Digital Social Hour - Inside the Rise of Poker Streams: Big Wins & Big Risks | Ryan Feldman DSH #1354

Episode Date: April 26, 2025

Step into the high-stakes world of poker streams with Sean Kelly on the Digital Social Hour! 🎲✨ Discover the rise of poker live streams, featuring massive wins, jaw-dropping risks, and behind-the-scenes insights from Ryan, the mastermind behind some of the biggest games in the poker world. From Neymar's unforgettable $300K win to record-breaking million-dollar pots, this episode is packed with valuable insights and stories you won’t want to miss! 🤑Ryan spills the secrets behind organizing games with celebrities like MrBeast, Neymar, Ryan Garcia, and more, while sharing the challenges of high-stakes poker, his toughest opponents, and moments that went viral. Learn what makes poker streams so successful and how they’ve revolutionized the game for players and fans alike. 🎥♠️ Tune in now and join the conversation! 🙌 Watch now and subscribe for more insider secrets. 📺 Hit that subscribe button and stay tuned for more eye-opening stories on the Digital Social Hour with Sean Kelly! 🚀CHAPTERS:00:00 - Ryan Feldman00:30 - Ryan's Poker Downswing05:00 - Notion Organization Tips07:50 - Best Player Ryan's Ever Played Against09:58 - Strategies for Dealing with Aggressive Players11:26 - The Mystery of Alan Keating in Poker13:44 - Hustler Casino Live's Rise to Popularity14:59 - Airest Time Insights22:10 - Neymar's Impact on Sports23:58 - 2028 Olympics Predictions26:39 - Insights from Molly’s Game29:15 - Handling Non-Payment Issues33:41 - Experiences of Getting Cheated39:04 - The Next Big Streaming Event41:18 - Closing Thoughts and Reflections APPLY TO BE ON THE PODCAST: https://www.digitalsocialhour.com/application BUSINESS INQUIRIES/SPONSORS: [e-mail] GUEST: Ryan Feldman https://www.instagram.com/pokerryanfeldman SPONSORS: AIRES TECH:  https://airestech.com/ KINSTA:  https://kinsta.com/dsh NOTION: https://www.notion.com/ LISTEN ON: Apple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/digital-social-hour/id1676846015 Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/5Jn7LXarRlI8Hc0GtTn759 Sean Kelly Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/seanmikekelly/ The views and opinions expressed by guests on Digital Social Hour are solely those of the individuals appearing on the podcast and do not necessarily reflect the views or opinions of the host, Sean Kelly, or the Digital Social Hour team. While we encourage open and honest conversations, Sean Kelly is not legally responsible for any statements, claims, or opinions made by guests during the show. Listeners are encouraged to form their own opinions and consult professionals for advice where appropriate. Content on this podcast is for entertainment and informational purposes only and should not be considered legal, medical, financial, or professional advice.#hustlercasinolive #dougpolk #pokervlog #bradowen #highstakespokerlivestream

So he was an underdog, but just did it anyway for fun to gamble with Neymar. So he puts another 50,000, another 100,000, and he just keeps gambling until he's out of money. And Neymar wins every single time. Keating never won on any of those extra river cards. And Neymar ends up winning something like 300,000 off of Keating in one hand. Wow. That's straight degeneracy. Yeah, it really was. Alright guys, we got Ryan here today, how's it going man? Good. Thanks for having me Yeah, I've been playing a lot of poker lately. I have been I been working a lot, but I've also been

playing poker Probably too much. I pretty much play either like live or online and with like a friend group Almost every night. So how's the P&L this year? Good question. Not good actually to be honest with you My last like six months have been like the worst ever for me. So am you on a bad streak? Yeah It's actually been terrible. What do you think is causing that? I Mean probably a few factors. Um, one probably, probably bluffing too much and uh, hero calling too much, which I think

is the probably number one. Like if you're a decent player, if you know the fundamentals, if you know how to play, if you're experienced, I think that's like the number one factor. Um, that can like cause big losses or can cause downswings and a lot of variance is trying to bluff too much or hero call too much, like make a big call on the river. So I think those are probably the biggest things for me. And then after that, it's just like always. So like, whenever I have a bad session

or a bad run, I'll try to, I'll try to like self evaluate, right? And say like, what can I do better or what am I doing wrong? What am I doing poorly now that I've done differently in the past when I've been winning? So sometimes it could be, it could be just playing better pre-flop also. It could be like, you know, um, uh, trying to like three bet too much pre-flop or code calling pre-flop, like just playing too many hands in big pots pre-flop that end up getting me into trouble later in the hands. So, um, yeah, I think I've always been good at like being self-aware and like being able to evaluate after a session or after a run and, and, and say like,

how do I fix this? What can I do different? But you know, knowing and doing are two different things. So sometimes in the moment you get into a big spot and you know, you just can't help yourself and you just like try to run a big bluff and it doesn't work. Do you feel like you do that partially because of content too?

