Lenard "Lucky" Adams: Story of a Prolific Poker Scammer
GipsyTeam
Today, 11:25
Here's the story of Lenard "Lucky" Adams, an American scammer with years of documented scamming who is still being accused to this day.
Lenard "Lucky" Adams has been successfully defrauding American poker players for years. His extensive track record includes rape allegations, playing on Hustler Casino Live streams, and high-stakes heads-up matches with renowned high rollers.
In 2017, Adams was charged with rape, fraud, threats of violence, kidnapping, and theft.
Lt. James Gonzalez of the Hobart Police Department said in most cases, Adams told women he was a neurosurgeon who needed to buy children gifts for charity. Adams obtained at least $67,000 worth of cash, electronics, jewelry and other items from women he either scammed or intimidated.
Investigators believe there are more than the four victims that were exploited by Adams over the last year and are asking them to come forward. Police said so far, six more women have come forward with allegations against Adams.
Some charges were subsequently dropped, and in 2019, Adams was sentenced to four consecutive 18-month prison terms, as well as three years of community service as part of a parole program. The judge also ordered him to write letters of apology and pay $14,127 in restitution to the three victims.
What’s going on guys. I was the recent victim of a scam committed by Lenard Adams for 7k cash. I’m a young kid in the poker world, and believed all the lies he told me. Met him playing poker and he pulled me aside to talk about something in private. He said he liked the way I played and that he had a private game at aria the next night. The stakes were said to be 1/2/4K 4 handed with me, Lenard, and 2 other whales. He would stake me and we would split the profits. Yes I know, I’m stupid and I should have known this to be to good to be true. That afternoon we went to play in the pits and I had seen him with absolute piles of cash. He ran out at the table but I knew he had more money in his room. He asked me for 7k and I obliged. It happened so quick but soon enough it was gone, he ran off. My number and Instagram were immediately blocked.
Don’t fall for this guy! He’s a known scammer in the high stakes world and actually a dangerous guy with a criminal record!
In January 2025, PokerNews wrote an article titled Poker Pro w/ Violent Criminal History Accused of Scamming Poker Players, all about Adams's exploits, in which they reported on a similar case involving another player who chose to remain anonymous.
"(Adams) promised that if I took a massive flip he would stake me in a private game. I believe he showed me a fake money order from Hard Rock, which said he had $2 million credit there. Once we did the flip and I paid him, he started pressuring me asking for more money. I started to realize that there was no game."
It has recently emerged that Lucky continues to successfully find victims in the poker community.
A couple of weeks ago, Sean Perry reposted a PokerNews article and brought Adams back into the spotlight with a new tale:
Story time on how this guy ended up putting me on the most tilt I’ve ever been in my life.
This guy wanted to play me heads up at Aria one day.
At first, I wasn’t even interested. He only had about $20K to his name and it wasn’t worth my time.
But he convinced me to start at 500/1K blinds because he said it’d be fun and over quickly.
Well… he doubled.
So we moved to 1/2K.
Then he doubled again.
And again.
Next thing I know we’re playing 2/4K heads up, and this absolute maniac somehow manages to take me for the entire $800K I had on me that day.
The funny part is before we played, he showed me a picture of himself standing in front of his busted-down house holding a stack of cash and told me:
“Once I win your money, I’m gonna take an even better picture.”
Every time he stacked me, he’d pull out his phone, record videos of me, laugh at me, make fun of me, and post it all over social media.
The crazy thing is I wasn’t even that tilted.
The way he was playing, I thought there was absolutely zero chance he could keep winning. As long as HE had my money, I figured I’d get every dollar back eventually.
That $800K was all the money I had in my box at the time, so I told him:
“Keep it safe overnight. I’m going to the bank in the morning and I’ll bring you more.”
He looked at me and said:
“Don’t come back with less than a million.”
I told him:
“Buddy, you’ll get unlimited action until you bust me. You’re the guy that’s gonna beat me out of $100 million.”
I came back the next morning ready for round two…
Only to find out he had lost every single dollar overnight playing craps and blackjack.
Not some of it.
Not most of it.
All of it.
The casino got my $800K before I had the chance to win it back.
To this day, losing the $800K doesn’t bother me nearly as much as finding out he punted it all before I got my rematch.
"Played a 4 handed 500/1k session me Sean Sam and lucky. Lucky had gotten short and opened co 3.5x I defend Q2s flop A58r check check turn Q check check river 2x I jam like 3.5x pot and lucky has 43o. Good times.
Up there on most shocked showdowns I’ve seen"
"I find it unlikely he was cheating/know some people that did quite well against him," Soverel commented.
"Only part of this story that is true is that Sean did in fact lose 800k, closer to 2 million from what Lucky (Lenard) told me, after a handful of heads up sessions. Eventually (to the best of my knowledge) Sean & Soverel got it all back + some interest playing 3 handed.
There have been some legendary scammers/sunruns come through high stakes the past 10 years, a lot of which I've experienced first hand. May make for a good thread..."
Sam Soverel responded the next way:
"Interesting way to word the events that transpired.
I played 6 3+ handed games with lucky. All Sept-Nov 2023. He won in 5/6 of those games and net won money. He did beat Sean and a few others HU for big numbers and lost most of it to me. He came to town with not a lot of money and claims you beat him for 300 or so? So i probably scooped what everyone lost minus your win."
Berkey added more details:
"What's interesting about it? I got just north of $500K from him, he was very flush for that short stretch of time. When we went to HCL he took like $500K there and won around that much (Oct. '23), which was after I had beaten him out of a bunch HU and, I think, before he played Perry (not positive)."
According to HighRollPoker, Hustler Lucky played his only two streaming sessions in October 2021. He played at the same table with Phil Ivey, Tom Dwan, Matt Berkey, Garrett Edelstein, and others. In one session, he won $256,000 and in the other, he lost $120,000. After the streams, the organizers learned of his criminal past, and he no longer appeared on streams.
A little later, Sam posted a video in which Lucky, over the course of 30 seconds, explains, to the sound of clippers, that Soverel isn't a cheater, that he beat him fairly, and that they're actually friends.
Amid this exciting discussion, Twitter user GingePoker revealed that Lucky is still successfully carrying out his simple scams:
"This guy Lenard Adam’s just got me for $15k.
Very embarrassed about it.
Essentially warmed me up for a while chatting about getting me a spot in private games.
Built a lot of report and then we flipped on a few things $5k a pop.
He Martingaled me with no intention to pay"
"We need this guy out of poker," GingePoker wrote a couple of days later. "I have about 15 people that have messaged by to say they’ve been scammed by him. Imagine the ones that haven’t seen this."
