A fledgling poker tour has been accused of fraud, racketeering and operation of a Ponzi scheme in a lawsuit filed Tuesday in Maryland.
The Players Poker Championship (not to be confused with the $50,000 buy-in Poker Players Championship tournament) allegedly intentionally failed to pay out about $200,000 in winnings from the final table of its 2016 PPC Aruba World Championship in November, according to the lawsuit. The tour is accused of lying to players that the delay in payment was due to issues with the Aruban government.
By late December, according to the suit, the poker-playing victims—Stephen Deutsch, Michael Lerner, Joan Sandoval and John Ott—were told via a series of emails that the funds weren’t available and that instead they could “receive an undefined portion of PPC’s free cash flow on a forward looking basis until such a time as they are made whole.”
The suit says that on or around Dec. 24 the PPC “removed all substantive content” from its website. The PPC was managed by Bryan Oulton and Thomas “Sandy” Swartzbaugh, who are both named in the suit and were called “accomplished hucksters” in court documents.
Oulton and Swartzbaugh’s company allegedly failed to segregate tournament prize money and entry fees, and in doing so “created a situation where PPC was constantly utilizing funds from one creditor to pay another creditor and/or enrich itself and its members.”
“PPC was, in essence, operating as a Ponzi scheme at all times relevant, utilizing funds obtained for one purpose to pay individuals owed funds for another purpose, constantly masking this chronic misappropriation until such a time as an insufficient flow of new monies proved inadequate to make good on extant obligations,” the suit alleges.
Maryland Live! Casino, which hosted satellites to PPC events and also helped oversee the Aruba tournament, was also named in the suit and is accused of “aiding and abetting negligence,” among other alleged wrongdoing. Below is a copy of the complaint.
17.01.03 Complaint by brianpempus on Scribd