Like you want to get a good clip out of it? On the show, yes, but like in private, if I'm playing like online with friends, like there's no content to be had, so then it's just stupid. But yeah, on the show, yes, you know, I've, it's my own show. I get to pick when I get to play and not play

I don't play a whole lot But when I do play it's in some of the bigger games and so because I get to pick my own lineups and play when I want you would think that I would do like pretty well on the show, right? Like if the game's too tough, I just don't have to play but yet that has Definitely been a thing in my head over the years when I play on my show. Whether it's like conscious or subconscious is, you know, some people say that like, are you just doing that to try to like make highlights or make clips? And I feel like that is in the back of my mind, right?

Like, you know, I'm like, man, this would be a sick bluff or this would be a sick hero call if I'm right, you know? And then I'm just wrong and I just lose $100,000. And I'm like, why did I do that? That's real money. That's why when I see guys like Nick airball playing on the show I'm like does he play like that off-camera too. Yeah, I mean, yeah I mean, I think it happens not for everyone but for a lot of people where Especially if you play in like bigger games elsewhere or private games elsewhere like Nick airball does Or like I've played in you know in plenty of other games elsewhere like you Alan Keating is another example like he does it where he'll make like crazy plays on the show because he plays bigger elsewhere and it's like if you're

wrong and you lose I guess the it just you make a big highlight out of it and it goes viral and at least you have that even though you lost the money there was a hand semi-famous hand that I played on my show a couple years ago against Nick airball where I played a five bet pot against him and He flopped a straight flush and I bluffed it off my whole stack into him for like a 400-and-something thousand dollar pot and it was probably to date the dumbest hand I've ever played in my life And it was probably to date the dumbest hand I've ever played in my life Especially tilting that it went to Nick airball because then I have to like watch him

You know celebrate and talk about it a million times after that And the clip went kind of viral but you know that that's pretty tilting when you're like Shout out to Notion today's sponsor Do you feel like you're spending more time managing your inbox than actually running your business? Yeah, same here. Email hasn't changed in decades and it's become busy, tedious, and even stressful. But that's where Notion Mail comes in. It's a brand new inbox that thinks like you,

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You're supporting this show when you use our link. Again, that's Notion.com slash DSH. Going for a big bluff and they literally have a straight flush. It's just like, it's embarrassing. Your friends see it, your family sees it. People talk about it forever. And that was one where I was like, man, like if he somehow folds the river here,

like this would be a sick bluff. And then he puts the one chip in and says straight flush and I'm like What are you doing? You didn't even show your cards, did you? No, I tried to like joke for a second number ten like I had a better hand than I had but it was just embarrassing, you know, and it's like There's thousands of people watching and you know, plenty more that are watching later the clip ends up getting hundreds of thousands of views potentially. And, you know, people will come up to me randomly

over time and say like, oh, I saw that hand you played against Nick Airball where he had a straight flush. Like that was dumb. You know? I feel that. Was that the biggest hand you've ever played in personally? No, but it's up there.

It's like one of the top 10 biggest pots I've played, I think, or at least on the show. So yeah, that one hurts. Are you up or down on the show? I'm down a lot. I'm down like, I'm down like, uh, like close or yeah, like close to a million. Holy crap. Yeah.

That's crazy. Yeah. It's terrible. That's my own show. I should be winning. I wonder if, uh, Doug, Doug Polk's his name, right? If he's up on his show too. He's gotta be up.

He had, I remember he had one really big win on his show. I mean and Doug's also like a world-class player. He doesn't play as much now as he did during his prime and he definitely does some things I'm sure on his show for entertainment value. Tries to like play extra hands because he understands how to be good for the game. But he's a great player and he knows how to win and yeah he has a lot of money but I'm pretty sure he's winning on his show. Yeah who's the best player you've ever personally played against you couldn't figure them out. Oh man good question the best player I've ever played against I couldn't figure out um I don't know but you know the the person who I've actually had the toughest time with,

I think, is Alan Keating. Really? And Alan Keating's probably nowhere near the best player like overall all things considered, or at least fundamentally, that I've played against. But his style doesn't match up well with my style. You know, I'm trying to be aggressive, trying to play a lot of hands. I'm three betting, four betting a lot. I'm calling three bets and four bets a lot. I'm trying to play big pots. He does the same thing, but he does it way better.

