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The California Bureau of Gambling Control (CBGC) will permit the Hustler Casino live stream to continue following a brief probe. The decision comes following a high profile cheating scandal involving a novice player, vibrating device and apparent threatening behavior. All parties involved deny any wrongdoing, however, a Hustler employee has since been fired for theft related to the incident.
Rookie professional poker player Lew won a $269,000 pot allegedly using a pocket vibrator in question. The win surprised many fans watching a Hustler Casino livestream of the tournament, though some experts chimed in to say that the bizarre sequence of events and win could easily have been a result of Lew's relative lack of experience.
Her opponent, a one-time "Survivor" contestant Garrett Adelstein, immediately accused Lew of cheating. She apparently paid him back in a "dark hallway" but felt threatened.
Zach Elwood, Author of "Reading Poker Tells" and the YouTube channel of the same name joined Eric Hunley of the Unstructured Podcast to help navigate the situation.
Based on what cards Adelson had, odds were in his favor that he should have won the hand in question.
"He bet, she raised, he went all in and she made a huge call," Elwood explains.
That call was for somewhere in the neighborhood of $80,000.
This sparked suspicions as there was a jack high and no draw.
"Just jack high," Elwood says. "The point is that, even if you thought your opponent was bluffing in that situation, they will almost always be even bluffing with a better hand than you because a lot of people would bluff with strong flush draws or, you know, strong straight draws or, you know, whatever it may be."
Elwood says that the odds of Lew winning "were so phenomenally small" but that the move could be attributed to her limited experience playing poker.
"Unless they are very beginner level and very nervous, you know, which gets into the realm of, like it's one thing to suspect that or find the hand suspicious, which is understandable because it is a strange hand, especially considering the stakes, but then it is another thing to be certain that she cheated when you saw this kinda like polarized responses right now."
Lew, nonetheless, has had success playing in live tournaments. She recently won the $ 2,200 No Limit Hold'em - Get Even Survivor (Event #36) World Poker Tour - WPT Legends of Poker event in Los Angeles (Bell Gardens), cashing $20,000 and has placed among the top 5 in live events held over the past year.
The Hustler Casino itself initiated its own internal probe into the incident. The casino advised it will be working closely with the CBGC and "share its findings at the conclusion".
An update pic.twitter.com/xoAbJbDSpT
— Hustler Casino Live (@HCLPokerShow) October 12, 2022
In a bizarre twist, HCL fired one of its employees, Bryan Sagbigsal, for allegedly stealing three of Lew's poker chips totalling $15,000.
- Ace King, Gambling911.com
