Falsely accused Justin Kuraitis breaks silence; “Poker influencers destroyed my life”

By Staff

Nearly six years after being falsely accused of masterminding a cheating ring that allegedly stole hundreds of thousands of dollars from unsuspecting victims playing on a live-stream poker show at Stones Gambling Hall in Citrus Heights, California, Justin Kuraitis finally broke his silence and spoke out against the influencers who spread “easily disprovable” lies that destroyed his once “pristine” career.

“They not only destroyed my career; they destroyed my life,” he stated somberly during an interview with Rounder Magazine, reflecting on the ordeal that captivated not only the poker world but a mainstream audience as well.

Kuraitis decided to speak out after “whistleblower” Veronica Brill produced an animated YouTube series in March 2025 that didn’t sit well with him, prompting an appearance on The Omar Show, a growing Spaces platform on X that covers sports betting and gambling news, including poker.

On April 2, 2025, he made his first “live” statement on the scandal after thanking the show’s host, Omar, for inviting him.

“I actually intended to stay silent forever, but apparently the lies are going to continue indefinitely,” he explained. “I think it’s time for me to talk, answer questions, and tell my side of the story because my side has pretty much been shut down from the beginning,” he said.

The case against 16-year poker pro Mike Postle, whom Kuraitis was falsely accused of helping cheat, was never proven. The lawsuit filed against Postle by 88 plaintiffs was dismissed, in part due to a California law preventing individuals from recovering gambling losses. Kuraitis and Stones eventually agreed to a nominal settlement that reportedly paid each plaintiff around $400. “That’s enough for a new PlayStation,” Kuraitis mockingly remarked when addressing the failed case.

In her YouTube “cartoon,” as Kuraitis refers to it, Brill claims that Kuraitis was “fired from a previous casino for a tournament chip scheme.” She also alleges that he wore a lapel mic at Stones, presumably to communicate with Postle and other accomplices involved in the cheating ring, naming Stones techs Taylor and Lance, as well as commentator Justin Kelly (all of whom were cleared by the California Bureau of Gambling Control). Brill points out that they were either silent or defensive after the scandal, including Lance, who she states was fired by Kuraitis, prompting the cheating crew to “take a break from the cheating.”

“When she tells her stories, she’s really good at weaving pieces of truth into the lies, which helps make her stories more believable to many,” Kuraitis explained as he addressed the allegations.

When questioned about the lapel mic, Kuraitis explained he wore it for about two weeks when they were testing ways to mic up players individually.

“Can you explain what happened at the other casino?” Omar prodded, alluding to the alleged “tournament chip scheme” Brill claimed he was fired over.

The irony of ironies,” he responded with a laugh. “I busted a cheating scandal! How it’s all come full circle is so crazy!” he exclaimed. 

“I worked there as a dealer for a long time, and then an opportunity to become a tournament director opened up. I’ve always really liked tournaments. I feel like tournaments are the purest form of the game. You don’t have a big stack or a small stack. Everyone buys in for the same amount. Everyone starts with the same chips. Everyone has the same opportunity. I really love that about tournaments, so the opportunity to run tournaments was awesome. I found Matt Savage and started studying his writings as I was preparing for this job that, honestly, at the time, I didn’t know much about, and began to learn how to be a tournament director.”

He explained that he had a chip inventory system in place for tournaments and noticed that some of the higher-value chips started disappearing after they concluded.

“I noticed these fluctuations beginning to happen. We had recently implemented a system where players had to swipe their Players Card to enter the tournament. I started logging instances of who was playing when the chips went missing and when they returned. Eventually, I narrowed it down to about three people who were common in all these occurrences.” 

Finally, he caught the cheater on video, “dead to rights,” palming chips. “It was this nice little 80-year-old man.” However, when he reported his findings to upper management and requested that the player be removed, he was told to sweep it under the rug because it was “just an old man having fun,” who was a regular in the room.

Kuraitis made his stand face-to-face with the owner, telling him, “It’s not good business practice to allow cheaters in your (poker) room.” After being informed no disciplinary action would be taken against the cheater, Kuraitis quit. 

Brill points out that the casino was eventually shut down by the gaming commission. A news story in The Sacramento Bee titled ‘State shuts down Sacramento’s Casino Royale,’ still live on its website, confirms the casino didn’t have enough money in its cage to pay off nearly $60,000 a customer had won. 

Brill questioned the validity of Kuraitis’s claim that the casino took the cheater’s side over him and points to Stones as further evidence he’s a “life-long scammer.” “What kind of person is always associated with some shady casino stuff?”

“I wasn’t even working there at the time,” Kuraitis pointed out.

