A PSA concerning staking / exposing a scammer

[wiggs73]

Before I go into any details here, I want to make it abundantly clear that I'm not trying to throw a pity party for myself. The amount of money involved here isn't significant to me (and I'm thankful I'm in a position where I can say that), but the principle of the issue pisses me off and in addition to outing someone who scammed me, I want to point out some things about staking, and overall, sending money over the internet to relative strangers.

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Ok, now to the nitty gritty.

On 2/12/07, sng-sam (straight flushes, SAM - that one), made this post. I had just come off a successful staking deal with another player who was in a similar situation. What I saw here was a mutually beneficial situation. So I sent him a PM offering a stake. We exchanged some PMs, I reviewed his stats and talked to some regulars at the stakes he played, and I agreed to go ahead with it.

I sent the following PM on 2/15/2007

[ QUOTE ]
Just ironing out the details / making it official. Just reply with I agree to those terms or something similar if you agree with everything.

The offer:

- I send you $1,350 via Stars.
- You will play no higher than $27 SNGs with this.
- No cash games, MTTs, non NLHE SNGs.
- $20 180 man SNGs are ok in a reasonably small volume.
- If you go on a downswing early, you'll move down appropriately. You'll treat this money as a bankroll.
- Once your account hits $3,375 you will transfer me $2,025 via Stars.

Once I hear back from you I'll send the money.

[/ QUOTE ]

Maybe not the typical staking deal, but I didn't need immediate returns on my money and I wanted to offer a low risk way for him to rebuild his roll. No time limits, no restriction as far as number of games.

He sent me back the following PM.

[ QUOTE ]
I agree. Let's roll.

Rick

[/ QUOTE ]

So I sent the money that night and he started playing $27s.

I didn't hear much from him until March 9, but I didn't worry too much about things since I told him not to worry about constantly updating me. I told him that checking in once a week would be fine, which he had done a decent job of doing up until that point. I heard from him on the 9th and he said he hadn't been playing a high volume but that would likely change. Said he hit a rough patch and moved to the $16s and I said all good and forgot about it.

Literally I forgot about it.

So fast forward to last weekend... one of my roomates wanted to gamble but doesn't play poker himself so he bought half of my action in a $200 SNG (I didn't cash [img]/images/graemlins/frown.gif[/img]) but it got me to thinking about trading action and staking and ooohhh... it's been 6 weeks since I heard from Rick. [censored].

Well, it turns out his last post on 2+2 was on 3/9.
He's since blocked his stats on sharkscope.
He hasn't contacted me since 3/9 obv and hasn't replied to the emails / PMs I've sent this week.
He blocked me on AIM at some point.
Finally, the only bit of info I can get off sharkscope is his most recently played games. Here they are.



So, what's the point of all this?

Well obviously one point is to expose sng-sam. He shouldn't be trusted and I don't know if he's playing $115s with my money, his money, or someone else's money... but I want to make sure he doesn't PM anyone to try to get more funds.

The second point is a more general one, and that's to be careful when you enter backing / staking arrangements. The gambling world has some sketchy people in it.

I think often times we tend to put a lot of stock into how many posts someone has on an internet forum, which is odd but how things work and I understand that. Right now I'm holding over $2,000 for 2 separate prop bets. These things become common place. But I want to STRESS - you should not under any circumstances transfer someone any amount of money that you cannot afford to lose for good, even when it appears otherwise.

A lot of people lost money in the Vig thing a while back.
I'm sure a lot of people lose money the same way I did.

I still think staking arrangments can be good things if both parties are reasonable about it. However again, we all need to remember that we're dealing with relative strangers, regardless of how often we post on the same forum. ANY time you send someone money, there's a non-0 percent chance that you'll never see it again. So if you can't afford to take that chance, then don't send the money, no matter how good the situation seems or how reputable the other party seems.

Anyway, that's your friendly wake up call / reminder regarding sending money over the interweb. Having said that, I want to wish wickss good luck in his Sunday Million tournament he's being staked for, of which I am a part of course. [img]/images/graemlins/grin.gif[/img]

[bones]

His name isn't even Sam? What a lying [censored].

I have some serious thoughts on the subject that I'll post in awhile. Obv this sucks on many levels.

[futuredoc85]

very sorry to see this. at least your first stakee was kickass and you're still up a couple hundo on staking overall.

[Kibby]

Sucks, I kinda liked Sam. Straight Flushes was pretty catchy.

[Little John]

Sorry it did not work out for you this time.

I just don't see the need for staking, ever. A decent player can put $100 into an account and if they are good can quickly work thier way up from the $3.40's to whatever stake they normally play. If they are good and have gone busto, do you really want to send them a lot of money?

It is a bit hard for me to believe this type of staking arrangement will prfitable enough to justify the headache/frustation.

Thanks for the post and warning as I know a lot of people consider staking.

[Eagles]

Wiggs,
This really sucks obviously he's a douche. Maybe someone who subscribes to shark scope can post his graph.

[wiggs73]

Little John,

You make some good points.

Just to clarify how a staking arrangment can be good though - let's say a person (who for the sake of argument is 100% trustworth, idk, your mom maybe) is a winner at the $27s. She, for one reason or another, has to withdraw all her money but $100. It would often be +EV for both the staker and the stakee to work out an agreement that would keep the stakee playing the $27s. For instance their cut of profits may be more than what they could make at the 3.40s and also the staker stands to make some passive income.

Your points are certainly still valid though. But that's what I meant when I said I saw a chance for a mutually beneficial situation.

[wiggs73]

Eagles,

I subscribe, but you still can only get pretty limited info on someone who has their stats blocked.

[TruFloridaGator]

[ QUOTE ]
Eagles,

I subscribe, but you still can only get pretty limited info on someone who has their stats blocked.

[/ QUOTE ]

E-mail the owner & inform him. Ask him to contact "sam" and have his graphs unblocked. He may be understanding.

[wiggs73]

Meh - you know to be honest, I don't really care. I imagine there will be some sort of downswing that ends with him playing $115s. It doesn't have much of an effect on things either way.