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iGaming.org columnist Haley Hintze calls him “a jilted would-be software entrepreneur on a years-long revenge trip to damage companies that wouldn’t purchase his software products or theories.”
She’s referring to one James Thackston, for whom Hintze details the release of public emails exposing his apparent agenda.
Hintz writes:
The twin releases, published by Poker Players Alliance Vice President of Player Relations Rich Muny, shows that Thackston tried repeatedly to sell his online-security concept to multiple online gaming firms, even though those same firms, among the market leaders in the United States and Europe, already had their own systems in place.
It was only after Thackston’s strange, perhaps extortionate offers were repeatedly rebuffed that he finally switched tactics, attempting to publicly destroy the very industry he sought to contract with – essentially because they wouldn’t buy his goods. (Indeed, Muny used the word “extortion” when revealing some of the e-mails, which he received from their original recipients.) That included reaching a deal with a self-important, far-right political pundit named Cheri Jacobus, who in concert with Thackston has spent more than half a year spreading falsehoods about the supposed vulnerabilities of online poker to massive-scale money laundering.
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Muny’s publication of the emails seem to demonstrate that Thackston himself never believed his own hype and that he knew his project, UndetectableLaundering.com, “was a lie all along”, Hintz suggests.
These weren’t just start-up online poker rooms Thackston went after. He tried to sell his software to the likes of Harrah’s, who made it clear from the get-go they wanted nothing to do with Thackston.
Hintz notes that Thackston apparently figured that the sites owed him for his work anyway, whether they wanted his software of not.
She presents an excerpt from one of the e-mails to a potential client back in 2008:
“For the past 3 years, I have sought investment money from the internet poker industry to operate an internet payment processing company and to support the eSAFE legislation from that corporate entity. The most prominent targeted investors were Lyle Berman, Howard Lederer (Full Tilt), and Mitch Garber (Party Gaming).
“Because I failed to raise the necessary investment, I have shut down the eSAFE project as well as the company that supported it.
“Due to severe financial stress and with great anguish, I have been forced to take actions detrimental to the internet poker cause.”
Hintz goes into explicit detail of Thackston’s activities at iGaming.org. It’s a most intriguing piece that can be found here.
- Ace King, Gambling911.com
