A Russian man received four months in prison on Thursday from a London court after admitting to cheating in a poker game at the Palm Beach Casino in Mayfair in late 2014.
Valeriy Mikhaylets, 57, cheated fellow poker players out of £57,025 ($83,000 USD) by retaining cards from previous hands (Texas hold’em) for use in subsequent hands and also using sandpaper to try to mark the playing cards, according to a report from the Mirror.
According to a report from the Evening Standard, the court also fined him £86,000 and ordered him to pay back the £57,025. Other costs brought his total obligation to £193,718.75.
Though his play raised suspicion, he wasn’t arrested until he returned to the casino on January 26, 2015, but he fled after posting bail. On April 9 of this year, he was arrested on his way to Finland from Russia and was later extradited to the United Kingdom.
Mikhaylets works as the deputy director of a Moscow construction firm.