In Kuraitis’ interview, still posted on X on “The Omar Show” under the username @PennyPitVictim, he also revealed details no other media outlet addressed. In one revelation, Kuraitis claimed that the judge would have allowed the plaintiffs to move forward with their case against him and Stones if they had simply named their alleged co-conspirator. 

When pressed by Omar, Kuraitis clarified. “I remember being on the call, and the judge was grilling Veronica’s lawyer for more information. He was saying, ‘This is incomplete. You need to name the co-conspirator.’ At the time, they had not named me as the co-conspirator. They named me in the lawsuit but didn’t name me as the co-conspirator. Omar, why? Why wouldn’t they name me in front of the judge? I have a theory. Because he knew that if he named me in front of the judge, he was f**d. It’s malicious prosecution. He had zero evidence on me.”

The poker world assumed the alleged accomplice was Kuraitis since he was depicted as the inside guy by lead investigator and high-profile poker influencer Joey Ingram. 

During his investigation, Ingram reported that the only time Postle lost was when Kuraitis was out of town, a narrative subsequently repeated by sportscaster Scott Van Pelt on SportsCenter, which has since been disproven after extensive data breakdowns show Postle lost numerous additional sessions that were originally reported as wins with Kuraitis present. In other instances where Kuraitis was out of town, Postle booked some of his biggest wins. 

Kuraitis pointed out that lead attorney Maurice “Mac” VerStandig actually went on a poker podcast and hinted that the co-conspirator was him. During the episode of ‘The Rake,’ a poker podcast owned by another high-profile influencer and pro Phil Galfond, hosts Jamie Kerstetter, an influencer and WSOP commentator, and Marle Spragg (Cordeiro), who filed a separate lawsuit against Postle, chatted with VerStandig as he gave updates on the case. It was then that Kerstetter slyly told viewers that the co-conspirator’s name sounded like “Dustin Mengitis.”

“Like, obviously, it was me, right?” Kuraitis pointed out.

During the podcast, VerStandig also revealed the source of the evidence he was using to build his case. “I got most of my intel from Joey Ingram.” 

VerStandig has since issued an apology of sorts to Kuraitis, stating he found no evidence Kuraitis took part in any cheating, if it ever occurred.

“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. Based on our investigation, we are satisfied that Stones and Mr. Kuraitis were not involved in any cheating that may have occurred,” VerStandig wrote.

Neither Kerstetter nor Spragg have reached out to Kuraitis to apologize for their roles in destroying his career. Each, according to Kuraitis, used their influence to spread what he described as “easily disprovable lies.” Cordeiro, for instance, insinuated that Kuraitis had purchased a Tesla with his share of the alleged ill-gotten gains (many speculated he received half), but it turned out the car was bought eight months before the alleged cheating began.

In addition to insinuating Kuraitis was the co-conspirator, Kerstetter, along with a long list of high-profile poker influencers including Daniel Negreanu, Doug Polk, Matt Berkey, Bart Hanson, and Christian Soto, to name just a few, mocked and attacked Kuraitis during a week-long Twitter tirade after being vindicated in a court of law.

In the rant, Kuraitis pointed out that Ingram reported severely flawed data gathered by online sleuths and presented it as “evidence” without conducting a thorough investigation. “He cherry-picked hands,” Kuraitis argued with the poker Twitter mob at the time. Ingram has since admitted he looked at less than 20% of the streams, contradicting Kerstetter and others’ claims that “he went over every hand.”

Kuraitis revealed that he knew the data evidence was bogus because Stones had him go through every hand and compile it while he was on paid leave during the ongoing case. “I treated it like a job. I sat in front of my computer and watched every hand Mike Postle played.” Upon realizing how far off the data was in the lawsuit, Kuraitis explained that it alleviated much of the anxiety he was feeling. “I couldn’t wait to go to court and present it.”

Kuraitis, who revealed to Rounder he refused a non-disclosure offer from Stones to not discuss the case publicly, confirmed that the data he compiled closely matched data released by RounderLife when he compared his hand-by-hand breakdowns to those released on rounderlife.com. 

“There were like $5 discrepancies here and there.” He explained that the data he compiled can’t be released because it’s actually the property of Stones, which he told Rounder they are “keeping for their ace in the hole” if any additional legal action is ever directed their way.

For nearly six years, the “poker community” attacked Rounder after it presented hand-by-hand breakdowns proving that the data presented in the lawsuit and cited by influencers as evidence was flawed and that Postle’s win rate during the streams was in line with his career average. 

Finally, in April 2025, Matt Berkey shocked viewers on his “Only Friends Podcast,” including guest poker pro Jessy Silva, when he admitted that the data charts he and others spread as proof were bogus and presented “in bad faith.” 