He's more experienced at it. He has way more money. And so I just constantly level myself. And even if I'm not losing a big pot to him, which I have plenty of times, when he's in the game, it just like throws me off my game and I end up just playing poorly because I don't know how to navigate when someone like him is in the game and he like I played a we played on poker go a few months ago. It just aired recently and it was high stakes

poker and it was a big game but it got even bigger because of the lineup. Alan Keating was in the game and every single hand he's straddling he's making it 10k 20k 30k 40k to go every hand and I'm on his left which generally is good but I end up having to like either just fold a ton, which is painful and can cost some money if you're just not playing any hands, or I have to like put in 20K, 30K, 40K every other hand if I wanna play.

Like if I have a marginal hand, let's say I have nine, 10 suited or I have pocket sevens and I wanna play, I have to put that much money in the pot. If I don't, then it's like how many better spots am I going to find than those hands that I'm getting if I just keep folding. So I end up just wanting to play those hands pre-flop to gamble to try to get even and ends up costing me more started building our brand online, I had to teach myself everything from marketing to monetization. But one of the biggest pain points, hosting. It felt like I needed a computer science degree just to keep our site running smoothly. That's why we switched to Kinsta and honestly, it's been a game changer. Kinsta managed WordPress

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Aggressive if he makes it 30k and he's doing it a ton But still like if I have let's say pocket sevens Like I'm afraid to put in a hundred thousand dollars Like that's a ton of money with such a marginal hand So I end up getting handcuffed and not knowing what to do and then I end up playing bad That's what happened on that show. So I realized afterwards like man I don't think I've ever won when Alan Keynes in a game. I will say he is so fun to watch. He is he's probably the number one most entertaining player

we've ever had on our show or at all in poker. Definitely top two or three. He's just great. Like the fans love watching him. He's mysterious, good looking guy. I love seeing the conspiracies on how he made his money. Yeah. You see that with Nick Airball too.

Yeah, exactly. There's like whole Reddit threads about how he made his money. Yeah. You see that with Nick Erball too. Yeah, exactly. There's like whole Reddit threads about how they made their money. It's hilarious. That's one of the most interesting parts about poker is that there's tons of people out there in the world, especially in LA that have a lot of money, right? And they're successful business people.

They could be venture capitalists. They could be, they can own some big business. Maybe they made money, you know, playing private poker, whatever it is. There's these people that have tons of money that are out there. LA has a lot of money, right? And a lot of these guys play a lot of poker. They've played in private games over the years. Well now we have our stream that has gotten super popular

over the last few years that has put a spotlight on these LA and Vegas private poker players that come and play our show. And now people see them on camera and they're like, well, how do they get their money? Well, these people have existed forever. They just weren't playing. Like Alan Keating has been playing high stakes poker

for probably, you know, 15 years. Right? And he's been very wealthy for a long time and he's played in private games, organized games, been part of big games, but you know, Dan Bilzerian back in the day, same thing, you know, but it's like until they're on camera and you get big on social media, you know, people don't know about them, right? No one really in the real world knew Alan Keating was before he played on our show and then played on Poker Go a lot as well. Now, everyone wants to know where he got his money from.

Same thing with Nick Ayerball. He's been playing a lot of poker off camera, more than on camera the last few years, but because he's this interesting character, people wanna know, like, people can't accept the fact that like, maybe, you know, he's a character on the show, but he's actually like doing really well in these private games or he's made money investing or who knows what a lot of these guys are

doing, but there's plenty of ways to make money both in poker and out of poker. And, you know, everybody because of the internet wants to get in their business and know like, where does this money come from? Yeah. You guys really did put a spotlight on those underground games. So, you know, yeah guys get crazy views. Yeah. Yeah. Thank you I feel like you kind of pioneered a new I don't know if you were the first to do this But you guys kind of have a new lane in poker, right? Yeah, we weren't the first but um It's become you know, I guess the most popular show in terms of just daily viewership, we're on five days

a week. We stream the most of anyone. We've done like eight or 900 episodes since 2021. I used to produce live at the bike. I was an owner there. That was really the first live stream show that it started in 2005, but it never really blew up until I got there in 2000, 2016. And then over the next three years, it became a big deal. Doug Polk was one of the first big names we got on. Yeah, we had some really cool shows and then, Poker Go during that time started doing some live streaming.

