JRB Says Tom Dwan Was His First Poker Backer
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Jean-Robert Bellande revealed on Johan "YoH Viral" Guilbert's podcast that a young Tom Dwan was the first person who ever backed him at the poker table.
The backing arrangement began in the early 2010s when "JRB," a popular player on televised poker shows during the poker boom era, became an ambassador for the Aria poker room in Las Vegas. Bellande, who played almost daily in the high-stakes room formerly known as "Ivey Room," helped grow Aria into one of the top poker rooms in the world.
Discussing the Poker Staking Arrangement
Dwan burst onto the poker scene in his early 20's playing on Full Tilt Poker, a poker site he'd soon become a top ambassador for, playing under the screen name "durrrr." The New Jersey online poker superstar who regularly played in the nosebleed no-limit hold'em and pot-limit Omaha games on FTP was staking another well-known poker pro at the time.
"The first guy to ever stake me in poker was actually Tom Dwan," Bellande, 16 years older than Dwan, told Guilbert, who appeared stunned at that statement.
Bellande said Dwan, who turns 40 this summer, was 22 years old at the time. That puts their initial staking arrangement to somewhere around 2009, right about when Dwan made his first televised poker appearances on shows such as High Stakes Poker and Poker After Dark.
Speaking of TV poker, Bellande, who recently scored a $1.5 million win in the Onyx High Roller Series, laughed at those who claim the players on televised poker shows aren't playing with real money.
"I honestly believe that probably 25, 30% of people that ever watch us on TV think that this is all fake. All fake money, yeah. It's not," JRB said.
Few poker players ever have appeared on more televised poker shows than Bellande, a high-stakes cash game regular for over 20 years. He's also a World Series of Poker (WSOP) bracelet winner.
Dwan Not Always the Backer
Dwan hasn't always been the backer. Court documents reviewed by PokerNews show the poker legend was once backed by Malaysian gambler Paul Phua. Some of those payments were made by embattled high-stakes attorney Tom Goldstein, who is currently on trial for tax fraud related charges.
Text messages that Goldstein sent to an undisclosed recipient (identified in court documents as Phua associate "Kids") in 2016 and 2017 reveal a few instances in which Goldstein had sent multiple six-figure payments to Dwan, referred to as "TD" in text conversations in February and April 2017, transferring a balance Goldstein owed to Phua.
A ledger, which Goldstein verified as accurate by signing a joint stipulation of fact reviewed by PokerNews, showed that he had transferred at least $1,290,000 to a "Thomas Dwan" over multiple payments to cover "poker losses or staking amounts." Those payments were: $550,000 in 2016; $680,000 in 2017; and $60,000 in 2021.
The text exchange also shows that Goldstein planned on getting Short Deck coaching from Dwan. "Working with TD to learn short deck," Goldstein wrote in February 2017.
Goldstein is accused by the federal government of misreporting his poker winnings to the IRS. His trial in a Maryland federal court is winding down and a verdict could be announced within the week.
Dwan and Goldstein played against each other in the 2024 Hustler Casino Live Million Dollar Game. Goldstein, playing masked up in disguise falsely claiming to be a European businessman, lost over $2.7 million across two sessions in the $1 million buy-in game. He infamously mucked the winning hand at showdown in a $540,000 pot against "Steve the Lawyer."
