ShareThe Hustler Casino Live cheating scandal has taken a new turn after Bryan Sagbigsal responded on the 2+2 forums. The disgraced Hustler employee was fired last week after being caught stealing three $5,000 chips from Robbi Jade Lew’s stack, raising suspicion that he was taking his cut after the infamous J4 hand took place.
Lew had given her $135K winnings from the hand back to Garrett Adelstein and now poker Twitter was full of accusations that Sagbigsal was worried that he wasn’t going to get paid as he was likely on a percentage.
This, combined with Lew deciding not to press charges at the time, had many thinking the case had finally been cracked but it hasn’t turned out like that at all with even more information coming to light.
Sagbigsal Has His Say
When a series of posts appeared in the main 2+2 post on the scandal that were written by an account named “BryanSagbigsal” we had no idea if they were genuine but it appears that Joey Ingram has verified that it is indeed the former Hustler audio man.He starts his post with the heading “Garrett Adelstein is WRONG about THE POKER CHEATING SCANDAL...“
“I LOVED Hustler Casino Live, I DID NOT COLLUDE WHATSOEVER WITH Robbi Jade Lew, Rip, or Beanz to cheat you Garrett. WHY THE **** WOULD I CHOOSE WHAT I KNOW WOULD BE ONE OF OUR HIGHEST VIEWED STREAMS TO CHEAT the most talented and beloved cash game player in the world.
That's the most asinine **** that I've ever heard of. To whoever is reading this just think about that; Why would I cheat the smartest player in the game in front of the thousands watching concurrently + the MILLIONS who would see it after.
Excuse my language but that's just plain out ****ING STUPID!. You should greatly reconsider what you think are facts in this case because you're absolutely wrong about me rigging the game.
I had the upmost respect for the integrity of the game and I admired all of the people that came on the show. Including you dude! That's lame that you would even blame me when I looked up to your stupid ass!!!! I wouldn't wanna cheat you, nor anyone ever.”
That’s as much of a denial as you can get, but there’s more.
Doug Polk, after publishing several analysis videos of his own, actually accepted an invitation to go and play on Hustler Casino live and reported back what he had learned during his trip to Los Angeles.
The most concerning point that we hear about is how the control room was laid out, with a noted change from how it looked 3-4 weeks ago. Polk said that a filing cabinet had been moved closer to Bryan Sagbigsal’s desk, obscuring the view of the camera to his seat while he has a clear view to the live holecard information.
Sagbigsal’s explanation is that he was simply making the room easier to walk around in what is a very cramped space.
“THIS NARRATIVE IS COMPLETELY FALSE. I DID NOT MOVE ANYTHING THAT WOULD CHANGE MY PERSPECTIVE. IF I WANTED TO SEE THE REAL TIME HOLE CARDS I COULD HAVE SEEN THEM FROM WHERE I WAS SITTING AT ANYTIME FROM ANYWHERE IN THE ROOM. THERE ARE 10 MONITORS IN THE ROOM AND YOU CAN SEE THE HOLE CARDS IN THE PROGRAM FEED WHICH EVERYONE WORKING IN PRODUCTION CAN SEE. YOU DON'T HAVE TO BE DIRECTLY IN FRONT OF THE GRAPHICS COMPUTER IN ORDER TO SEE THE REAL TIME HOLE CARDS.
So that fact that you're insinuating that I moved my desk closer to the corner to get closer to where the hole cards are is ABSOLUTELY WRONG. I moved my dest because we don't have sufficient enough space in the Hustler Casino Live control room to move around.
WE ARE ELBOW TO ELBOW everytime someone wants to walk through and anyone who's been up there an extensive amount of time can confirm what I'm saying is accurate and correct. It's like a NYC kitchen up there.
What I did was move the table so that the charging equipment was flush against the wall so I can use the bigger desk when I bring my computer to make videos and so we have more space to walk through. Now this is a #FreezingColdTake”
Other points of note in the detailed post are the $215K reward for an explanation of how any cheating, if there was any, took place. Bill Perkins and Haralabos Vougaris have stumped up the cash if anyone is willing to break ranks and spill the beans but Bryan Sagbigsal still maintains his innocence.
He also added that he would never have chosen Robbi Jade Lew as his horse for such a scam, instead opting for an experienced player. All in theory, of course.
Bryan Sagbigsal Gets Aggressive with LA Times Reporter
Earlier this week, LA Times journalist Andrew Chang caught up with Robbi Lew for a feature story and attempted to encourage Bryan Sagbigsal to give his side of the story. Lew happily sat down with the reporter and gave a detailed explanation on all of the major talking points from the last fortnight.But when Chang approached Sagbigsal, without invitation, he was less than welcoming.
“I found Bryan Sagbigsal, the fired Hustler Casino Live production employee, yesterday in Long Beach, where he’s been living with his girlfriend’s family. He said he wasn’t answering questions about his role in the poker cheating scandal.”
“When I approached him, he was sitting in the passenger seat of a green Subaru, wearing a maroon Arctic Monkeys sweatshirt, black baseball hat, sunglasses and gray pants. He and his girlfriend, who was driving, had just arrived home; her dad was on the sidewalk with me.”
Is Security Up to Scratch for the Biggest Livestream Games in the World?
There’s been a lot of discussion during the investigations about security being good enough for what are the biggest live cash games in the world right now. As we have no definitive answer to what really happened on September 29 a breach of security is still a possibility.
As you might expect though, this has led to the Hustler team being protective of its product.
One prominent voice on this topic has been high stakes reg Matt Berkey who has extensively covered his thoughts on what changes need to be made.
Berkey even called for the Hustler Casino Live show to be shut down until further investigation takes place but this suggestion was flatly ignored. Check out the two videos above to hear more on what Berkey had to say.
Allen “Chainsaw” Kessler also suggested shutting down the stream last week but soon found himself blocked on Twitter by some of the Hustler crew.
Vanessa Kade is also unimpressed with what she called lax security protocols on different high stakes live streams.
“Hearing all kinds of stories about lax rules across a number of companies with regular live streams. We need to start taking security more seriously. If there are millions of dollars at risk that belong to your patrons, you should be treating it like a bank vault.”
“- the control room should be locked down, and have CC video surveillance - the min number of people necessary should have clearance to be in this room - these employees should have extensive background checks & bonded (if possible) “
“- there should be no non essential equipment in and out of the room - hard lines only (no wifi) - no access to the room by any non-employees even if "escorted" and even if stream isn't running (access to the box is bad) - security tested at random intervals by 3rd party”
“- employees who don't need to see the real-time live stream to do their jobs should be seated in another room - cleaning staff should be escorted in and out - no servers allowed in or out - any breach and streams should be on hold until reviewed by 3rd party and solved“
The final piece of interesting news from the last few days is that Robbi Lew has offered Bill Perkins the chance to play heads-up for “a few million dollars.”
Lew also challenged Garrett Adelstein which he will certainly accept so we could have two major high stakes matches on our hands in the near future.
Let’s hope that agreements can be put in place to make this happen.
In case you missed anything from this story over the last week, check out our coverage so far in the links below:
Garrett Adelstein Storms Off Hustler Casino Live Amid Suspicious Play
Doug Polk Says it’s 90% Likely Robbi Lew Cheated on Hustler Casino Live
Poker Community Still Divided Over Hustler Casino Live Cheating Allegations
Hustler Casino Live Cheating Scandal Takes Bizarre Twist as Employee Steals $15k from Robbie Lew
Hustler Casino Live Cheating Scandal Update
Garrett Adelstein Posts Damning Statement on Hustler Cheating Scandal
