iGaming Daily

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and to wrap up your usual Thursday session with an important broadcast announcement. Sadly, your usual duo of Jessica Wellman and Charlie Horner will not be on today's episode of iGaming Daily, as Charlie has decided that annual leave was more important than this podcast schedule. So I, James Ross, will be your host for today. But it's not all bad news, as Jessica Wellman still remains and joins me. I'm still here, dang it. Yeah, you've chosen iGaming Daily.

over a nice break. Well, I've got America's birthday next week, so I get that time off. You won't see me next week. I'm also off next week, so I can't really say too much. But Jess is with us and she's going to describe, as she puts it, her biggest story break of a career with the reveal of who's behind the Joss King's extortion suit.

Before we jump in though, Jess, how have you been after your eventful week in Toronto? I was happy to come home where it was a little cooler. I'll be honest, it was very warm in Toronto. But it was a fun event. And as always, I'm just tired and I need like the full weekend to recover. Yeah, see, I went to Toronto last year and it was peeing down with rain. And I'm not usually a fan of talking about weather on the podcast, but to hear it was at what degrees was it there now? I was like...

I'm not going to do it your way. 104. 104. I don't even know that would be an hour. I think that's like, I think Tom said it was 42 or whatever that means. OK, so that's higher than our record breaking, like heat wave of all time. because I think it was I think last year hit the 40s and that was unbearable. So no. So I'm glad everyone else enjoyed the weather and I managed to handle glorious Manchester rain and wind.

Away from weather, onto the story. And if we actually look at your original article, you described this story as something that reads like a Martin Scorsese film. So we're going to do something a little bit fun. We've already kind of done this together once, but there's a second part to this question, which I think might be interesting. So you're a film fanatic. Which actor or actors, sorry, would you choose to portray the key players in the story?

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We literally talked about this in a meeting yesterday. Yeah. Okay. you were on it. I forgot that you were there. Sorry. So the guy that is the John Doe that we uncovered, Stephen Jacobs, would be played by Jason Schwartzman for sure. I took to Twitter to source ideas for who would play Spanky. And I think my favorite is someone who said it should be Kevin James.

And this is his like Adam Sandler, uncut gems, punch drunk love, like serious turn that gets him an Oscar nomination. That's actually, that's actually quite perfect to be honest. So I was like, that's amazing. Yeah. So in a call yesterday, I said Spanky should be, Ethan Suppley. People might know him from my name's Earl. This is Ethan Suppley before he became this ripped masculine. I was going to say he's gone on quite the diet.

He's changed, but my name is Earl, Aero, Ethan Suppley would be cool. But I think I've gone a bit rogue with Stephen Jacobs. there's so many J's. Yeah, Stephen Jacobs. I've actually gone kind of late 80s, early 90s, or all of the 90s version of Jerry Seinfeld. Okay. I think he's kind of got that look about him. We can just, we can take all the comedians and get them.

If not an Oscar nom, maybe a Golden Globe nomination. And the second part of this question and people, people who actually read actually, sorry, people who actually read, literate people, literate people might like what he's about to say next. People who read SBC Americas will know Jess is a magician when it comes to headlines and I always utilize your skills when I need inspiration. So

If you, what would you name this film, this hypothetical film, if you had to? God, that's tough. I'm sorry, I don't have an answer. I would sit here for like 90 seconds because I don't want to say one that I don't like believe in. And nothing's coming to mind. Do you have one? no, I don't. I was hoping for your magician work. Sorry, you put me too on the spot. Should we come back to the end of the podcast? See if there's anything? Okay, I'll see if I can come up with something. Cool. So before we...

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jump into the story at hand. Now is the perfect time to mention our sponsor, or sorry, our supporter for today's podcast. And in the inspiration of the film introduction we've just done, I'm going to do this in those cliche film trailer narratives, if you know them, Jess. In a world. yeah. So this might go so wrong. And I apologize for the impression I'm going to give. But here we go. In the ever evolving world.

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possibilities rated 18. They're going to steal that tagline. Do you know what they can do? I should probably for legal reasons say that is not Optimus Slug tagline, but you can have it freely if you're listening pinning. Okay. That's the cringe out of the way. I'm sorry. So on your breaking story, Jess, on your biggest break of your career, can you explain to us and just give us the gist of the John Doe v Draftkings lawsuit?

Yeah, so let's start with what started this all. I will give credit to Next that they were the first ones to kind of find this court case. So a court case came up that was originally filed in the state courts and was eventually kicked up to the federal court in New York that essentially a John Doe, and that is in the US what is used when you want a pseudonym. I don't know if you guys have a John Doe equivalent in this. I think we used John Doe as well. Also used John Doe.

saying that he was attacked on the street by a masked man who was telling him that if he didn't pay, Gadoon Kirolos, who most people know is spanky in the United States. He's a very, like he does bed bash. He's very self -promoting. He's a big professional sports better. And another man, Oscar Jones, $500 ,000 that he would kill them, blah, blah.

