The Guys Who Ran The Aruba Poker Tournament Allegedly Stole $200,000+ And Have Dropped Off The Face Of The Earth

This one is a doozy. As you might recall, I recently finished 4th in a poker tournament and won a trip to Aruba to play in another poker tournament. The tournament I finished 4th in was part of the PPC, and their big event of the year was in November in Aruba. It was a great trip and Aruba was awesome andddddd the guys who run in apparently are the biggest scumbags on Earth and (allegedly) operating the PPC as a Ponzi Scheme. What?

Cards Chat - A new court filing obtained today by CardsChat reveals four players are going after the Players Poker Championship (PPC Poker Tour). The complaint, which was filed by noted poker attorney Maurice “Mac” VerStandig, contains 13 different counts, including racketeering, corruption, and fraud,  and accuses the tour operation of having been set up as a Ponzi scheme.

“PPC was, in essence, operating as a Ponzi scheme at all times relevant, utilizing funds obtained for one purpose to pay individuals owed funds for another purpose, constantly masking this chronic misappropriation until such a time as an insufficient flow of new monies proved inadequate to make good on extant obligations including, inter alia, payment of the Remaining Funds to the Plaintiffs,” the complaint reads.

PPC Poker Tour owners Bryan Oulton and Thomas “Sandy” Swartzbaugh are named as defendants in the complaint, but neither one has responded since allegations first surfaced on the TwoPlusTwo forums. Both men have subsequently disappeared from the public eye, even going so far as to delete their social media accounts, while also wiping the PPC website of all but an information-less homepage that promises: “More details about 2017 coming soon!”

Awkwarddddddd. Sometimes you think you’re going on a sunny Aruba vacation and next thing you know you’re involved in a Ponzi Scheme (allegedly).

More details are basically if you won over $10,000, they paid you 10k and then told you that you’d get the rest later, and now it doesn’t look like anyone is getting any additional money. The guy who won the main event is owed $120,000 and it doesn’t look like he’ll see a drop over the 10k he got on the spot. So shout out to me for not making the final table so I wouldn’t have to deal with this headache of a situation.

Other fun facts:

-Both guys, Sandy and Brian, have deleted all forms of social media, LinkedIn, changed their phone numbers, everything. They’re basically on the run right now. Kinda nuts.

-When they knew they were in trouble and broke and about to defraud people (allegedly), they sent out emails and texts and DMs to people asking for money to scam/continue the (alleged) Ponzi scheme with. Friends, rich people, anyone they could think of.

We are currently looking for our 2nd round of funding to take us to the next level. Investors that join our team will be coming in during our largest growth spurt to date. It’s time that we take that big step to be the
largest poker tour in the world when it comes to overall stops.

For the first time since inception in 2010, we will be offering up to 50% equity in the PPC and are looking for a few new investors to push us to the next level. We both feel the time is right to bring on some new partners.

– Brian’s dad murdered his mother and he testified against his father in court. Not important to this case, but a fun fact nonetheless.

So all in all, I guess I won’t be returning to Aruba next year, which is a shame because that place is fucking beautiful and I made some cool money. Hopefully Dave stops beating his dick long enough to finally play me for the 10k heads up match he challenged me to a year ago…we shall see.