Dumping - caught

How are these games financed?
Dupre Trickshots explained in his video that the games start when a player tells Haas that he would play him for $30,000. Where does the $30,000 come from? No one seems to be watching Haas and Joao at their match --- there appear to be no tickets to the event. It sounds like Haas and his manager make money from theirs and others bets. Bookies make money from others bets but these two aren't bookies.

This is from Dupree' video at 0:55
So, there's kind of an order of operations to all of these matches.
So, a player or a player's backer would reach out to Sam or Thomas, say, "Hey, my guy wants to play Thomas a race to 21 in nineball for $30,000." They would agree on the match. Sam would make some kind of AI generated poster with all of the match details. He would share it on Facebook in all of the groups, particularly the Dunsky Dungeon, which is the biggest action group on Facebook.
And then from the moment the flyer is posted to the moment the match begins, they're taking bets from everybody. from Facebook commenters, from well-known pool players, from random people, just anybody that they can take a bet from, they're taking a bet from.
 
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From what I have seen over the years, usually after you get the fed's attention the first thing you receive is a cease and desist letter. Smart people cease and desist and never do such a thing again.

You never know who is going to handle a case. One fed considers $5000 a major sum, another doesn't consider $500,000 a major sum.

One year the IRS decided I owed them $145.00. If you say so, I sent them the money. The next year they said they owed me $145. I told my tax man, no problem, they can keep it!

Some friends were making a little 'shine. The feds watched them make a million dollars worth, wholesale, then raided. Took five pick-up trucks, the big trucks belonged to U-Haul. Did a little more damage and fined them $5000 each, $25,000. Five years probation. I know of other people that did far less and did basically natural life as first offenders. Messing with the feds is like poking a bear with a stick, never know when you are gonna poke a tender spot.

Hu
 
One juicy detail that got left off of this discussion: the text messages explicitly state that they were planning to fix another match between Thomas and a player with a 790 Fargo at the same venue (La Bestia). Joao was going to set the game up and says that "he is willing to do business with you".

Any guesses as to who that player might be? With that high of a rating, there's only a handful of players that it could be.
 
One juicy detail that got left off of this discussion: the text messages explicitly state that they were planning to fix another match between Thomas and a player with a 790 Fargo at the same venue (La Bestia). Joao was going to set the game up and says that "he is willing to do business with you".

Any guesses as to who that player might be? With that high of a rating, there's only a handful of players that it could be.
These are the only players that are close to the 790 range and I doubt any one of them would risk their reputation to dump.
  1. Thorsten Hohmann USA 793
  2. Anthony Meglino USA 792
  3. Oscar Dominguez USA 792
  4. Tyler Styer USA 792
  5. Justin Bergman USA 791
There might be more on the international Fargo list but it cuts off at #100 with FR 792.
 
These are the only players that are close to the 790 range and I doubt any one of them would risk their reputation to dump.
  1. Thorsten Hohmann USA 793
  2. Anthony Meglino USA 792
  3. Oscar Dominguez USA 792
  4. Tyler Styer USA 792
  5. Justin Bergman USA 791
There might be more on the international Fargo list but it cuts off at #100 with FR 792.
The player in the 790 range was said to only be in the USA until the 25th, so it is implied that player is here visiting from another country
 
This guy Joao is a POS in my book, sounds like there were around 50 or more side bettors in this fiasco. I cannot believe that someone on this list, or a "friend" has not beaten the crap out of this guy and others involved.
Is money not that important anymore?

How are these games financed?

Do all of the earnings of players' like Joao and Haas come from their betting?
 
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This guy Joao is a POS in my book, sounds like there were around 50 or more side bettors in this fiasco. I cannot believe that someone on this list, or a "friend" has not beaten the crap out of this guy and others involved.
Is money not that important anymore?
The show Mr. Inbetween had an interesting way of looking at something like this. Ray went to collect a debt, and the guy said he didn't have it but would have it later. Ray said he had to tune him up a bit and the guy asked why when he said he'd pay him.

Ray's response was that people needed to see him tuned up and know that was the reason so it discouraged others from doing the same thing.

I don't advocate violence, but maybe someone needed to get tuned up in this.
 
Seems to be a lot of celebrating the scum baggery of pool.

POS Dumper Russian Kenny gets out of jail for peddling hard drugs for the first time (that he got busted) and going on a pool media tour like he is the second coming.
 
I think, amongst civilians, pool has a pretty seedy reputation, going back to at least when Eddie Felson got his thumbs broken.

But in all the years I’ve been playing I have see very little violence between players, sweators, and backers. The threat has often been there but virtually no motion. Has there been the ocassional drunken episode amongst bangers, sure. But between players I’ve seen almost nothing. Basically the money is too small. But one of these days one of these yahoos is going to go a little too big with the wrong guys and regret it.

Lou Figueroa
 
The show Mr. Inbetween had an interesting way of looking at something like this. Ray went to collect a debt, and the guy said he didn't have it but would have it later. Ray said he had to tune him up a bit and the guy asked why when he said he'd pay him.

Ray's response was that people needed to see him tuned up and know that was the reason so it discouraged others from doing the same thing.

I don't advocate violence, but maybe someone needed to get tuned up in this.
And maybe we could get it streamed
 
The show Mr. Inbetween had an interesting way of looking at something like this. Ray went to collect a debt, and the guy said he didn't have it but would have it later. Ray said he had to tune him up a bit and the guy asked why when he said he'd pay him.

Ray's response was that people needed to see him tuned up and know that was the reason so it discouraged others from doing the same thing.

I don't advocate violence, but maybe someone needed to get tuned up in this.
there are very few who are typically willing to risk an A&B charge over a couple grand. Scammers and thieves tend to target marks specifically dumb enough to fall for the play, but smart enough to fear consequences. Degenerates are used to dumping their rolls with consistency, so it’s not like the loss is particularly painful in the first place.

The only question with robbing gamblers is why it doesn’t happen more.
 
Why do you keep asking a general group specific questions like this?

How are we supposed to know such things?
AZBilliards encourages discussion and will allow even questions AZers can't answer. Many AZers are anonymous and could include Thomas Haas and Joao.

I'm guessing there is little money for players in Haas-Joao-like games except from gambling.

Viewing the Haas v Joao match on YouTube that lasted over three hours was underwhelming. There must have been a scorekeeper but was there even a referee? I didn't notice an audience and no one there likely paid an admission fee. I doubt YouTube paid them much if anything. I doubt Haas and Joao got money from a sponsor.

Gambling is a problem in sports but it is even more of a problem if players rely on it to get paid.
 
The show Mr. Inbetween had an interesting way of looking at something like this. Ray went to collect a debt, and the guy said he didn't have it but would have it later. Ray said he had to tune him up a bit and the guy asked why when he said he'd pay him.

Ray's response was that people needed to see him tuned up and know that was the reason so it discouraged others from doing the same thing.

I don't advocate violence, but maybe someone needed to get tuned up in this.
Im not an advocate of violence either but when your gambling or taking certain kinds of loans out and taking someone to collections or calling a cop isn’t an option people have to know that their are still consequences for their actions.
 
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