Mike Matusow considers buying Johnny Chan’s newly bankrupt poker room in Houston, Texas, which failed to cash in players chips due to insolvency.
The Mouth told on his podcast that he spoke at length with the 1987 and 1988 WSOP Main Event champion about the prospect of rescuing Johnny Chan’s 88 Social poker room only days after its closure was announced.
Just had long talk with Jonny Chan discussing what is going on and allegations with his 88 club in Houston! Tune into “TheMouthpiecePodcast” today at 4 pm pacific to hear the truth of what exactly is going on in Houston! #TheMouthpiecePodcast
— Mike Matusow (@themouthmatusow) December 6, 2021
Mike Matusow Thinking about Buying Johnny Chan’s Poker Room
Matusow opens his podcast explaining to his viewers what Chan says is the real story behind recent events.
“…when he was in Vegas for the World Series, his partner emptied out the bank account and all the money in it and took off. By the time he came back this is where everything stood. Now I’m sure there’s a bigger story to this…”
He continues by saying it is now a possible plan for him to move to Houston to run the business and has already had exploratory talks with his partners and friends.
After adding that he has been thinking about a move from Nevada to Texas for some time, he sees Chan’s misfortune as a good business opportunity as the club was doing well before this problem came about.
What’s Going on Behind the Scenes?
As ever, it is clear that we have no idea of what the full story is here, but a video surfaced on YouTube where Johnny Chan’s former business partner was doorstepped by journalists investigating the murky world of Texas live poker rooms.
Johnny Chan was a partner with David La in the business’s previous guise 52 Social which only opened in February 2020, right before the Covid-19 pandemic hit, meaning it never got off the ground.
La had just been banned from running a poker club in California for unknown reasons and the pair had high hopes for the new venture.
It turns out that David La applied for a PPP loan under Covid-19 relief for $470,000 without meeting the criteria. The money has now apparently vanished.
Highlighting just what kind of a situation 52 Social was, to be eligible for one of these loans, payroll figures from 2019 had to be produced. Of course, 52 Social didn’t even exist then.
La’s Houston-based company JJJ Vision filed an application stating they estimated their 500 employees cost around $2.26 million.
“I don’t know what happened to the money”
Johnny Chan told a reporter:
“I don’t know what happened to the money, I’ll be honest with you.”
He followed up with an opinion that whoever issued the $470,000 loan should have done more investigation!
All of this and now all the money has gone missing from Johnny Chan’s new venture. Talk about bad luck!
We wonder how David La is getting on in his new poker room, Legends Poker, only a few doors down from Chan.
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