Images courtesy of World Poker Tour
The World Poker Tour has come under fire in the past 12 months. One of the oldest and biggest brands in poker, the WPT came to symbolise integrity, influence, and imagination in its half-century history.
Names such as respected poker pioneer Mike Sexton are still attached to the World Poker Tour, with the WPT Champions Cup named after the legendary Poker Hall of Famer.
In recent months, however, a handful of controversies have threatened to tarnish the previously glittering reputation of poker’s golden brand. The mass sacking of award-winning content producers at the end of 2024, followed by WPT Global’s rise as a social media superbitch and the controversial hiring of banned ‘ghoster’ Ren Lin as a WPT Global Ambassador, have, to some, tainted a brand that fans previously thought untouchable.
To pick through recent events and discuss his own stellar career both as WPT television anchor and phenomenally successful online and live professional, we spoke to Tony Dunst. The man previously known as ‘Bond18’ online pulled no punches as he appraised a journey with WPT like no other.
The Family
The last few years have seen huge fields in the WPT World Championship event in December, but across all series, the numbers are very strong. Tony, who worked as a roving reporter before becoming an anchor, has become a WPT mainstay during a time of seismic change for the brand. The importance of his work ‘family’ is not something he takes for granted.
I know it’s a cliche for corporations to use ‘we’re a family’ rhetoric, but there genuinely is a family vibe to the WPT, and I’ve built amazing connections with the people there, some of whom I’ve worked with for 16 years now, says Tony.
I have so many great memories traveling to events around the world with the people and players of the WPT, and for someone who got into poker planning to never have a job, I’m very happy I landed there and stayed for so long.
In many WPT events, Tony plays at the felt himself, only then taking over the mic at the final table if he’s not involved. He’s extremely grateful to the WPT for backing him and has never felt any conflict of interest.
Making a WPT final table is such a rare, difficult, and exciting experience that I’ve never felt any conflict about missing a day of commentary. The WPT has been very supportive of my playing career and encourage me to play as many events as possible.
What Is the Heartland of American Poker Players?
Over the past few years, the number of people in America playing live poker tournaments has increased, leading to some calling this post-COVID era another ‘poker boom’. Tony sees the ‘heartland’ of American poker players as a very important sector of the industry, albeit one who often have to travel to play the game they love.
While I think having poker tournaments in the heartland of America is important, so players in those regions have the chance to play WPT events, the majority of our events in recent years have either been coastal, near coastal (like Las Vegas), or international. In recent years, the only Championship-level event we’ve had in the heartland is WPT Choctaw in Durant, Oklahoma.
I asked Tony if his frequent taking to task of President Trump online means he’s a liberal and how poker players who are Republicans might react to him, given the binary nature of U.S. politics and voters who often stick religiously to one side of that debate for a lifetime.
It turns out I couldn’t be more wrong, as in a land where the ancient motto of ‘In God We Trust’ can divide families, tribes, and especially poker players, Tony is an independent who dislikes the current President.
I’m not a liberal and not even a Democrat, but I have voted for them in recent elections because Trump is a historically terrible president and the kind of vile person who shouldn’t be allowed anywhere near the levers of power, Tony says.
To be clear, the Democratic Party in America is a mostly useless, ineffective, and hypocritical group that’s captured by the same wealthy special interests that back the Republicans, and it’s going to stay that way in the post Citizens United era, where there’s essentially no limit on political spending.
Tony sees the failings of one party being replicated by the other.
The democrats just spent years gaslighting America about the cognitive decline of President Biden until that bluff became laughable following his nightmare debate performance. Even then, plenty of prominent Democrats tried to pretend he was still viable!
Plus, they ran the entire election telling Americans that their lived experience with the economy wasn’t real while pointing to charts that claimed inflation was conquered and employment was strong.
That’s a playbook the Republicans are now copying under Trump, who, despite everything I just said, manages to be orders of magnitude worse at being President than anyone the Dems could possibly nominate.
As Tony says, the whole “but both sides are bad” rhetoric is “a bullshit false equivalence.” He believes that because he posts on X more often about Trump being terrible than he does the Democrats, he’s wrongly mistaken for a liberal.
I don’t think it matters that my politics differ from some of our players, or that they voted for someone I detest. Everyone gets their say in America; that’s one of the best parts of our constitution. Politics don’t often come up at the [poker] table, and when they do, I don’t feel compelled to argue about them with people.
ClubWPT Gold Controversies
Over the years, the WPT has had a raft of some of the best writers in poker, including but not limited to award-winning scribes such as Lance Bradley and Jeff Walsh. A year ago, that team was released in full, to much dismay from poker fans and the industry itself. I ask Tony whether the brand miss cutting edge journalism in an age where it feels more important than ever.
I hated seeing our team of writers get laid off and agree that guys like Lance and Jeff are some of the best voices in our game, he says. I think it’s a real loss for the WPT, but I also understand the pivot to focusing on social media virality in an era where few people really appreciate and engage with long or even short form journalism.
Social media virality is exactly where WPT shifted their focus, and I do likewise. There’s no easy way of asking what a WPT employee thinks of ClubWPT Gold’s ‘naughty cousin’ act on X, so that’s what I ask: Is Tony ever uncomfortable with the content produced by that team?