There really wasn't any other big live streams until after COVID. And then we started ours in 2021. And you know, we've had a lot of shows, consistent views, big names, all that stuff, big, a lot of big games, million dollar game, all of that. And now we have, you know, the Lodge that Doug owns that's doing pretty well. That's a- Ever thought about how much EMF and radiation your body is exposed to every single day?

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Protect yourself with Aries today. Click the link below to learn more. This is a stream that's probably, you know, right up there with us for the most popular. And there's other ones that pop up in different places as well. And so it's become like a cool thing for poker. Different opportunities to showcase, you know, players in different cities and big games and whatnot. So it's a cool thing for poker, different opportunities to showcase players in different cities and

big games and whatnot. So it's pretty cool. I think poker's grown a lot in large part because of streams over the last few years. Yeah. A lot of people try live streaming and fail. Why do you think yours took off? Do you think your connections in the industry played a big role or not? Yeah, certainly networking is a big part of it.

I think there's a few reasons if I had to say. So for one, you know, before we launched Hustler Casino Live, I had a huge network of players that I was close with. And it's not just people that like, it's not just people that I just organize games for. These are people that I had relationships with a lot of them. We're friends, we'd hang out. Whether we play poker together or talk on the phone or they call me to tell me about their life or we go to dinner, whatever it is, right?

Like there was a big network of players that I was very close with since back in the bike days. So you know I've been organizing games for like almost nine years now. Having that network and being close with those players makes it easy to find those players to put these games together. So that's number one. Just have, you have to have the players. If you don't have the players and the recreational players, like the pros, you'll always find pros. Pros will come about. You can stick them in there when there's a spot open when it makes sense. But if you don't have a huge base of business people,

recreational players to build lineups around, then it's really hard to be successful in live streaming cash games in my opinion. So that's number one. Number two is, so I had a background in TV production. So I worked at ESPN before I did poker. And I use kind of that knowledge and what I learned there to envision what I thought a successful poker stream

would look like. And there was no way for me to know for sure if that would be successful. Like if this would be the number one show, if this would be the way to show, if this would be the way to go, but I just believed in my mind that, you know, the vision that I had for how something looked, like I always tried to envision how do I make a poker show look like ESPN or look like an NBA broadcast, right?

And that's kind of the mentality I always had. And it worked. It just happened to become popular when, quickly after we launched. And then yeah, the networking over time to get people like Mr. Beast, to get people like Phil Ivey and Tom Duan, to get people like Neymar on the show, to come up with these like unique ideas

that people haven't done before, like the million dollar game. So all of those things together, I think, is what has helped us. But yeah, it's been kind of a cool journey so far, but I think we're just getting started. There's still so many ideas that we haven't been able to do yet that we want to do. And, um, I think that, you know, this is only the beginning. It's an exciting time for poker, man.

World Series of Pokers breaking numbers every year. Like, they had what, 10,000 people in the main last year? Yeah, I think the last two years it's been somewhere around 10,000. That's nuts, dude. Have you played the main before? Yeah, I think the last two years it's been somewhere around 10,000. Nuts, dude. Have you played the main before? Yeah, I've played maybe eight or nine times so far. Never cashed. So that's crazy you say that,

cause Helmuth just announced he's never playing the main again. I saw that. I call on that one. I don't- Oh, you don't agree with that? I would bet that he plays it this year. Oh, God.

Well, he's told me like, it's an endurance contest. Well, it is. But it's always been that way. So even, you know, 10, 20 years ago, or I should say let's say 10 years ago, it still was an endurance contest. It still was seven, eight, nine days long. And so it still was hard for the older generation

to win the main event. But there has been a few that have made the final table. But certainly that's just part of the sport, part of the game, is this is a unique tournament. It's the World Series of Poker main event. I don't think that when something's breaking records lately, when it's had 10,000 people the last two years, the biggest numbers ever, that it's a time that you really want to change anything because it's doing well, right? It has the last two years, the biggest numbers ever, that it's a time that you really want to change anything because it's doing well, right? It has the biggest prize pools, the most players. If anything, I think they could add one off day. This is something I

saw Phil suggest. Add one off day somewhere in the middle somewhere. So you could do, already there's an off day after day one and after day two, depending on when you play, but maybe after day four or five, you could add an off day before the rest of the tournament. And then you have that off day before the final table. So just adding one off day doesn't affect it too much, but I don't think you can change the structure or anything too significantly because it's working. The main event is so popular now and I think, yeah, I think it's poker just as a whole has been huge the last few years. So it's exciting to see how that grows. And it's doing that without online poker even becoming legal federally in the US.

