button in SafariDaniel Negreanu Critical of Poker Pro for Outing High Roller Over Unpaid Debt
Outing other high rollers on social media over unpaid debts isn't the way to go about resolving the situation, Daniel Negreanu says.
The longtime tournament grinder, without mentioning the parties involved by name, spoke critically in a YouTube video of Dylan Linde's decision to expose high-stakes star David Peters over a lingering debt.
Linde, in a recent tweetstorm, claimed that Peters, who has $50 million in live tournament cashes, has only paid him $27,000 of a $50,000 year-long debt related to buying tournament action. Negreanu explained in the video why he doesn't like the manner in which the situation was handled.
What Poker Legend Had to Say About David Peters Situation
Negreanu is part of the same high roller tournament community as Linde and Peters, regularly competing in the biggest tournaments at the World Series of Poker (WSOP) and PGT events in the PokerGO Studio. That community has, as he acknowledged, been under attack from poker fans who seem to believe all these high-stakes stars with millions in The Hendon Mob cashes are broke. Even Mike Matusow has taken shots at the top pros, going so far as to say the earnings are all "fake."
Four minutes into the video, Negreanu explained that many "high-stakes guys" have "liquidity issues" with money tied up in investments and backing other players.
"Sometimes they run short on available cash," Negreanu said of high rollers. "It's pretty common. But there's two types of people in that regard. Those that have every intention to pay, which, from my perspective, this gentleman did, because he was paying."
He was referring to Peters making a $12,000 payment to Linde in February and then another $15,000 payment on April 1 before saying he can't pay the rest. Negreanu sees the payments as Peters at least attempting to make good on an outstanding debt, as opposed to some poker players who don't pay anything back.
"I'm a little more old-school with stuff like that, and I kind of like to differentiate the difference between people who are broke and cannot pay, and people who are scamming. Scammers are the ones who have no intention to pay, will deflect, will claim they don't owe the money, whatever the case may be."
"It appears in this case the other party, the player that owed, acknowledged the debt, was paying the debt, doing his best. But, you know struggling."
Negreanu Has a Soft Spot
The GGPoker ambassador then said he has a "soft spot for people like that" because he's been in similar spots when he was a teenager coming to Las Vegas to play poker. He then spoke critically of the modern mentality — the "younger generation" — of taking to social media to handle private matters such as this instead of the old-school method of dealing with it privately.
"That's not something I'd do. If I did, there would be a long list of tweets that I could have about a lot of people that owe me money," Negreanu claims.
Negreanu did, however, agree that the poker community has a responsibility to out scammers. But he doesn't consider Peters a scammer and said he would "hesitate to take that to Twitter." The social media hounds, he claims, "take glee and happiness" in a high roller being strapped for cash.
Peters apologized for failing to pay off the full $50,000 balance. He hasn't issued a timetable on when the $23,000 he still owes Linde will be paid.
