ShareWell-known poker player and singer/actor Kane Kalas has called out Ian O’Hara as a scammer, claiming the Florida pro took him and Jonathan Jaffe for a combined mid-6-figure sum, and recently lied about playing the Poker Masters in order to pocket stake money...
Kalas revealed that he staked O’Hara in 2020, only to find out later that O’Hara was also being staked by Jonathan Jaffe.
Although the action didn’t amount to more than 100% – a practice known as “overselling” – Kalas and Jaffe discovered that O’Hara was misreporting results.
Kalas explains in his Twitter thread: “After reviewing the numbers, Jon and I discovered that Ian was reporting conflicting information regarding his wins/losses.”
Describing the discrepancies as “far too numerous and egregious to be typos or errors,” Kalas explains, “It became clear that Ian was fabricating data on the stake, in order to finance his lifestyle.”
Admission of Guilt
When confronted, O’Hara “immediately admitted he fucked up,” says Kalas. “All told he had scammed us to the tune of a combined mid six-figures. Obviously the stake was terminated.”
Both Kalas and Jaffe were of the opinion that O’Hara’s remorse was genuine, and the scammed duo agreed not to go public with the story, so long as O’Hara met two conditions, as Kalas outlined below:
- Ian make consistent payments to Jon and I to pay off his debt;
- Ian discloses to Jon and I ALL transactional business Ian conducts within poker. All action selling/buying, all swaps, all stakes etc.
Should O’Hara ever break that agreement and be “involved in future unethical activity”, says Kalas, he would “out him publicly”.
Back to his old ways
With a new backer, it appeared for a while as though O’Hara was sticking to the arrangement, repaying about 40% of the money basically stolen from Kalas and Jaffe.
However, that all changed this week, says Kalas: “In the past 48 hours...it has come to our attention that Ian recently sold action for the Poker Masters tournament series, which he never disclosed to me and Jon.”
“In fact,” continues Kalas, “Ian did not actually even play in the Poker Masters events; he sold action, sent screenshots of old tournament ticket receipts along with pictures of a random stack in the tournament, then claimed he had busted. He pocket (sic) the action.”
Kalas’ Twitter outing of O’Hara concludes: “At this point, Ian has demonstrated a pattern of untruthful, manipulative and destructive behavior. While I do believe that Ian is truly remorseful, it is now clear that his remorse to outweigh his selfishly opportunistic tendencies.”
Kalas ends with a warning to others: “Jon and I would strongly advise against doing business with Ian.”
Background
O’Hara has just over $4million in live tournament earnings across the past decade, according to the Hendon Mob database, with the most recent being a $100k+ takedown of the SHRPO $2200 Deepstack in August.
A $437k cash at last year’s SHRPO $5200 buy-in was topped only by a 2015 second-spot finish at the SHRPO $25k High Roller, his total earnings placing him 21st in the all-time Florida rankings.
Kane Kalas is the son of legendary baseball commentator Harry Kalas, but turned to music instead of TV, becoming a noted singer and actor.
He discovered poker in college and later turned professional, playing highstakes online on Full Tilt and amassing more than $1.7million in live cashes across the past decade or so, with notable appearances on Poker Night in America.
