Thomas Goldstein is broke, according to a recent court filing. Goldstein, otherwise known as "Tomas" from Hustler's million-dollar game, is in hot water with the United States federal government, where just last month, 22 felony charges were brought against him.
If you're not familiar with the story, we did a great video breaking down the initial documents here on the channel. Now, as Goldstein's defense team moves forward, more and more information is coming to light that we're going to dive into today. We're also going to look at an interview with Dan Bilzerian about Thomas Goldstein, and let's find out exactly what happened, where Goldstein now claims to be $3.3 million in debt.
To get things going, after the initial charges, a court ordered Goldstein to stop playing poker while awaiting trial. According to this article from Poker News, "The accused tax evader must not engage in any type of gambling, including poker of any type, online or live.
It just feels so un-American to me. Either way, it's looking like he's going to have to stop gambling for the time being.
There are some other people that might have benefited from this court order early on in their career (shows image of Luke Schwartz). Not being able to play poker, Goldstein was ready to prepare his case, and he came forward and issued a not guilty plea.
"Prominent former US Supreme Court attorney Tom Goldstein on Monday pleaded not guilty to federal charges that he failed to report millions of dollars he won in poker matches and used his former law firm's accounts to pay his gambling debts."
"Mr. Goldstein will vigorously defend against these charges, and we look forward to his exoneration."
So, according to this article from Reuters, not only is Goldstein not guilty, but his defense team is looking forward to the opportunity to weave together the fabric of his defense to prove his innocence without a shadow of a doubt.
What would their complex strategy look like? We found out just this week, "I ain't got no money," and indicted poker-playing lawyer Tom Goldstein says he is more than $3.3 million in debt.
Back to the defense, though. To be fair, he's not defending himself by saying he's broke. He's merely asking for different bail terms, as he has millions of dollars in debt and would like the judge to reconsider those terms. The core to the argument here is he can't put up his house as bail, which he's claiming is maybe one of his last assets that he holds because he needs to be able to pay for his legal defense. If he can't use his home to pay for his attorneys, then he actually can't pay for bond, and the guy just does not have any money to do anything.
It's going to be interesting to me to see how he defends himself in this case. I'm sure they're going to have a great plan going into it, but for those of you who don't know how taxes work for poker in the US, again, I am not a financial planner, tax person, whatever. Disclaimers about finding someone that actually knows what they're talking about. As someone that's filed as a professional gambler for many years (as I understand it) you cannot net out wins and losses as a recreational gambler. You have to do so as a professional.
It would be important for his defense, if he's claiming that he lost all this money, that he filed as a pro or, rather, that should become his argument rather, and then be able to prove those losses will be core parts of the defense. There are going to be other things that are difficult for me to imagine how he's going to defend, like the women being put onto the company payroll. I don't know what the defense to that looks like, or the selling of this stake package to his friend that he'd already played and lost; that seems fraudulent, or the putting stuff on books; that seems tough.
Before we go today, there was a very interesting interview with Dan Bilzerian where he talked about Thomas Goldstein.
According to this Poker News article, Dan Bilzerian, "best friends with indicted lawyer, had $385,000 Las Vegas prop bet." I remember hearing about this story back in the day in Vegas. Basically, him and Goldstein had to race on a track in Las Vegas, and they were in luxury sports cars, and it was a $385,000 bet that Bilzerian won over Thomas Goldstein. At that time, I didn't know Goldstein was who he was, but I am getting some memory flowing. We've seen some pretty degenerate behavior from these guys in the past.
Bilzerian had this to say about Thomas Goldstein, "To this day, I have never met anyone with less respect for money proportionate to their net worth than Tom."
I find that statement funny because, for me personally, I don't know if this guy even wins that, for simply people just named Tom (Editors note – referencing Tom Dwan). Bilzerian went on to say, "And I've met some true degenerates." As the famous saying goes, "Surround yourself with great people and you will be great, but surround yourself with degenerates and you will become rich." I think that might have been Mark Twain that said that one.
I would like to go back and hone in on this, "Never met anyone with less respect for money," quote from Bilzerian. I mean, man, this quote coming from this guy. Are you serious? This would be like Phil Hellmuth saying he's never seen someone act so disrespectfully on TV poker. "I think I'm going to burn this [ __ ] place down if I don't win this [ __ ] tournament!" Or Daniel Negreanu tweeting he's never seen someone tweet statements they regret making.
This would be like Isildur saying that he's never seen someone with less respect for money proportionate to their net worth. When we go back and look at some of these hands that were played on Hustler Casino Live's million-dollar game, and we see the way that Thomas Goldstein was playing on there, it certainly does seem like the man is a reckless gambler.
You know, this case really is wild, and it is important for us to remember something: people are innocent until proven guilty in a court of law.
The thing about this case is the United States Federal government only really picks up cases that are slam dunks, so they think they're going to win hands down. In fact, the conviction rate is nuts on federal cases. The conviction rate in federal court is over 90%. In some places, I'm seeing 95%. In 2022, only 290 of 72,000 defendants, about 0.4%, went to trial and were acquitted. A lot of these cases get settled through plea bargains where people admit to a point somewhere in the middle to avoid trial, save money, and take some kind of lesser punishment.
When the United States government goes after you on these cases, it's really, really tough to become acquitted. That does not mean that this guy is necessarily guilty until he's proven guilty. It definitely looks bad, but we should make sure to air on the side of caution and compassion for our fellow man because that's usually what the YouTube comments are like, full of compassion.
Even though the internet might not be the most compassionate place, there are positive stories happening out there in the world.
