Tom Dwan has made a clumsy attempt to publicly blackmail Haralabos Voulgaris into shutting up about his debt. The former Full Tilt Poker pro insinuated that he breached an NBA contract by gambling on basketball.
. @haralabob How much action did you have on basketball while under contract with the mavs? I wonder what contract and legal spots that could bring up.
Does the same kinda stuff happen with your soccer team?
— Tom Dwan (@TomDwan) March 9, 2024
Haralabos Voulgaris is a former director of quantitative research and development for the Dallas Mavericks.
One can assume that being contracted to an NBA team would mean that person is not allowed to place bets. At the time of writing, the Greek-American has not responded to Dwan’s comments on X/Twitter.
Tom Dwan Faces Abuse for Trying to Shift Attention to the Man He Owes
It didn’t take long before shots were fired over what was perceived as a shady move.
Jason Mo, never one to back down from shouting his opinion from the rooftops, was first to have his say.
Mo tweeted to Dwan:
“so you steal from a man then blackmail him to try get out of debt? @ACR_POKER you guys got such a winner congrats”
I guess it’s just coincidence that a bunch of people with stellar reputations regarding financial matters have issues with you. Where was bob doing any blackmail he just said you owed him money.
— jmo (@cuntycakes123) March 9, 2024
He continued by writing that both Haralabos Voulgaris and Peter Jetten have stellar reputations in the gambling world when it comes to money.
Dwan made it very clear that he disagrees this is the case when it comes to Voulgaris.
So ur not betting ya?
Bob has a stellar rep? What world r u in. He wrongside everyone n always see stuff 100% his way.
Bob would regularly try to push over a sports spot where we both felt I had exposure (stat of lim now up). Not talk thru what was fair
— Tom Dwan (@TomDwan) March 9, 2024
Peter Jetten Responds to Tom Dwan Interview
Over the weekend, Tom Dwan sat down for 10 minutes to give a few of his thoughts over the recent controversy.
The issue of the debts was touched upon but no discernable reason was given for why he is yet to pay up.
Peter Jetten tweeted that he watched the video, calling it “incomprehensible”.
In the X/Twitter thread we learned exactly what the debt is for and there doesn’t seem to be any reasonable excuse for Dwan.
Jetten claims Dwan bought action for high roller events back in 2020 and never paid up.
He added that he is willing to accept arbitration by a respected member of the community as Dwan is now saying the debt is contentious.
Nothing to arbitrate, never asked for interest
This is just Tom trying to save face publicly & have an excuse for his non payment over the years
Hence him repeatedly saying that he’d pay in full. Wasn’t until I said I would tweet that the debt became contentious
— Peter Jetten (@PeterJetten) March 10, 2024
There is no way that Tom Dwan comes out of this looking good. His reputation was already shaky after the long-running saga of his unfinished match against Jungleman.
Now, with all of this hanging over him, there is a possibility that he is going to find it hard to find backing in the future.
We don’t actually know who backs him to appear in the world’s biggest cash games and the likes of the Triton Super High Roller Series, but popular opinion is that he is not winning much, if anything at all.
How long before his reputation falls to the level of Ali Imsirovic and Jake Schindler?
The high-stakes community has always run on trust. Players are known to borrow insane amounts at the table to keep the game running so it is imperative that anyone welcome to play is held to account.
Poker cannot have players with such a profile running around doing as they please. It is harmful to the game.
Jungleman, for what it’s worth, bucked the trend and tweeted out in support of the man who still refuses to play him.
He wrote that he has realised that Dwan works tirelessly towards paying back what he owes.
Re the @TomDwan drama, I have realized is that in fact he does intend on paying back his debts and has worked tirelessly towards that
I think he has made a lot of mistakes but also had some fucked up things happen to him, and I think it's important to focus on the most mutually…
— Daniel Cates 🇺🇸 🌎 (@junglemandan) March 9, 2024
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