Stones Gambling Hall Poker Atlas
- Stones Gambling Hall offers two separate gaming establishments. The Tavern hosts blackjack and other popular card games, including Baccarat and Pai Gow poker. The Saloon offers many of those same card games plus Northern California poker, featuring recreational table and seasoned professional play.
- More than 60 of the 88 plaintiffs who sued Stones Gambling Hall, Justin Kuraitis, and Mike Postle over an alleged cheating scheme have entered into an “amicable settlement” with the casino.
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No proof of cheating
More than 60 of the 88 plaintiffs who sued Stones Gambling Hall, Justin Kuraitis, and Mike Postle over an alleged cheating scheme have entered into an “amicable settlement” with the casino. The financial terms were not disclosed, but a Stones source told The Sacramento Bee that the amount paid to each person was “nominal” and more a show of “good will” than anything else.
Stones Gambling Hall offers two separate gaming establishments. The Tavern hosts blackjack and other popular card games, including Baccarat and Pai Gow poker. The Saloon offers many of those same card games plus Northern California poker, featuring recreational table and seasoned professional play. Stones Gambling Hall in California said it will halt the live streaming of poker games pending an investigation into cheating allegations made against Mike Postle, one of the game's players. Stones is the gold standard for poker rooms in Northern California. The staff is terrific, food is gourmet and fast to the tables. Donkeys get put out to pasture so bring real skill. 10 am tournament is great and competitive.
Postle was accused about a year ago of cheating during the Stones Live livestreamed cash games, racking up about $130,000 in profits during 34 sessions in 2018 and 2019. There was no concrete evidence presented to prove the allegations, though his play did raise eyebrows. In the streams, which members of the poker community studied more than most of did for college finals, Postle often won hands with garbage and was often well behind late in hands that he eventually won. He seemed to run like a poker god.
What really got people suspicious, however, was that often, when Postle tanked, he would look down at his lap for a bit. Many hypothesized that he was looking at a cell phone or other device that may have been showing him RFID readings of the cards or perhaps a feed of the live stream. An odd bulge in his baseball cap added to the speculation, as people thought it could be some sort of receiver.
Again, all that was speculation, and there was no proof that Postle actually cheated.
In a statement included with the settlement, the plaintiffs’ lawyer, Maurice “Mac” VerStandig, said, in part:
After reviewing evidence with the cooperation of Stones, my co-counsel and I have found no evidence supporting the plaintiffs’ claims against Stones, Stones Live Poker, or Justin Kuraitis. My co-counsel and I have found no forensic evidence that there was cheating at Stones or that Stones, Mr. Kuraitis, the Stones Live team, or any dealers were involved in any cheating scheme.
Mike Postle’s name was not in the statement.
Kuraitis takes no prisoners
Kuraitis, who produced the Stones Live show, published a lengthy statement on Monday, lambasting the poker community for trying him in the court of public opinion.
“In the fall of 2019,” he said, “I watched as the ‘poker community’ and wanna-be ‘celebrity’ commentators on Twitter/YouTube falsely accused me of being a knowing participant in what was allegedly the ‘biggest poker cheating scandal in history.’”
Criticizing poker vlogger Joey Ingram, Kuraitis said, “…it became clear that Ingram was peddling false statistics, cherry-picking hands to fit his theories and ignoring data that did not fit his version of the story.”
Kuraitis continued for multiple pages, explaining that a poker media outlet called Rounderlife was the only one that researched evidence and took his side. He also said he asked Veronica Brill, the person who originally accused Postle of cheating, if she had evidence, which she could not deliver. Kuraitis noted that he thought it was curious that she continued to invite Postle, who she believed to be cheating, to her “Veronica and Friends” cash game.
Postle waiting for his moment
As for Postle himself, he hasn’t said much yet, but he did text The Sacramento Bee, saying, “As much as I’d like to say, all I can really say right now is that I have my side of this entire fiasco to tell. It won’t just shock the poker and gambling industries, but the entire world.”
Postle added that he is anxious to tell his story, which will come out in a documentary produced by 25/7 Productions.
08:0221 May
Stones Gambling Hall parent King’s Casino Management and “Stones Live!” director Justin Kuraitis have filed amended motions to dismiss the high-profile poker cheating lawsuit centered on California poker pro Mike Postle. Stones and Kuraitis, who are co-defendants in the $10 million case brought by 89 plaintiffs and participants in the livestreamed cash games featuring Postle, filed their responses in a Sacramento federal court last week.
The separate but coordinated filings hit the case docket just a few days prior to the first hearing in the case, which was held on Monday, May 18. The two revised motions to dismiss the civil action came in response to an amended and expanded complaint filed a couple of weeks earlier by Maurice “Mac” VerStandig, the primary attorney for the aggrieved players.
- Mike Postle Cheating Lawsuit: Plaintiffs File Response to Stones’ Denial of Responsibility
The revised dismissal motion by Stones Gambling Hall steered clear of making the same type of blunders as in its initial defense filing. In that earlier filing, Stones and its counsel received widespread public criticism for declaring that it assumed no responsibility for any cheating that had occurred on its premises, even if that cheating was done in coordination with one or more Stones employees, as alleged in the lawsuit. Such a blanket disavowal of its consumer-protection responsibilities had many onlookers declaring that the California-licensed card room was no better than an unregulated, underground game.
Despite avoiding such declarations, however, the latest filing by Stones counsel Mark Mao still hit many of the same themes. Mao again proclaimed as his primary argument that “California Law Bars Plaintiffs’ Claims for Gambling Related Losses,” even though California gambling laws themselves have been revised several times in the decades since the state legalized card rooms.
The closest Mao came to repeating the earlier public-opinion gaffe came in his revised to plaintiffs’ ongoing negligence claim against the casino. Mao wrote:
“Plaintiffs put forward several theories of a potential negligence duty of care, but ignore the key reality that Stones did not owe them a duty of care enforceable through a negligence claim to protect them from potential cheaters.”
The bald repudiation of any “care” responsibilities will again cause many onlookers to cringe, though such a harsh stance appears vital to Stones’ contributory defense if the cheating involving Postle is proven in court.
Stones’ counsel also furthered its argument against a libel accusation brought by Veronica Brill, the case’s lead plaintiff. The slander charge was brought after Stones and its employees were alleged to have trashed Brill following her first attempts to bring accusations of Postle’s alleged cheating to Kuraitis, who ran the “Stones Live!” operation.
Stones, which denigrated Brill in a posting on its Twitter business account, attempted to parse its post, blind-referencing Brill to depict the text as not being libelous. Mao wrote:
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“Stones did not, as Plaintiffs suggest, make 'a public statement' – that Ms. Brill’s allegations about Mr. Postle were ‘completely fabricated.’ ... The tweet generically referred to ‘allegations.’ … The assertion that Stones’ tweet referred to Ms. Brill because both Ms. Brill’s allegations and Stones’ tweet were on Twitter is not sufficient.”
The Tweet was made on September 29, 2019. Though it did not name Brill, it was clearly about her and her claims:
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These topics and more were broached in Monday’s hearing, in which VerStandig, Mao, Kuraitis counsel William Pachter and Mike Postle himself participated. Several weeks are likely to elapse before presiding US District Judge William Shubb rules on the dismissal motions.