And so if we get to a point sometime in the next 10 years where it comes back, right? It's been almost 15 years now that we haven't had, uh, online poker throughout the U S. So if we get to a point where that comes back, then I think it'll blow up even more. Yeah. Would you ever do tournaments on your show or no? Um, we could, we we've thought about it, but just from my experience, I think that cash games generally do way better for viewership than tournaments do or sit and goes do.

If we did, if we could ever organize a high roller tournament with big names where we have a feature table and then we stream the final table kind of like Triton does, then I think that would do well. I think that's possible. It's something I've thought about doing sometime in the next year or two. But in general, cash games just do so much better. People love the idea that like every hand is worth a real amount of money. Foster pays.

Yeah, yeah, exactly. And just anything can happen. People play looser in cash games. It's just for whatever reason, no limit hold them, always the most popular. Cash games, always the most popular. Yeah. How was it playing with Neymar? Was he filthy?

I didn't play with him, but he was on our show. But having him on the show was awesome. Neymar's super cool. Got to meet him when he came in, interact with him a lot. Super nice guy. Everybody that asked for an autograph or a picture, he did it. He's a huge deal. So it's really an honor to get an Amar on our show. This is a show that we just created based on our vision, and it's at Hustler Casino in Gardena, California.

Just thinking about that compared to some of the big poker shows out there and back in the day, like Isaac's Poker and the Poker Go stuff, you know, the fact that we've gotten someone big like Neymar on our show is really cool. But yeah, it was awesome and he won a few hundred thousand dollars. Yeah, he won like three, because Alan Keating played a crazy hand against Neymar

at the end of the show where they did this unique thing in the clips out there in the internet if you haven't seen it, that really has never been done before on a show where they get it all in, Neymar wins. Then Keating says, wait, wait, wait, wait, let's run it again for another 50, just the last card. Let's run the river card for another 50,000.

Neymar wins that. He says, wait, let's do it again and every time Keating was 25 or 30 percent so he was an underdog but just did it anyway for fun to gamble with Neymar So he puts another 50,000 another 100,000 and he just keeps gambling until he's out of money and Neymar wins every single time Keating never won on any of those extra river cards And Neymar ends up winning something like 300,000 off of Keating in one hand. A straight degeneracy. Yeah it really was it's one of the coolest hands we've ever had on our show. That's cool. So hopefully Neymar will come back this summer and we'll have another big celebrity show.

I'm sure I know it's three years away but the Olympics is gonna be really cool for you since it's in LA. I'm sure you could get some. I haven't even thought about that but that's that's a good point. Yeah. 2028. Yeah. You could probably get all the athletes. That would be cool. I have a vision for one day having a show of like all A-list celebrities, whether it's athletes, musicians, just people, because poker is so big everywhere, right? Like it's like the one, I think, uh, like unifying game that brings people together.

Right. You have people like Michael Jordan and Tiger Woods and Michael Phelps that play. You have musicians like, you know, Justin Bieber or, um, who else? Just big, big musicians that, big musicians that play out there. Drake plays. Drake, right? He's a gambler, right? You have streamers that probably play, like Aiden Ross.

You have billionaires that play. We've had like Chamath on our show. They have their own games, I heard. Yeah, Chamath has a big game in San Francisco with Phil Hellmuth. So you have all these people all over the place. There's so many of these big private games in LA like Steinys playing, like Alex Botes, you know, Ryan Garcia plays a ton, right? Manny Pacquiao used to play back in the day.

