EXCLUSIVE: Tom Dwan Addresses Jetten & Voulgaris Debt Accusations in 45-Minute Interview
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Tom Dwan, who spoke with PokerNews on Friday and then again on Sunday, is back on X after being locked out of his account, and he's firing back at those who have accused him of failing to make whole unpaid debts.
The poker legend who once ruled the Full Tilt Poker streets under the screen name "durrrr," had some choice words for Haralabos Voulgaris and Peter Jetten. But one player owes money to, Dan "Jungleman" Cates, stood up for him in a surprisingly cordial tweet.
Amidst all the bickering on social media, Dwan also made the news Friday when he signed as an a new ambassador of an unregulated poker site, a site that many poker players have reported has a never-ending bot problem.
Check out the 45-minutes interview Dwan gave to PokerNews' Chad Holloway on Sunday night:
Durrrr's First Chat with PokerNews
Shortly after unleashing quite the tweetstorm, the 37-year-old popular poker pro spoke with PokerNews to briefly discuss the allegations.
"There's been times in the past where I didn't think they've been fair, and then they'd try to push things publicly," Dwan said of Jetten and Voulgaris. "To me, I don't really respect that."
The First conversation with Dwan lasted less than 10 minutes due to his cell phone battery running dead. But he'd already said plenty on X before the interview took place.
Dwan didn't stop there. In his following tweet, he referred to Voulgaris' story as "way off" and implied it was all a lie. The story he's referring to is in the following tweet from March 5.
Voulgaris, the owner of CD Castellón Spanish soccer club and a longtime high stakes poker player, is referring to the $3.1 million pot Dwan won last June on Hustler Casino Live, the largest live-streamed pot in history.
Jetten, who has over $9.3 million in The Hendon Mob cashes, was first to bring forth allegations against Dwan for failing to pay off debts. He did so on Feb. 18 when he wrote: "Would caution against doing business with Tom Dwan. He's owed me 226k for 4 years and continues to use delay tactics to avoid payment."
He then went on to claim Dwan has, on multiple occasions, offered to pay him back but "never does." On Friday, Dwan responded to that tweet with the following:
Jetten, in response to the above tweet, referred to the arbitration suggestion as "just another one of your delay tactics." He then mentioned that he did agree to hiring an arbitrator, whom he called a "respected member of the community," so long as Dwan would be willing to escrow the money.
"You wouldn't send accounting, wouldn't send me details around a spot that's at best you taking advantage a bunch and asking me to honor anyway. You also made a bunch of crazy threats, and a ton of unhinged messages," Dwan fired back at his accuser, to which Jetten told the former Full Tilt Poker pro that he did have access to the accounting, "and you never asked me for it until 6 months ago when you were trying to delay payment."
Here is the 9-minute first interview Dwan gave to PokerNews:
Dwan Dives Deeper into Poker Scandal
Two days after his brief interview, Dwan agreed to do a more thorough interview with PokerNews, and this time the conversation lasted 45 minutes. Among the often lengthy, off-topic answers to some questions, the online poker legend denied Voulgaris and Jetten's accounting.
“It seems clear to me he’s gonna try to be painting a story with texts and s**t. He wouldn’t even send me our f*****g texts. Finally, yesterday he did, but that was only after someone else pressured him," Dwan said of Jetten.
Not only did he deny owing Jetten the $226,000, but he claimed he is the one who is owed money.
“I mean, if we actually talk through fair, right like he would owe me a bunch. The makeup’s worth more than he was complaining about," Dwan claims.
Dwan says Jetten is a former friend whom he "helped out" in the past and would even stake to play in some games. But that relationship is tarnished, and durrrr believes he is still owed makeup from previous backing arrangements, although he didn't specify the amount.
“He’s not acting in good faith or reasonable like that’s very clear to me. To me it seems clear that he’s gonna share some texts and try to paint some picture," Dwan on Jetten.
As for Voulgaris, a former director of quantitative research and development for the NBA's Dallas Mavericks, he says Dwan owes him money from a previous sports betting deal.
“There were a bunch of misrepresentations, lies, omissions in that thing. If it’s one or two, I can be like okay, whatever. This is still a super douchey move, alright. There were a bunch,” Dwan claims of Voulgaris.
Dwan then said he recently had a 40-minute phone conversation with Voulgaris in which they both shouted at each other. He claims that the soccer club owner is "misrepresenting the truth," and that "me and him have been square for years and years."
Jungleman to the Rescue?
There was one prominent poker pro who stood up for Dwan on social media, and it's not exactly who most would have expected to do so — Dan Cates. In the Full Tilt Poker days, prior to Black Friday (April 15, 2011), Dwan offered up a "Durrrr Challenge" to anyone who wanted to face him in heads up poker.
Dwan's challenge called for 50,000 hands online at $200/$400 stakes, and if he were to lose, he would pay his opponent $1.5 million against the $500,000 he stood to gain if he won. In the first battle, he defeated Patrik Antonius. Then came Jungleman, who dominated the match so much that Dwan gave up long before it ended.
Despite "durrrr" backing out early, Cates wanted the side bet money he was owed. Over the years, according to previous comments from Cates, part of that debt has been paid. But there's still a significant amount of money he believes he deserves from his heads up opponent, and he's criticized Dwan publicly multiple times in the past. On Friday, however, he had a different tone.
Many poker fans on X have called for, or joked about, Dwan using his sponsorship money to pay off his debts. Don't count on it, but perhaps the parties will find a positive resolution in the matter.