In a word, yes. I don’t have much issue with the ‘naughty’ side of things, and in some ways have benefited from this new philosophy because in the past, I caught shit for ‘unprofessional’ posts on social media to the point that I basically stopped putting my opinions out there.
The main problem I’ve had is when we troll and insult our customers, specifically when we’ve gone after Greg Raymer and Vanessa Kade.
As Tony explains, the way he feels about those troll-style posts tallies with the opinions of many outside of the ClubWPT Gold writers’ room, where flip-charts and algorithms are king.
I don’t think either of them deserved to be in our crosshairs, and I don’t see how a handful of likes or whatever are worth discouraging longtime customers from playing our events. But maybe I’m just an old man yelling at clouds with this stuff.
The Ren Lin Problem
Which leads me neatly onto the recent hire of Ren Lin. The former GGPoker ambassador was banned from events after he ghosted a player at the GGMillion$ final table, but a short time later, has been hired by the World Poker Tour, a move which led directly to Dara O’Kearney and David Lappin removing themselves as WPT ambassadors. taking The Chip Race podcast with them.
I have so much respect for Dara and David’s decision to walk away on account of the Ren thing, making a monetary and/or professional sacrifice for your principles is incredibly rare. And I’m sad that we lost them, because I think they’re thoughtful guys with considerable reach who really promoted the WPT brand well.
When it comes to Ren Lin himself, a player now wearing the same metaphorical badge as Tony, things aren’t so black and white.
Ren’s certainly a likable guy and handled his cheating scandal about as well as anyone I’ve seen over the years. I don’t know him well enough to say whether that’s genuine contrition or just saving face, and despite the incident, he still has his vocal supporters in poker. But I’m not one of them, and here’s why.
I’ve mostly been an online player for the last six years, and I often poll my peers with this question: what percent of your opponents online do you think are cheating? Answers range from 10 to 50 percent, with most answering either a quarter or a third of their opponents.
The issue of online security and the perceived lack of it is one Tony clearly cares about deeply.
Everyone who plays regularly online knows this is a problem; sometimes it’s obvious, like the recent Ignition scandal where the bot farm was stalling and folding to each other on the bubble, but usually it’s harder to detect via real-time assistance and ghosting, he tells us. We players rely on the sites to police the games and disincentivize cheating, even if we accept that it’s far too common.
Ren himself told the friend that he ghosted at the final table that ‘it’s quite common and normal’ for players to get advice from others during online final tables. If I’m an online poker player considering which sites I can trust, how should I feel about a site that just sponsored and endorsed a guy who cheated on his previous employer’s site mere months ago, and told the friend he was cheating with this kind of thing is ‘normal’?
WSOP Bracelets
While Tony is deeply associated with the WPT, his record in WSOP events is very strong, with four World Series bracelets and three rings to his name. Given he’s a WPT employee, I wondered whether playing in these events gives him the freedom he doesn’t necessarily have when suited and booted representing the WPT.
I appreciate the kind words about my achievements, but I really don’t take WSOP results very seriously. I only play two live bracelet events a year, and it’s been that way for nearly a decade. The reason I’ve been able to rack up a number of bracelets and rings is that the WSOP diluted their product by pumping out a seemingly endless amount of online ring and bracelet events.
Far from being a bad thing for Tony personally, the dilution he perceives in bracelet scheduling has helped him become even more successful.
I’m happy they did because casual players are way more willing to play bigger buy-ins when there’s a ring or bracelet attached, but winning one of those doesn’t feel special or noteworthy like it did when I was coming up in the game in the 2000’s, when they only ran twenty-some bracelet events a year. There’s literally ten times that now!
Tony’s own success in WSOP continued recently, but he believes there’s too great a chance of success for the prestige to remain the same.
I recently won my fourth bracelet online, and while I was stoked about cashing for $37k, there must be dozens of online tournaments a week that pay more than that for first. Do I feel really free in WSOP events? Sure, in the sense that bracelets are basically free now.
The Immediate Future
While Tony intends to continue blending his life as a TV anchor for WPT with his professional poker playing career, the recent possibility of the ‘Big, Beautiful Bill’ impacting those plans is both stark and unwelcome for many in the game, Tony included.
Polymarket has it being repealed by 2027 at 35%, though the market depth is pretty thin, and a bet of a few hundred dollars could move that number considerably. I think it eventually gets repealed, but I suspect it’ll take longer than that.
Nobody cares about gamblers as an electorate – except maybe Dina Titus – and any issue without significant support and financial backing takes ages in our bureaucracy. Look how long it took to get online poker back in the U.S. after Black Friday.
Despite the obstacles in his way, Tony still has grand ambitions in poker, and one that, while it may seem out of reach geographically for now, could yet put him in an elite club.
My top ambition is to win another WPT Championship, that would be really meaningful. I’d also love to win an EPT and join the very short list of Triple Crown winners, but I only play one EPT every few years, so I don’t see that happening.
If there is anybody who manages to both strongly represent a big brand in poker yet remain dedicated to his own personal opinions, it is Tony Dunst. ‘Bond18’ may be long gone, but with 20 years’ experience in his past and millions of dollars in both live and online results, Tony Dunst still has plenty more bullets to fire.