Leonardo DiCaprio, Toby Maguire, Ben Affleck, Matt Damon, like all these guys love poker and it's poker is that game where you can put people from all walks of life put them at one table together and it's competitive it's for real money and it's social at the same time you could tell stories from business from Hollywood you could tell you know bad beat stories as well, right? You could talk strategy. You could do business at the table while you're playing. And at the same time, you could be competing

for a hundred thousand dollars. So my vision, my ultimate goal for our show, for one show one day, is to get a bunch of A-listers like that at one table together and just break records. Right? is to get a bunch of A-listers like that at one table together and just break records. That'd be great. And just imagine having, you know, let's say you have Drake, you have Dave Portnoy, you have Kevin Hart, you have Neymar, right? All these guys at the same table together, I think would just do huge numbers and just be the coolest thing we could ever do. So

that's my goal one day. And I'm going to keep trying to work towards that, um, before, you know, who, who knows how long I'll be doing this? You know, I still have a lot of passion for it. I want to do it for a long time, but before I'm done, that's a goal that I'm never going to give up on. You'll get there, man. I could see it.

You're only a few years in and you're already crushing it. Like it's impressive. Have you ever played in Molly's game? I haven't. I wasn't, uh, well, I wasn't in Molly's game? I haven't. I wasn't, uh, well, I wasn't in LA back then and I wasn't playing high stakes back then, but I know a lot of people that did play in Molly's game. And uh, so I've heard stories, obviously I've seen the movie a million times.

How accurate do you think that movie was based off your conversation with people? Um, I think it's pretty accurate. I think there's definitely some things that they altered and changed to make it more exciting for the movie. But I think most of it is roughly accurate. For example, there's a scene in there where a guy gets it all in with pocket queens, I think it was, on Queen 77. all in with pocket Queens, I think it was on Queen seven seven and the guy who Brad like bad Brad in the, in the movie, in the book from that game, he's a real person, um, gets it all in with ace King on Queen seven seven against pocket Queens. So he's basically drawing dead and it goes either King King or ace ace and he wins the hand. The guy who had Queens, I know that guy. I played a lot of poker with him. I can't say who it is, but you know, so that that part is real for example

the the part where the guy In the movie Just goes off one night for like a million dollars and then tells Molly afterwards that he can't pay right and they play like all night long. That's a real guy. That guy is Houston Curtis. People know him. He's still around.

Did he ever pay that? I think in the movie, I assume this is accurate, but I don't know. I think the Toby Weir character, who's the Michael Cera character, ended up like making a deal with him to stake him to pay the money back but I've heard the story about like who was in the game that night and like what happened and how the game went like overnight till the next day and people started waking up and coming to play

because they heard Houston Curtis was on tilt so these are real stories real things that happened it's like it seems hard to believe, like it's, I mean, it's a great movie, but poker was huge in the private game scene back in that era in Hollywood in like 2006 to 2009, whenever that was. I would have loved to be around it, but unfortunately I wasn't in the scene like that back then.

But you know, it's pretty cool to hear the stories about all these celebrities that were playing so big back then. I heard those, yeah, I heard about New York was big too, back then, right? Yeah, exactly. I don't know if it's still being in New York, but has that ever happened to you

where someone didn't pay you? Like they just played all night and kind of stiffed you? More times than I'd like to. Oh really? So you're fronting players? Well no, no, not on the show. I'm just saying I've been involved in like other games and situations where someone's owed me money, you know, and then just ends up being broke and not being able to pay. And I've had to deal with that.

No, on the show, luckily, I have no financial ties or anything to any, like we deal with a casino. So people, they deal with all the compliance of financial stuff. So I don't have to deal with any of that. All I do is organize the lineup and the production. They worry about wiring the casino or bringing cash. They bring it to the cage. They deal with it.

The casino tells them if they're good or not. They tell me, hey, there's an issue with this player. They can't play or yes, they can play. All that's between the casino and them. So that's why it's a big advantage for us to stream in a casino. But no, I've been involved in like other stuff outside of the casino and poker situations where-

I heard that's common in your space. Yeah, it's horrible, man. It's horrible. Like people are just degenerates. They gamble above their means. They're not honest about their situation. And I have a rule. I don't lend any money anymore.

