During a live stream, Ludwig laughed as he read a viewer's question.
– "Out of all the sponsors you've done, which one have you regret the most?"
"The sponsor that I regret the most, is a poker company I used to work with called American Cardroom [Americas Cardroom]. I was only sponsored to play poker, they did have a casino, but I never got sponsored to play the casino, only the poker.
Now you might think I regret it because I was promoting gambling or something. I didn't give a f*** about that. I think poker's a dope game. I think anyone should be allowed to play poker if they're of age and have enough funds and money and understand the game, of course. So I actually don't have a problem with that, at all.
The reason I regret it is because that company refused to pay me out and the money that I earned playing poker – because I won a bunch of tournaments – I would then gamble on their site and it was so f***ing hard to pull the money out. And so if it's hard for me, it means it's hard for the other people who I was promoting it to, to play poker. And so I stopped working with them because I think they're kind of a dog s*** site. That's my one regret for companies [I've been sponsored by]"
Along with this one, Americas Cardroom is facing other allegations of not paying several content creators, including big names like Alexandra Botez.
Numerous streamers chimed in after a tweet from Thomas Keeling (@SrslySirius) on August 24th. Thomas is the Creative Director at WPT Global and a partner of The Lodge in Austin Texas. Unfortunately, he also mucked the winning hand in a $543,000 pot at the HCL Million Dollar Game 2, but that's another story.
Big streamer @LudwigAhgren says that America's Card Room refused to pay him out. He says it's his biggest regret in working with a sponsor and that they're a "dogshit site" pic.twitter.com/10alxje1CE
— Thomas Keeling (@SrslySirius) August 23, 2024
Keeling quickly mentioned another streamer, Wubby, before Alexandra Botez added her name to the list.
Americas Cardroom (WPN Network) was initially blamed for not paying the content creators, but another party may be responsible. It appears that ACR contracted a talent agency, which may have mishandled payments.
Alexandra Botez added a little more context:
"ACR hasn’t paid out dozens of creators for sponsored streams from well over a year ago, myself included. ACR contracted End Game Talent and blames them for ripping them off. While that complicates things, I spoke with ACR CEO who promised to make things right but instead ghosted. They are not trustworthy"
Beriuzy replied to the tweet:
"You wonder why poker creators just quit after a while.
You're forced to beg for money or simply give up.
Meanwhile ACR puts their players into HS tritons events while avoiding payments.
On a side note, i still play there & get cashouts. I don't get how that makes sense...🤔"
Other content creators outside of poker replied to Botez's tweet, saying they hadn't been paid by End Game Talent, either partially, or fully.
Jamie Stapes of partypoker guessed who might be behind these withheld payments.
Any chance this was through a popular agency that stiffed their clients? I know nothing but just guessing
— Jaime Staples (@jaimestaples) August 24, 2024
Who is End Game Talent and President Scott Ball?
Other Twitter users have named the End Game Talent agency, helmed by Scott Ball. After three years of working on Twitch's poker partnerships, Scott started as the president of End Game Talent. The company was founded in 2018 to connect streamers or content creators with brands.
EGT has been promoting ACR for a long time. It appears the partnership between ACR and End Game Talent began late in 2019, starting with several streamer tournaments. That year they also promoted the Big Boss Battle, a $40,000 heads-up match between President Scott Ball and Phil Nagy, CEO of WPM (ACR's network).
This is not the first time that Scott Ball has been suspected of wrongdoing. Over the years, he's been called a "complete piece of shit" by Doug Polk and "Scammer boy Scott Ball" by Mike Matusow, among other names.
Scott's reputation took a serious hit in 2021 after Mike "The Mouth" Matusow called him on his podcast.
Mike accused Scott of:
- Colluding with other players and Scott's accountant to steal around $800,000 from Phil Hellmuth's home game.
- Taking advantage of Phil Nagy while intoxicated.
- Using part of a $1.1 million investment from Phil Hellmuth for gambling, including around $400,000 to Jason Koon and Nick Petrangelo.
- Eventually barring Mike from playing, for his own financial gain.