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He's not suing those people. He is suing DraftKings, saying that DraftKings' staff leaked his personal account information to these people to help them facilitate this extortion. I believe, as the complaint said, basically, I think it was like DraftKings loaded the gun and put it in his hand.

So they're seeking, he is seeking a million dollars in damages plus punitive damages, which could be another group of money on top of that. So yeah, that's kind of the gist of it. In the complaint, you know, he alleges a lot of things about talking with his VIP host and the VIP host saying, we're gonna protect your account. And then when he felt like his account was breached,

they suddenly stopped offering him information. None of that was kind of attached as like exhibits on the case. A lot of times you'll see some of this communication get attached in the complaint. It's not to say that it doesn't exist. It just, we haven't seen it yet. So, interesting situation to suggest that DraftKings would compromise customer data.

to not just compromise it, compromise it in order to enable someone to commit a crime. And you've said Spanky's outright denied this, yeah? No, he is not. He's not. He's not denied it. Well, let me explain. He does not deny. He believes and said in a statement that Stephen Jacobs owes him money. Are you familiar with what bearding is? No, until yesterday after you mentioned it. But for the listeners out there who might not.

Bearding is the, where people who have been kicked out of sports books and Spanky very proudly trumpets all of the sports books that have decided he is too sharp to take bets, including DraftKings. He has a video on his Twitter account of being kicked out of DraftKings. They will find people to create DraftKings accounts and they'll make bets through those people. This is.

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blatantly against the terms of service of the website. It is also questionably criminal. I'm trying to figure out exactly if he's breaking laws or anything, but he admits that they used him through his associate Oscar Jones. He would give Oscar the plays that they wanted. They gave Stephen Jake, John Doe money to put on the account and wager. And they're saying that

You know, he won in the vicinity of $400 ,000 and that with that, plus the initial stake plus money obtained from bonuses that he owes roughly $500 ,000. Okay. Sorry. I'm trying to just, I'm kind of confused in my head right now because as you're aware and listeners who tune in when I'm with you Jess, like U .S. anything U .S. law or legislation. This is incredibly complicated. Yeah. The other piece of this. So while we're talking about what Spanky is,

saying, he is saying that the John Doe refused to pay them, claims that he couldn't withdraw money from his account, but they believe that he actually has withdrawn money from his account and he just has no intention to pay. Okay. So here's something I say, your biggest break is you've revealed - I figured out who John Doe was. That was my big -

contribution to this. How did you figure out who John Doe was? I will be honest, sometimes people email me when I am tweeting about stories or writing about stories and someone emailed me suggesting I look at the filing attorney in the case. They had pointed me in the direction of a different case, but when I went to look up that case in the New York system, I saw that there was an open case

involving the attorney who filed on behalf of John Doe, Stephen Jacobs, and a man named Oscar Jones, who was named in the John Doe complaint. So when I opened up that case and started looking at it, essentially, Oscar Jones sued Stephen Jacobs. And this is kind of the rest of the spanky story, saying that they had this agreement that they were going to bet on Stephen Jacobs Draft King's account and that Oscar Jones would fund it.

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This is where it just gets kind of off the rails. So how I figured it out is the gist of the complaint was saying that Stephen Jacobs owed him roughly $500 ,000. It also noted it had in all of the proceedings, Stephen Jacobs' home address, which was an apartment in Long Island City, and alluded to where he worked, which was a law firm on Lexington Avenue. If you look at the John Doe complaint, they owe the...

complaint says that he allegedly owed roughly $500 ,000. John Doe lived in an apartment in Long Island City and worked at a law firm on Lexington Avenue. So did not get confirmation from Stephen Jacobs on the record that it was him, but all of the pieces kind of lined up that they were the same person. And when Spanky sent his, posted his statement on Twitter,

Tuesday night he confirmed that it's the same person. In that suit, here's kind of the rest of this story, is that Oscar Jones was like, hey, it's time to settle up, you need to cash out. Stephen Jacobs, and all this is, this is where I put a big old allegedly over everything that I am saying. This is simply what is in the court complaint that Oscar Jones filed. It is all conjecture.

So he is saying that Stephen Jacobs said that DraftKings wanted him to fill out some sort of and sign some sort of affidavit before he withdrew $200 ,000. As a lawyer, he did not feel comfortable filling out such an affidavit. And Oscar Jones even said that he heard that he was asking around for a copy of this affidavit to try and make a forgery of it. So he claims that he can't withdraw. Then Jones,

is like, OK, well, you need to file a complaint with the gaming commission then because they shouldn't be allowed to do that. So this is my favorite part of the whole story. He, Steven Jacobs forwards an email that was sent to the New York State Gaming Commission that looks like a fully submitted complaint. But then four minutes later, he emails the gaming commission and I'm going to read you what he said.