I've lost too many friends. Yeah, but I mean, I've had that rule. I had that rule forever. Back when I was just playing poker for fun, like when I was younger, but now that I've gotten more involved in poker, it's's hard like when you're a game runner and it's just hard especially if you're running yeah sometimes you just avoid spots like I mean it's sometimes sorry sometimes some spots are unavoidable and maybe there's

a lot of spots I regret that I could have done better over time and there's a lot of people that I've trusted that looking back I shouldn't have trusted Did you get money to buy yourself Suke or whatever his name is? Ruske? No, I didn't. Ruske? Yeah, that was a crazy one. Yeah, that was nice. But I know people that he owes money to, Nick Airball being one of them. But yeah, Ruske, that's a situation that's so interesting. And you see that a lot. He was the nicest guy ever. He was so friendly. People did not suspect that he was going to be a scammer. And then all of a sudden, one day, he just skips town and owes people money. Like a million, right? I don't know how much ended up

being, but it was a lot. And I've seen situations like that so many times and it's like, you know, I learned as time goes on, like you have to be more careful and I'll warn people too. Like, hey, you know, be careful, don't do that, don't do that. Like I'll use my experiences to kind of tell other people. But it's just tough when you're involved in games, you're playing in games, you're organizing games, you're doing, you know, it's just like,

you're going to come up with situations once in a while where, you know, someone owes you for whatever the reason is. And you know, most of the time it's no big deal, but sometimes it's just people aren't honest about their situation. Like I've had situations where, you know, we're playing in a, you know, we have like an online game we'll play sometimes, a rake free game, just bunch of friends.

We're all really close. We hang out, like we all trust each other, right? Totally like just legit cleanest most fun game that you can imagine, right? Once in a blue moon will have somebody who's super wealthy they're maybe not a billionaire, but like, you know nine figure net worth and all of a sudden they just go off for like an absurd amount and Then afterwards tell you, shit I messed up, I'm gonna need a lot of time to pay that, like I'm just not liquid right now. Why didn't you tell us that before you decided to gamble that big? Like be honest about your

situation before you screw someone over. So you you know, that just comes up sometimes and people put you in a bad spot because they're just such degenerates. This happens in private games all the time, right? Like people get people that run these, these private underground LA games get screwed all the time because you know, somebody that's good for the game, somebody that's, you know, they think is worth a lot and is good for it ends up going off for a ton of money and then after the fact They tell them like hey, like I can't pay you that right away and now they're in a bad spot So it's just it's the dark part about poker. Probably the worst part about poker But it's something that I've definitely learned how to deal with over time. Yeah Yeah, that's why I'm scared of the high stakes because then you run into cheating too, right? Is that common? Yeah, I mean, that's a scary part for sure. You have to be

careful not to put yourself in a questionable spot, you know. During COVID, before our show launched, you know, 2020, I was playing, I had nothing else to do, right? Everything was shut down. What do I do? I knew I was going to start a show a year and a half from then. So I went and just played in all these private games. That was my social time. Played poker, trying to make some money, but trying to also network and meet players and whatnot. And, you know, looking back at it,

there was definitely some games where I feel like I probably got cheated, but I was so naive about it back then that I just didn't think about it too much so after the fact But since then I was more careful if I ever went to a game like that Where I want to make sure I know every player I'm playing with who are they? I'm paying attention to what the dealer's doing and you know if there's any like suspicious things like them switching out the decks randomly but yeah, I've been to actually a

Few games where looking back I was probably cheated actually I'll tell you a crazy story. So There was a game I played at in Vegas in 2020 at the time it was the biggest game I ever played and end up being the at the time the most I ever lost okay and A week later. I found out from some people that had played in that same game on different days, um, that they suspected that this one guy in the game, uh, cheated. Okay. I paid my balance right away the next day. Like I always do if I'm in a game like that, but other people in those games didn't pay right away because they found out that they think

this guy might have been cheater. So they investigated it to the best they could over the next few weeks. There was no way to like hard prove it that the guy for sure cheated, but there was like some circumstantial stuff. So a bunch of these people like didn't pay their balance to that game.

The game got shut down, never ran again. You know, again, people assume this one guy cheated, but there was like no way to really prove it to force the game runner to give the money back. Okay. Fast forward to a few years later. Um, there's a game in LA with some guys from our show, um, that played and it was like mostly an Asian game. Airball played in this game. Wesley played in this game a couple couple years ago. They ended up catching some guys in the game cheating, okay, somehow, right? They exposed them, Wesley posted all on social media, became like this big story in poker. These guys cheating, they posted pictures of who they were.