“It’s not good data work,” he said, revealing to Silva, who seemed stunned to learn that a splash graph comparing Postle’s win rate to notorious online poker cheat POTRIPPER was fake and used to draw attention to the case. “Oh wow. I was looking at it from the other angle—like how do you explain this sort of thing?”

“You just say it’s wrong, and it is,” Berkey responded to Silva while his co-hosts chuckled.

“I normally conduct myself more professionally,” Kuraitis said, recalling the back-and-forth he had with many of the biggest names in poker during his viral tweet storm in 2020. “I’m sure you can understand that after being quiet and attacked for a year, when you finally get exonerated, you want to put your finger in everyone’s face and go, ‘F*k you and f*k you, and you’re a piece of sh*t.’ Was that the best move, Omar?” No, I’m not particularly proud of it, but I don’t stay up at night losing sleep over it either because those people genuinely did me wrong. They accused me of something I didn’t do. They accused me of something that potentially had very serious ramifications for my life. I’m very fortunate. All I lost was my career in poker. I could have lost a lot more. I could have lost my freedom over this.”

When asked if he’d consider returning to the poker industry, Kuraitis turned the conversation to the 88 plaintiffs who sued him. 

“Let’s talk about the guys in the lawsuit. If you can get any one of those people in that lawsuit to be truthful and honest with you, they will tell you that Justin was the man. ‘He broke his back for us. He made sure we had comps. He made sure that the drinks were at the table. He made sure that the game was running. He rallied up the players.’ I put the work in to make this sh*t happen.

I treated those people like royalty. I made them VIP guests. I put this on the stream. I broadcast them to the world. Our local Sacramento poker people watched these guys play. I turned them into, not stars, but you know, they’re in the limelight. They’re on this stream. It’s a small-time stream, but we were making people feel important, and I was putting all my effort into constantly making this thing better and developing it—and then eighty of them, eighty people, eighty-plus people just needed one phone call from Veronica to sign on to a lawsuit and sue me for ten million dollars. Okay, first of all, when I saw that, I was like ‘I don’t have ten million dollars; these people are crazy!’ And then I started looking at the names on there. Matt Gouge… that guy sold me my first home! That guy wrote my mortgage and helped me buy my first home. He’s a real estate agent. He sued me! I had another guy; his name was Nat, Lucky Nat… that guy called me after I was exonerated and told me, ‘Hey, I want to apologize to you. It was nothing personal. I just went into the lawsuit for the money.’ And I was like, ‘Dude, it felt personal.’”

“Jaman Burton was a famous name that logged onto the lawsuit. He reached out to me afterward and wanted to grab a cup of coffee, hang out, and see how I’m doing. Are you f*ing kidding me? You just sued me for ten million dollars; this is wild! These people are so deranged that they thought it was no big deal. They thought I was just going to jump back into the mix with them after I broke my back night after night making sure that they were taken care of, and with the click of a switch, Veronica says ‘Come join this lawsuit; you might get ten million dollars.’ Eighty of them jumped on. Eighty of them; wrap your head around that. I served these people for a decade, and they believed I would do something like that? They believed I could be a part of cheating them after I did nothing but take care of them night after night? 

And the question is ‘Do I want to go back to that?’ It’s an easy answer.”

Eden Rocks, an early pioneer in the Poker X Spaces platform and an occasional guest and co-host on The Omar Show, who Omar describes as his “mentor,” apologized for taking part in the witch hunt but pushed back when Kuraitis called out Ingram for his involvement.

“I will speak on Joey Ingram’s behalf, though,” he continued. “The guy’s heart is in the right place. He put in a lot of hours and wants to get the case right. Maybe some of it wasn’t quite right, but it’s not for any malicious reason or due to incompetence, in my opinion.” 

Kuraitis responded, “Eden, let me say this to you. First of all, man, your apology is incredibly appreciated, and thank you for being willing to give an apology. I know that can be difficult. I think that’s really big of you, so thank you for that. Secondly, I understand you’re friends with Joey, but for you to say that he wants to make it right is bullsh*t because he can make it right. I think Joey knows a lot of what was done was wrong. I think he knows looking back that, especially when it comes to me, he has to know that he screwed up. He ruined someone’s life, and you know what? You know how many attempts he’s made to reach out to me and do what you just did? Take a guess.”

“How would it be made right with him? What does that mean? Just so I know,” Rocks politely asked.

“Sure, I have some ideas. He could come out and publicly say, ‘Here’s some new evidence. Wow, I was wrong about Kuraitis. Let’s look at the ways that I was wrong. I’d like to retract some of the statements and maybe issue a public apology.’ That would be a fantastic start.”

“I’m not so sure he ever said you’re guilty,” Rocks responded, to which Kuraitis replied, “Go watch the streams, dude; it’s on video.”

