Once again, a disputed gambling deal is in the news. Tallahassee lawyer Hal Lewis is seeking $22,788 that Lewis says poker pro Maurice Hawkins owes him from a broken 2016 staking deal.
Lewis, a personal injury attorney, has emails and texts from Hawkins saying he lost the money and would reimburse Lewis. Hawkins says he squared up the account – and then some.
It’s not the first time two people have battled over gambling money, and it likely won’t be the last:
In 2006, Jamie Gold won $12 million in the World Series of Poker main event in a record field of 8,773. Gold told backer Crispin Leyser, “If I win, I’ll give you half,” in a phone message that Leyser saved. The dispute raged over whether “half” meant pre- or post-tax; the matter was eventually settled privately.
Earlier this year, gambler Jan Flato claimed that he should have won a $100,000 jackpot at the Seminole Hard Rock Hotel & Casino in Hollywood. He said that he provided the money that Marina Medvedeva used to win the big jackpot. But casino officials awarded the money to Medvedeva, saying that because she pushed the button, she was the rightful winner. Flato and Medvedeva are no longer friends.
No matter how much two parties may talk beforehand, this kind of stuff pops up.
Regarding the Lewis/Hawkins case, Lewis, a poker player himself, says he wired $55,000 to Hawkins’ wife’s bank account, and has received about $33,000 back. He said Hawkins texted him in June saying he wanted out of the rest of the deal, and that one text said “I owe you $22,000.” Lewis said that Hawkins also told him that he was on a losing streak. “He’s won more than $400,000 since breaking the deal,” Lewis said. “It’d be one thing if he went into poverty and I’ve given him a year.”
Hawkins said he repaid $10,000 via cashier’s check, used the rest for entry fees in accordance with their agreement, and that Lewis’ investment yielded more than $120,000 in winnings to Lewis before that.
“Numbers are numbers, and numbers don’t lie,” said Hawkins, of Lantana, Florida, who has been a poker pro for about 15 years.
What’s not in dispute is that Hawkins has been on a roll. He won a World Series of Poker circuit event in West Palm Beach on November 18 (good for $95,921), another WSOP circuit series event on April 7 in Council Bluffs, Iowa ($97,561), and finished sixth this June 24th in a Las Vegas tournament ($213,591).
Lewis acknowledges the damage from such a suit can go deeper than just the money. Poker players make verbal deals all the time, ranging from being staked to swapping pieces of potential winnings. (“I get 5 percent of whatever you win in this tournament and you get 5 percent of whatever I win,” for example.) If a player develops a reputation for not making good, then those deals dry up. That’s kind of ironic for an environment with a game based on deception.
Hawkins said it’s for that reason that the suit is so troubling, pointing out that protecting his reputation is worth more than the $22K.
“I told him, ‘Please don’t make me do this,’” Lewis said.
He said he knew that Hawkins, who has more than $2.8 million in documented tournament winnings, had a personality that could get under opponents’ skin. “Some people say they hate playing with him,” Lewis said. “But I’m not looking to invest in a friendly guy. I’m looking for a winner.”
Poker room managers have smartly stayed away from intervening in staking agreements, but they do make sure to write out the specifics when a tournament “chop” is conducted – that is, when players want to divvy up the prize money in a manner other that what the tournament officials have posted. Most tournament directors step in and require at least a verbal confirmation from each player that a chop is OK with them.
Why do poker players take on backers? One word: variance. It’s not uncommon for big players to hit losing streaks of thousands of dollars in a string of tournaments, which have players numbering in the hundreds and sometimes in the thousands.
For pros, there’ll be a time, they expect, when they’ll get that big score again. And when they do, rebating some of that cash for the security of being able to afford many more future events just makes good business sense.
