Home / Poker News December 2013 / 2013 Poker Retrospective – Part 3
2013 Poker Retrospective – Part 3
Posted by: James Carter. - Thu, 2013-12-26 12:27
Taking a look at some of the low-points of the year the poker/online poker industry has put behind it isn’t a particularly pleasant or positive experience, but the exercise will put the positives into an entirely new perspective, so here we go:
Arguably, one of the most shameful and cringe-worthy moments of the year came courtesy of Japanese poker professional Masa Kagawa, who was arrested in July this year, for having set up a malware ring, which caused approximately $3.9 million dollars of damage.
Far from being just a profitable poker professional, the 50-year old Kagawa was a business man as well, the president of Koei Planning, an IT company from Tokyo, which came up with an Android app that collected 37 million email addresses off some 810k Android-based mobile devices.
Running a fake online dating site using the emails collected in the above said manner, Kagawa’s company amassed some $3.9 million in profits, over just 5 months.
Kagawa had made deep runs in the 2012
EPT Monte Carlo Grand Final Super High Roller, and in the $100k challenge of the 2013 Aussie Millions.
Kagawa wasn’t the only poker player who got into hot legal waters in 2013, dragging the image of the industry with him. In the US, an illegal gambling ring with Russian links has been wrapped up, following the arrests of some 34 people, among them some high-profile poker professionals like Bill Edler, Abe Mosseri, Justin Smith and Peter Feldman.
Molly Bloom, the organizer of high stakes poker games in which a number of celebrities were regulars (including Alex Rodriguez and Leonardo DiCaprio), was also apprehended in 2013. Bill Edler, BLUFF Poker Magazine’s 2007 Player of the Year, and Abe Mosseri, 2009
WSOP bracelet winner, were quite probably the best known and most surprising on the above said list of shame.
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