However, Scott's rebuttal was strong. Along with some minor admissions, he tweeted a video from Phil Hellmuth, who denied losing millions, along with a text from Phil Nagy.
Americas Cardroom Responds to Allegations
Through PokerOrg, Americas Cardroom issued a brief, but clear statement.
"ACR Poker engaged a third-party agency to arrange brand marketing by streamers they purported to represent. Every streamer worked under their own talent agency. ACR paid the central agency, which was to pay the streamers through their respective talent agents.
That arrangement unfortunately ended with serious disputes about whether the central agency stiffed or underpaid the various talent agencies or their individual streamer clients.
ACR stands by our positive track record with sponsored players, marketing campaigns, and streamers' talent agencies. The company that reportedly failed to pay talent agencies is believed to have been sued by the streamers' talent agencies.”
Just as many players were saying online, ACR shifts the responsibility to "a third-party agency." Though they didn't explicitly name Scott Ball and End Game Talent, it's clear who they are referring to.
Scott Balls Responds
After a couple of days, Scott Ball responded on August 26th with some tweets.
The wording is a bit cryptic. Scott seems to be encouraging ACR to release documents and offers to publish his own materials.
.@ACR_POKER @WPN_CEO @pokerorg This response appears to be a creative and transparent attempt at obfuscation and deflection, drafted by someone who seems to be unfamiliar with the facts of the matter. A complete and correct accounting of the ACR-third-party and influencer…
— Scott Ball (@EndGameScott) August 26, 2024
We'll need to wait for official responses from ACR before we know more about Scott's proposal.
Luckily, the Winning Poker Network CEO, Phil Nagy, called into a podcast and cleared up several key points.
Response from Phil Nagy (CEO of WPN)
Halfway through the Only Friends podcast that aired soon at Thomas Keeling's tweet, the CEO of WPN called in. Here's what Nagy had to say on the End Game Talent situation:
"To this day, I do not wish anything bad about Scott [Ball]. We had a lot of good times and we're not in contact anymore.
Regarding his reply to the poker org article where he wants to go public with the contracts, I can't really comment.
The fact is, if you really wanted to sue me, you'd have a lawyer. If you had all of this stuff, you'd have a lawyer and you'd be coming after me. Meanwhile, I've got my lawyer trying to reach out to these agencies, trying to negotiate something. I'll be damned, does anybody like paying for something twice? No.
After a year, you'd have a lawyer and it'd be in court if that was the case.
I think we can fill in the blanks. We're poker players, right? We deal with incomplete information. I can draw my conclusion and you guys can go ahead and do your thing."
Next, Phil specifically addressed his dealings with influencers and the huge amount he's paid in sponsorships:
"The influencers have so much power. They have like 10x the negative power than they do positive. The problem is is it makes a company like myself not want to deal with influencers at all, right? Because the downside is so much worse
than worse than the upside is good.
The fact is, everything that's in dispute, over the period of a year, what I paid to influencers was over $30 million."
Matt Berkey: "How much of that was End Game Talent?"
"I'm not getting into that. I paid two influencers over $30 million. I believe in influencers. I support influencers. The last thing I want to do is shit where I eat. That being said, once lawyers and agencies and everything got into it, it just all ground to a f***ing halt. I'm sorry, that's the real world.
If these influencers came to me and said, "You know what, we'll go ahead and give you this last whatever you're paying me what I'm owed, and the next one I'll do it 50% off and we'll continue our relationship," done! That's what my lawyer is trying to negotiate with the agencies, but it gets caught in the middle. I'm probably saying more than I should. There's so much red tape and so much bullshit.
Influencers out there, you can call it money in the bank until we come to some kind of agreement. I'm not going anywhere. If you're starving, tell me, and I'll throw you an advance or something. I know we'll come to an arrangement, it's just get on your agent and make sure that they're talking to our guys and it doesn't drop.
It's a bad situation for everyone, including End Game.
However we got here doesn't really matter. How we got here, we're here. Nobody likes the situation that we're in right now."
If you want to see the rest, here's the entire show from this Only Friends podcast. Phil also spoke briefly about the bot situation that was highly publicized at the beginning of 2024.
We'll keep this space updated with any further developments.
