Poker is the favorite hobby for millions of people across the US and beyond, but also a game that tends to attract opportunists looking to make easy money by cheating unsuspecting players.
Over the years, we’ve seen a number of cheating scandals emerge in both live and online poker, with cheaters always claiming they didn’t do anything wrong.
One of the biggest scandals of this kind happened in 2019, when a player by the name of Mike Postle was accused of cheating on the “Stones Live” poker stream, which was one of the early live streams that mostly aired low to mid-stakes poker games.
While the allegations in this case were never fully proven, most people in the poker world believe to this day that Postle cheated in collaboration with the show runners, although the exact details of any such cheating were never fully revealed.
Veronica Brill Accuses Postle of Cheating
The cheating accusations against Mike Postle first came in July 2018, after the player went on one of the craziest winning streaks of all time.
A player winning $250,000 on a poker live stream is not too unusual these days, but that’s because the stakes being played for are incredibly high. The games being played on Stones Live, on the other hand, usually featured $1/$3 or $2/$5 blinds, making such a massive winning streak highly improbable.
Yet, Postle was able to win that much over a relatively short time span playing small-stakes poker, taking his bb/100 to incredibly high levels, which was the first reason people started doubting him.
Veronica Brill, who played in the games and occasionally acted as a commentator on the show, was the first to speak out. She compiled a video of Postle’s hands, in which she clearly showcased that his playing style was beyond reasonable.
In the video, Mike could be seen folding huge hands that were no good, making hero calls with very weak holdings, and thin value bets in very marginal situations.
Postle was playing perfectly in every session and seemed to never lose a big pot, while winning quite a few in the meantime.
Not only was he the biggest winner in the game by far, but he was playing poker in a way that would easily make him the best poker player of all time, if there was no cheating involved.
Following the allegations, Mike claimed he knew his opponents, could make live reads, and was simply good at poker, but no one who understands poker bought the excuses.
Poker Celebrities Side with Brill
When she first spoke out against Mike Postle, Veronica Brill stood alone, but that didn’t last too long, as many in the poker world sided with her and supported her case.
Poker celebrities with massive reach, such as Daniel Negreanu, Doug Polk, Joey Ingram, Bart Hanson, and Phil Galfond all agreed that the only way Mike could be winning so much was through cheating, and they went on to investigate.
Poker journalist and YouTube celebrity Joey Ingram was one of the most involved, as he launched one of his famous investigations, which produced dozens of hours of video content where Joey broke down Mike’s hands, looking for signs of cheating.
Joey and others concluded that Postle was likely in cahoots with the game runners, who were feeding him live information on his opponents’ hole cards through some sort of technology.
Postle admits on stream that he can see the cards!!! WTF!!! He literally says it's so easy when you can see the cards!!
— LEGION | Joey Ingram 🐉 (@Joeingram1) October 2, 2019
The God has been trying to let us know the entire time, he has been asking to get caught, he can't believe it's gone on for this long. Fucking insane. pic.twitter.com/hJlZCO8eaH
The cards had RFID chips in them, and since this was an early poker stream, that information was available to a number of people in real time, with no guardrails in place.
Mike’s behavior during the streams where he won big was certainly suspect, as he held his phone in his lap and often took a very long time to act before making plays that defied any logic.
Basically every poker professional who got seriously involved with the case sided with Veronica and the other accusers, so they took the matter to the courts, hoping to get compensated for their troubles.
Postlegate Legal Saga Begins
In late 2019, 24 players who were involved in the Postlegate scandal and felt cheated filed a lawsuit against Postle, Stones Gambling Hall, and James Kuratis, who was the livestream manager for the show.
The players sought $30 million in compensation, although it’s very likely they would have accepted a lot less at the time.
Instead, the judge dismissed the case with prejudice some eight months later, as California law didn’t look too kindly on it on the merits of the case. The group could not refile, and this case was closed.
King’s Casino LLC, the company that owns the Stones Gambling Hall, did settle with 66 of the 80 plaintiffs that had joined the class action in total, while the likes of Brill decided not to accept any settlement at the time.
As time went on, Postle filed a lawsuit of his own, seeking damages for defamation from the likes of Daniel Negreanu, Phil Galfond, and ESPN.
This lawsuit was dropped by Postle following two anti-SLAPP motions to dismiss, which saw the judges rule against Mike and call the lawsuit frivolous.
While Postle never got his defamation compensation, the players he likely cheated never got made whole either, and the cheating was never proved in a court of law.
Postlegate Transformed Live Stream Security
Following the Postlegate, poker live streams changed in a big way. Shows like Hustler Casino Live, Poker at the Lodge, and others that came after realized they needed to make security their number one priority.
Cheating in the Stones Live case was all but proven, and it was very likely done in collaboration with someone running the show.
For that reason, other live streams implemented security measures such as stream delays, isolating the commentators and show runners from the players, and improving the RFID technology being used.
All of that didn’t stop a similar scandal from emerging a few years later on Hustler Casino Live, when Garrett Adelstein accused Robbi Jade Lew of cheating in a similar manner, although this case was far less clear-cut, and the cheating was only alleged in one hand.
In either case, the Stones Live scandal took the live stream security issue to a whole new level, while also teaching the players a lesson on being too trusting.
For those of you out there who play poker on a regular basis, remember that cheating is always possible in this game, and staying on your toes and fully aware of your surroundings is the only way to survive and ensure you aren’t made a victim in the next Postlegate.