I saw the picture of the one guy and I was like, holy crap, that's the guy that allegedly cheated when I was in the game in Vegas a few years ago. Like, you for sure got cheated because this guy's reputation is a cheater and I played with him, right? So we're like, oh my god I can't believe it's the same guy if they ever like sent me a picture when they were playing and said You know this guy I would have been like get out of that game. Like yeah, it's this is bad news. Okay now So that happened. Okay that got exposed now fast forward like two years later, okay, this past year. You know about the NBA sports betting scandal

with John Tate Porter, the player that, you know, that got in trouble for scamming prop bets, where, you don't know about this story? It's a huge story, look it up. His name's John Tate Porter, his brother Michael Porter is on the Nuggets. Oh, I heard about it, yeah. And there's all these prop bets that you can bet on now and like DraftKings and FanDuel where people in a couple of the games were

firing the unders on his prop bets and he's just a random bench player and they ended up investigating it and found out that there were that he was you know faking the injury or Kind of like telling people beforehand, like, Hey, I'm going to hit the under, I'm not going to play, or I'm going to miss these shots. Like bet on me. Right. The guys that were behind it were all poker related. And the one guy that was part of it was the same guy that cheated me in the poker game that cheated in that game. And now he's involved in the sports betting scandal. So, and another guy that was involved in the Wesley air ball game also was involved in this scandal as well

It's like it's just crazy how Something as mainstream as that in sports betting like tied to poker so now I wonder how he did the poker scam Was he in on it with the dealer you think I'm not positive to be honest There's some speculation, but that it could be something like that. Yeah. Cause the dealers are, they're so good these days. It's hard to tell if they're certain way. I try to like look sometimes and I have no idea. Like I would never be able to, to catch like the sleight of eye or sleight of hand.

Yeah, sleight of hand is so good these days. They can even do it in front of you. Yeah, I would have no idea. Yeah. And so that's why these days, like I really don't play in private games. I just play with my own group of friends or at the casino on my own show like I know I can trust my own show right like that's I Always tell people the only games that I know I can like fully trust are my own games

I can't trust someone else's game a hundred percent. I can only trust myself I can only trust my own games. So, you know, I always advise people to just be careful when you're going to private games and really know who you're playing with. Trust the host, trust the players. I wonder if people will switch to like AI dealers, like instead of human. You know what I mean? I don't even know how to avoid like cheating, like automatically shuffle it and deal them out. If that's possible, that'd probably be a good idea. Yeah. Yeah. There's VR poker. I've seen clips of that. Yeah, yeah. Those are hilarious. Well, what's next for you, man? What's the next big stream coming up? Well, we got the million dollar game coming back. Um, coming up soon. It's going to be either April

or May this year. Uh, so we've done it two years so far. Um, this will be the third year. Um, million dollar buy-in minimum. We've done four days each of the last two years. This year we'll probably do three days just to keep it easier just because you know sometimes you lose players last minute and the games end up not being as good. So we're gonna do three days and just make the games really good. Expecting some some big names for that. So that'll be fun. Last year we had a bunch of like two million plus dollar pots, the year before we had a three million dollar pot with Tom Dwan.

Geez, that was the record, right? At the time? Yeah. I think I saw that one. Yeah, so Tom Dwan still has the record. Not just the biggest pot on our show, but the biggest pot on any poker broadcast ever. So almost 3.2 million dollars.

That was a crazy hand too. Yeah. So hoping for some more, you know, big pots like that this year. And then this summer, we're going to try to put together another celebrity game with Neymar and figure that out. So last year we had Neymar, Ninja, Ryan Garcia, Dan Balzerian.

Mr. Beast, right? That was, that was a couple of years before that. We had a Mr. Beast one as well. So that was our first celebrity one, big celebrity one was Mr. Beast Ninja, Ludwig, Tom Dwan, Phil Hellmuth, Alex Botes. The recent one we had Neymar, Ryan Garcia, Dan Bilzerian, Jimmy Butler. So that one was pretty big. And yeah, hopefully we get Jimmy Butler again with Neymar this summer. And then we'll try to fill it with some other like really big celebrities. So yeah, and then we got some big moves we're going to be making as well that we'll be announcing soon,

probably by the time this airs. Just we're going to try to really expand the show and scale it to be more than just a show at Hustler Casino. We want it to be more of a platform for poker content. We want to have streams in different locations. We want it to be more of a platform for poker content. We want to have streams in different locations. We want to have different kinds of poker content around the clock. And so we're hoping that over the next year we build up our channel so that we are the go-to place for poker content. I love it. Ryan, we'll link your stuff below. Anything else you want to close off with, man? No, that's it. Thank you for doing what you do. Absolutely. I appreciate it. I'll be at the next game. Hopefully. All right Let's try guys check him out. See you next time