Veronica Brill – I think the reason this went on as long as it did is because there was internal help.
Had there been a competent floor manager who was not involved – and maybe someone in tech was helping Mike – because Mike wasn't doing this alone – it would have maybe lasted a few weeks, and then they would have been like "What the f*** are you guys doing? You're fired, you're off the show." But because it was an internal job, that's what made it last longer, and then the internal job was doing a really poor job of keeping it on the down-low.
Daniel Cates – You gave me a funny idea of imagining two villains in cahoots, just like some goofy guys who got a scheme going on.
– There were many lawsuits. I along with everyone else who played on the livestream, sued Stones and we settled out of court. I did not settle because the settlement was terrible, and they wanted us to never talk about it again. I refused to do that. Mike sued me and Joey and Doug and ESPN and everybody and their dog, and then I filed an anti-SLAPP, and he dropped his case the second I filed the anti-SLAPP because he didn't want discovery.
Now he owes me legal fees, and he's accumulating interest on those fees. So, he owes me about $50,000 right now, I think, maybe less.
– For legal fees?
– Yeah, well that's the interest included. I was awarded over $30,000 for my legal fees. I can't remember the numbers offhand because it was a while ago, and they've been accumulating interest. I have a lien on his winnings in three states where he plays, but it's incredibly hard to catch him, so I probably will never see that money. It's actually all going to go back to Bill Perkins because Bill Perkins helped me with my legal fees.
– Oh, that's really nice of him! I had no idea any of this was going on.
– We were supposed to go into discovery, that's why he wanted to do it. As soon as Mike heard about it, he dropped the case and didn't want to move forward.
– This guy just seems better and better the more I hear about him. It just seems like only classy decisions from this guy.
– The biggest frustration with all of this is that the only people who really made money or came out ahead were the lawyers. The lawyers just scooped up all the money. I just hated this entire process in hindsight.
– Well, the lawyers didn't seem to do anything wrong. At least we got some laughs in, I guess. I'm sorry that Mike Postle screwed you and Bill out of a lot of money (and a load of other people). But, it doesn't sound like this guy's got a great life, if I had to guess.
Usually, it's not personal. A cheater is going to cheat. Are you taking any role in preventative measures in the future?
– Well, I was trying to get in that world because I am in the world of analytics, but it's healthcare analytics because my undergrad's in nursing.
I was trying to get a job at DraftKings for their poker risk analytics because apparently, at the time they were planning to open an online poker site. I don't know if that's happened since – I haven't heard anything about it – but they were going to have an online poker gaming site through DraftKings. They were looking for people who worked in analytics and understood poker and were able to identify variables involved in poker and variables involved in cheating within poker and how we would identify that.
It was interesting because I had to come up with – I think I told you about this last time – I used the Jack-Four hand data from all the hands that he played and I did an analysis on that because they didn't even have a database established. They didn't know what to use as a database, or what markers to track, so I kind of had to come up with my own thing.
I'd be highly interested in doing some sort of analysis, not like on the ground with binoculars in the casino ceiling or anything like that, looking at signals. I thought it was funny because that's all the DOJ was interested in when I spoke with them about the Mike Postle stuff. I'm more interested in looking at large numbers, large data sets, and tracking outliers, and seeing potential cheating in the data. Identifying it that way, and not necessarily chasing a guy into the bathroom to see if he has a device on him.
– The DOJ was into that stuff? Finding devices on people?
– Jungle, I can't even tell you the questions that the DOJ asked me because you're gonna laugh so hard you're gonna fall on the ground. They were like, "Was he signaling anybody?" and I'm like, "No, he was on his device getting the livestream on his phone from the tech people and Justin Kuraitis," and they were like "Yeah whatever, but was he signaling anybody? Was he counting cards?"
They came in and they were like "We don't know anything about poker, we just want to let you know, and we do think there's probably a good chance he cheated, but we don't know anything about it." I was like, "Oh great, this is going to go nowhere." There's no incentive to close down Citrus Heights Casino, Stones Casino. It would kill all these jobs and taxes, and there's no incentive there.
You have to look at where incentives are, how everything functions in society. Most of us probably grapple with as an adult is unfairness in society, unfairness in how money is distributed, unfairness in everything. I don't think there was much incentive for the DOJ to find that there was electronic cheating with someone who was working for Stones which would shut down a casino, and then everybody loses jobs, and then Citrus Heights, California loses this big tax nest egg.
This guy didn't cheat the casino – he cheated us, he cheated the people who came to the casino, so I think the DOJ is more interested in finding people who cheat the casino.
– I was thinking that what would have been the right thing to do is have the casino basically be responsible for what happened and just pay the other people who played. You don't really want to close the casino unless they're really corrupt themselves. It's just the two people, right? I mean this one guy's not even associated with them, and then they pay the price – it's basically their fault.
– They kind of did when we sued, but the thing is, there's no world where they can take any sort of responsibility because that would just instantly shut them down. So they have to deny it.
I get why they're denying it, and I get that they probably were blindsided by the fact that their employee was cheating and was helping a guy cheat. They probably wanted to save face and keep the casino open, and I get that. I wouldn't want them to be closed down, but that is just the law in California – they would be closed down if it was electronic cheating by an internal source.
– There are a lot of problems going on here.
– With live poker, besides home games – home games you're probably always going to run into something going on, especially if you're in LA, no I'm just kidding – but like the casinos and cheating, I honestly wouldn't be super interested in that. I would be more interested in looking at online gaming and cheating online. I don't know how good I'd be at it because I'm in healthcare.
– Well, you can try! It feels like a basic conversation would have caught this in the first place. Like, "Dude, how did you know how to fold there with the second nuts?" It seems like that would have revealed Mike Postle.
I'm going to send you two videos. Promise me, pinky swear me right now that you will watch them and get back to me. I just know that the interview that I send you with Mike Postle and Justin Kuraitis, you will hysterically laugh.
The interview with Postle and Justin Kuraitis is 30 minutes, but you don't have to watch the whole thing. You just have to watch him explain one hand and you'll be like "Oh my god."
He was playing in Veronica and Friends every month. I hosted a really big game, and he would come and meet us for dinner. Sometimes he would show up early and I would be there and we would start eating and hang out and talk.
I was like, "So that hand last time I saw you was crazy, right? Like what were you thinking?" "Oh man, yeah, I just had the read." Like it was always just this low-IQ response like "Yeah man, I'm just so good" kind of stuff. It's really portrayed in all the interviews he's done.
– That's a great response actually.
It made sense because Live at the Bike was growing and we never got it! He never promoted anything and we had Matt Berkey and Marley coming to the game. He barely promoted it – he didn't want any eyes on it because he knew it was getting ridiculous – not Mike, but Justin Kuritis.
