Every game has its scandals, from figure skating to Magic the Gathering. In 2025, poker had its fair share.
Ambassadors of the biggest rooms were caught helping others during huge tournaments, while other ambassadors were caught helping themselves with GTO Wizard.
Live games were rigged through Hollywood-style cheating, lawyers racked up millions of dollars in poker debt, and collusion clouded a huge WSOP event.
Here are 10 of the biggest poker scandals of 2025.
The NBA Stars Poker & Sports Betting Scandal
In a story that transcended the poker world, dozens were arrested in the most high-profile scandal of the year. Through private games, several NBA stars had apparently committed fraud, laundered money, and extorted other players.
Basketball Hall of Famer and Portland Trail Blazers head coach Chauncy Billups was just the first big name. Terry Rozier of the Miami Heat and Cleveland Cavaliers player and coach Damon Jones were also named, among over 30 others.
Pre-marked cards and x-ray tables were alleged used to scam players in private poker games, racking up millions. On the sports betting side, NBA players were accused of faking injuries to influence wagers.
Read ReadThomas Goldstein's $50 Million Scandal
Thomas Goldstein went from being one of Washington DC's top lawyers to being indicted on 22 counts of tax evasion and other financial crimes.
If we see a movie about this story one day, nobody will be surprised. Goldstein was apparently living a double life, haphazardly mixing high-stakes poker with his legal profession. Affairs, millions in gambling loans, and a lavish lifestyle are just the bullet points.
He also appeared on Hustler Casino Live and mistakenly folded a straight for a $543,000 pot. After betting the river with the low end of the Jack-high straight, Goldstein mucked his hand immediately after his opponent called... with just .
Goldstein later plead not guilty in the federal court case.
Read ReadRen Lin's Ghosting Scandal
Very recently, GGPoker's ex-ambassador Ren Lin was given an indefinite suspension for admitting to ghosting. A player name RealOA was screen-sharing during a GGMillion$ final table and getting direct coaching from Lin, which is definitely a violation of the rules.
Afterwards, Lin apologized publicly with a lengthy statement. GGPoker seized $250,000 from RealOA's wallet, and Lin paid almost $100,000 so that other players in the event could be made whole.
But despite the suspension, Ren Lin was soon seen at WSOP Paradise events, playing poker as if nothing happened.
Read ReadWSOP Chip Dumping Scandal
A WSOP tournament with a million-dollar bonus created the perfect conditions for a scandal.
Because of a WPT promotion, Jesse Yaginuma stood to win an extra $1,000,000 if he won the Millionaire Maker event. His opponent, James Carroll, had no extra payout to look forward to if he won the event.
Because of this extra million dollars at stake, it appears that the competitors made a deal behind closed doors to give the victory to Yaginuma. He played flawlessly in the final heads-up stretch, and the pair appeared to signal to each other using odd or even bets as strength indicators.
Later, Jesse was stripped of the title, but kept the winnings.
Read ReadResorts World Cheating Scandal
Mike Holtz and Patrick Leonard got vocal about unfair play at Resorts World, alleging chip dumping, collusion, cards getting shown to other players, and complete apathy from the officials.
Mike blew the whistle on several opponents, saying they were doing things like showing cards to each other, and sometimes even openly talking about their cards. He also alleges they were voicing stack sizes and actions in a Discord call. Dealers were also said to be unprofessionally distributing cards, allowing players to get peeks at them from time to time.
Through everything, it appears that tournament officials were not motivated to take action.
Read ReadEPT Angle Shooting Scandal
On the final table of the EPT Monte Carlo Main Event, the poker world saw an angle shoot.
With 6 players left (blinds at 60k/120k), Canada's Jamil Wakil looked down at and raised from early position to 270k. With , Aleksandr Shevliakov of Russia made an illegal raise to 306k and the floor was called.
Because the raise was obviously too small, the floor could either rule it as a call or mandate a raise. They chose option two, and Aleksandr was forced to raise to 420k. He claimed that he had not noticed Jamil's open raise, giving an impression of weakness and the intention to just call for 120k.
Jamil Wakil shoved, Aleksandr called, and with the runout, the Canadian was eliminated. Apparently, this wasn't Aleksandr's first time with this angle shoot style.
Read ReadNacho Barbero's RTA Scandal
Ambassadors are supposed to uphold strong values and play by the rules, but nobody told Nacho about that part of the job description.
Funnily enough, Nacho provided the evidence himself on social media, clearly showing GTO Wizard open while multi-tabling on America's Cardroom.
Hey, I was coaching 4 of my horses on a discord call," Nacho quickly justified. "I don't play online, they don't have the GTO Wizard Pro, so I was looking at some spots for them. My bad. I emailed GTO Wizard Game Integrity and they gonna send all the spots I searched yesterday and gonna publish them."
ACR's social media team came through with wise words, saying, "Nacho Barbero is a goofball and we love him. Anyone who’s played with, against or around him knows he’s not a GTO-style player and likely never will be. We’re confident he was not using GTO Wizard to gain any advantage for himself."
Later in the year, Nacho was fired from ACR for publicly voicing concerns about the site's fight against cheating.
Read ReadEbony Kenney's RTA Scandal
As if inspired by Nacho Barbero, fellow ACR ambassador Ebony Kenny was also caught using RTA less than 30 days after him.
Also outing herself on social media like Nacho, Ebony showed herself using a solver during her site's own tournament (The Venom).
She said "I stand by my play and guarantee you'll find no evidence of RTA use," and admitted that she used GTO Wizard to run a spot after losing a hand.
The poker world couldn't believe the ridiculousness of the situation, and plenty of jokes were made. CoinPoker made a video about ACR's response, and WPT Gold created an edited video of MoneyMaker and Ebony talking about this issue.
Read ReadWPT Global's Bot Ring Scandal
In June, a player on WPT Global said he identified and reported of 130 bots, and was paid $3.85 per bot. Despite losing thousands of dollars, and around $700 in a single pot, the whistleblower only received a $100 compensation.
The player describes accounts playing for 12-48 hours without breaks, identical stats, identical profile pictures, identical betting patterns, and similar strategies.
After three months of work, he was definitely unhappy with the response and compensation.
Read ReadWSOP's Unseen Flush Scandal
The best hand wins in poker, or at least, it should! At the 2025 WSOPC $1,700 buy-in Main Event, players went for the WSOPC ring and the $709,020 prize pool.
When it got down to three players, Divyam Satyarthi was all-in with , against Hawkins with . The board ran out , giving Divyam a flush over Hawkins's straight.
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But, the pot went to Hawkins and Divyam left in third place, winning $64,458. Apparently, the dealer and everyone at the table missed the flush.
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