“I was there. He might have said allegedly this…but okay, I hear ya,” Rocks offered, to which Kuraitis pointed out, “Even if it was true that he didn’t come out and say ‘Kuraitis is guilty!’, even if that’s true, he painted the picture. He did the broad strokes. ‘And, well this guy was here, and he’s the only one that had access, and he was gone for six weeks when the losing streak happened.’ Is it really that different than pointing the finger and saying ‘This guy!’? 

To date, Ingram has remained silent on his role in purging Kuraitis from the poker community, and it doesn’t appear he’ll be correcting the wrongs anytime soon, considering he was recently spotted in Las Vegas hanging out with Kuraitis’ main antagonist, Veronica Brill.

Christian Soto, who joined the lawsuit after claiming he “got wrecked” in a short session against Postle, appeared on the show as a guest. His inclusion was initially objected to by Kuraitis due to his alleged role in promoting the narrative that Postle and Kuraitis had “cheated a dying man,” referring to the late Kevin “Racks” Roster, a poker player with terminal sarcoma who moved to California to avail himself of the state’s right-to-die legislation. Kuraitis met and befriended Roster during the 2019 WSOP and invited him to play on StonesLive. Roster passed away on July 26, 2019, just weeks after his final session at Stones. 

Eventually, Soto was allowed to speak. He challenged Kuraitis for saying the case was “100% bullsh*t” while simultaneously claiming there was a 70% chance Postle cheated. Kuraitis replied, “The case against me is total bullsh*t. I don’t know if Postle cheated.” Soto also insisted there was data available showing that Postle made an extraordinarily high number of perfect river decisions, but he wasn’t able to present it when asked by Kuraitis.

In addition to calling out influencers who were vocal about his alleged involvement and have yet to apologize, Kuraitis expressed disappointment in other “high-level poker royalty” who privately supported him but never publicly defended him, naming Chris Moneymaker and WSOP commentator Lon McEachern, two of the most well-known names in poker. 

According to Kuraitis, Moneymaker was aware that he had fully cooperated with investigators and had been cleared before it was made public, even offering to hire him. Yet, to this day, Moneymaker has never publicly supported him. “Knowing that he knew for a fact that I’m innocent and never spoke up is probably one of the most painful things I had to endure.”

Although Kuraitis has been completely vindicated, the case against Postle remains unresolved. Despite his accusers finally admitting that the data they once cited as “irrefutable proof” was a hoax and recognizing that many of the suspicious hands were RFID errors, Postle has not proven he didn’t cheat in their eyes—which they claim he’s obligated to do.

His detractors now argue that if he can show a hand where he bets or bluffs 1,500+ big blinds into the nuts on the river, it could help prove he didn’t cheat, since he was shown betting that amount into weak hands a half dozen times and being correct. So far, Postle has been unable to provide one.

In conclusion, Kuraitis praised the owner of Stones for standing up to the mob. “Ryan Stone, that guy is a shark. He is not a pushover. He is not going to roll over and play dead, and he didn’t. He said, ‘No, we’re going to fight these people; they’re wrong,’ and they fought back. I’m very proud of Stones for doing that, to be honest. I’m proud of them for standing their ground.”

Photo credits: Stones Gambling Hall (StonesLive), Logo for The Omar Show (The Omar Show), Casino Royale (Lezlie Sterling/Sac Bee), Marle Spragg (WPT/SHR), Jamie Kerstetter (WPT), Phil Galfond (photo: Joe Giron), Matt Berkey (Joe Giron), Veronica Brill (Katerina Lukina/WSOP), Entertainment personality Eden Rocks (The Omar Show), Chris Moneymaker, Daniel Negreanu, Joe Stapleton, and Lon MacEachern at Stones courtesy of StonesLive.

Read the article in the print edition of Rounder Magazine. Order your copy now!

Listen to the full interview on The Omar Show

Lead image by StonesLive. Additional images; The Omar Show (@PennyPitVictim), Casino Royale (Lezlie Sterling/Sac Bee), Marle Spragg (WPT/SHR), Jamie Kerstetter (WPT), Phil Galfond (Joe Giron), Joey Ingram (Drew Amato/WPT), POTRIPPER chart tweet (screenshot Joeingram1, Matt Berkey ( Joe Giron/PokerGo), Veronica Brill (Katerina Lukina/ WSOP), Jaman Burton (StonesLive)..

The Omar Show is a daily entertainment show presented by the Sportsvestment Network on Twitter Spaces. It blends live sports talk, betting banter, investigative storytelling, and community interaction in a fast-paced, unfiltered format. As part of the Sportsvestment ecosystem, it brings the personality and culture that complement the network’s focus on data-driven sports content.