a pretext to deny payment. In this way, Defendant takes the money of Plaintiff and other users of the PokerStars.com site with impunity while depriving the same users of their largest winnings if and when they occur.” – reads the lawsuit.

Gordon Vayo was the 2016 WSOP main event runner-up, and relocated to Canada temporarily several times in order to regularly play on PokerStars. Although he stated that he was using a VPN for the 2017 tournament.

When Vayo was ready to cash in on his winnings, and after PokerStars noticed that VPN, his account was immediately frozen and the company asked for proof that he was playing from Canada when he won around US$700,000. Vayo claimed that he used the VPN for “other Internet activity” but PokerStars didn’t buy his words and opposed his claim over the prize.

Source: focusgn.com