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Dear gaming commission with sincere apologies the email attachment below was accidental and was not meant to be sent to you I am a gaming lawyer and I drafted it for a gaming training module. It is not a real complaint I meant to include your email address in the document, but not to send it to you. Please ignore and delete these email attachment. I apologize again So how did Oscar Jones figure out that this had happened and that email was sent he figured he filed eventually after

You know, more hemming and hawing and no money. He filed a freedom of information request on the complaint and the New York State Gaming Commission sent him this email and let him know, hey, we have no record of this. As this is all happening, Stephen Jacobs says, I will go to the gaming commission and do this, but I want you to sign a document that you will not sue me.

Just to keep this clean because we need to have you not associated with it. We don't want them to know that there's multiple people on the account, blah, blah. For reasons I do not understand, this man signed this document. Why? So, now that Oscar Jones sues him in the New York courts and the New York courts say, buddy, you signed this document saying you're not gonna sue him. So like, you can't sue him. So, not only.

Did he lose this court case, although he is appealing it? He now owes Stephen Jacobs $250 ,000 for violating the document that says, I'm not gonna sue you. This is brilliant. I've got to admit, it's a smart play by Jacobs. I must admit. I mean, does it seem like he may have stolen a lot of money from them? Sure does.

Does it? Is it kind of amazing that he just got him to sign this thing? What's interesting is there this previous case that was originally pointed to me was a case where Stephen Jacobs ended up in the hole a lot of money to someone who was loaning him money to gamble. And essentially that case hinged upon, will you sign to this loan repayment agreement? So even if you think the loans are illegal and forget like, you know, there in some states loans for gambling are not.

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unenforceable because of gambling. They were like, you still signed this agreement that you were going to pay him back. So you have to pay him back. And it's kind of funny that it almost seems like he took the lesson to be like, okay, well, I'm just going to turn around and do this to someone else. So I'm just kind of notice the time a little bit. Where do we actually stand with the current cases and kind of how do you foresee this kind of moving forward? So the.

The case with Oscar Jones is in the first stage of appeal in the New York court system. So there is a chance he's trying to not have to pay this $250 ,000. In the DraftKings suit, like I said, it got kicked up to a federal court and DraftKings has said they offered us a statement letting them know and in court records it's become clear they're going to file a motion to dismiss. They have a few more.

They have like a month to do that. It takes a minute to like write up a complaint response to the complaint. So we'll be looking out for that in probably a month or so. We have got a bit more time, actually. And I think that's everything I've got for you on this case, Jess. But if there's anything circulating around America's, which could be the next break in story. Well, I'm going to I'm going to still talk about this case because I can't stop. Sorry. This guy is actually a poker player or used to be a poker player. And I remember him.

from poker playing days. So he's been in the gambling world a long time. When it came out, immediately, I was like, yeah, I remember him. He played poker. And as soon as I posted it, people were like, yeah, I forgot. He was a monster in the poker chat back in the day. And by that I mean, so if you guys have never played online, there's a little chat box at the table where you can talk to the other players. And when he would lose hands, he would go on like,

huge rants like caps lock on raging capital letters and some of these rants were resurfacing and I forgot how brutal people would be in the chat but he was one of the worst like he's yelling it again let me find the here's like some dramatic readings I feel like I'm gonna throw up and kill someone I'm going to jump out of a window you lucky piece of crap I really hope your life is miserable that one day all of your sick luck comes back to bite you I don't wish torture on anyone but frankly you deserve it

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If you were starving in the desert, I would definitely not give you a glass of water. I hate you more than I hate anyone else in the world because of what you embody, a guy who consistently gets insanely lucky. I literally cannot do justice to the height of my hate for you. I hate you more than I hate Frist. Bill Frist. This is some dated stuff. So yeah, he's an angry one. In one of the suits, there's a whole bunch of text messages that he sent that were similar in just

nonstop threats and stuff that he allegedly said. So, yeah, it's been fun to reminisce that like no matter what I do, it all comes back to poker. Yeah, you sent me this link yesterday. And honestly, that were if you were starving in the desert, I would definitely give you a glass of water was perfect. Passive aggressive. It was not aggressive, aggressive, aggressive. But it sounds like I hate you and I hope you die. If it was the one for the caps. But like there was also

I can't actually open it now for some reason, but there was a response saying like, please don't beat me up at Bellagio. Yeah, that was a nice little sassy response. Well, no, I think that's how we got time. I think that's a really nice way to end. A fun way to end. And on that happy note, kids, enjoy your Thursday. But before we do, have you figured out a potential film name for this? my God, no. Give me like a week and then I'll come back with something. I think the only ones in my head I've got are the extortion.

And double deception. I guess that's all I could think of. I mean, I need a good like punny one. So I'll come up with it eventually. Just give me time to ruminate. We'll post it on our gaming daily social page. Well, Jess, thank you. Congratulations on this story, by the way, because it was it was very from my point of view, it was a very refreshing to see this type of journalism again. Like I it's one of my favorites, this investigative stuff and breaking these big stories. So well done. Congratulations. Thank you. Thank you.

More to come hopefully, let's go on the next big case. And for the listeners out there, I will leave a link in the description below to the stories connected to this podcast, as well as the OptiMove bonus. So thank you for listening and goodbye.