Tom Dwan - the missing man

Who pays it is the creditors who are defaulted upon, unless the debt is secured by another party, in which case that party pays it, and perhaps you are referring to "all of us" as the taxpayers of a particular jurisdiction in which you reside and in which the government has secured the debt of debtors who have no ability to pay. Each nation will have to deal with its own issues in that regard. As a citizen and resident of the United States, I have opinions as to how the matter should be handled within our own nation, but that is far beyond the scope of Tom Dwan and this thread.

Doing a podcast about a guy and his debts seems like a weird celebration of the situation. Also, Dwan not paying and winding up in this spot is clearly not okay. Both things are true, which makes this an uncomfortable situation. I didn't like when the casino dragged Ivey for his scheme, and I don't love this.

For me as an outsider, yes I want to know who he owes and what happened, but if he was sitting next to me while I listened or if I knew him personally I'd feel pretty awkward. It sounds cliched but poker is our thing, and we can choose how best to handle stuff like this. There are best practices for gambling debts, and this feels more like a bunch of exes meeting up to compare cliffnotes than it does a sincere attempt to get paid. Also, airing out this guys debts severely handcuffs his ability to make $ and pay them back. If they know he has the $, fine. If not, this is poorly thought out and partially (for some parties) an attention grab.

i think it must be in the 10s of millions he owes if not more, otherwise im sure he could find "nicer" backers/firends to front him til he goes on a heater to pay it all back

The thing i dont like about all of this is the way the people who say they are owed $ by him keep it so cloak n dagger, theres always some long winded elaborate story to go with how he owes them whatever amount it is.

Jungleman is about the only genuine one we know about for sure seeing as it was from their challenge way back when and we know how that ended up

The rest all seem to have some clause/story to it, and Bob H is the worst one, even when they was sat next to each other discussing it live on stream Bob seemed to be exaggerating his story somewhat and Dwan was like " no thats not how it happened i bet you...."

no doubt about it though he must owe a good bit otherwise im sure he would tweet himself to say its b/s

Either way it can't be a nice situation he is in and unless he is being completely scummy i feel sorry for him as he was and still a main draw for most games for excitement for fans of poker to watch.

Love the new durr drama, kindve seems like the natural course of things though, after you saw him talking about the crypto stuff and the robbi jade stuff. Probably good for his image that he never did much interviews and stuff back in the day and kept this mysterious aloof persona going, because if he did do alot of media and stuff people wouldve realized he was just a weirdo

Why is Tom not paying these debts though? wouldn't he want these people off his back? He's involved in crypto plus the macau games he must have piles of money.

I dont have shitter so I cant see the thread other than the first post. Cliffs on story?

I think it’s good. Dwan has had years to pay the debt. Polk is brave for doing this as Dwan has alot of connections and he has clearly been mostly scamming guys who he thinks is low risk of anything happening to him although I would be surprised if Trueteller doesn’t have any connections to russian mafia lol.

Main point is, his victims seem to be more the type that are not going to so something impulsive to him even if they are pissed.

Based on the exchange that Jetten shared, Dwan seems like a typical Tinded Swindler type of psychopath who can be charming at one point but completely ruthless and emotionless at another. That’s what makes him great at poker also.

This situation with Haralabos is just crazy to me and I just don't understand it. Haralabos claims Dwan has owed him 7 million or so and it has take about a decade of pestering Dwan and getting paid in drips and drabs over the years so that the figure is down to $350k. Thats insane is the first place.

Then earlier this year Dwan is playing in the million dollar HCL game and buys in for $1,000,000. Haralabos shows up in the game too. Dwans wins big, not sure how much but at least 1m profit. How the hell did Haralabos not get paid that day??? Did Dwan just say "FU, I'm not paying"? I mean even if he sold parts of himself , which I doubt, just his share of winnings would cover the $350k. Or does Dwan dispute the $350k and claim he owes Haralabos nothing?

Something tells me Dwan has a "different" way of looking at debts, ethics then the normal person. But then the question is how does he not get his ass kicked? I know poker players aren't tough guys and scammers often get off with no retribution. But Dwan doesn't seem like someone people would be scared to confront. Does he have tough friends or connections? Like that HCL situation with Haralabos, Dwan has the money right there in front of him, how does he not get paid without a confrontation post stream?

I don't think he's scamming per se. I think Dwan has just been a complete mess since he was 19. He rolls out of bed at 4pm last 20 years with no responsibilities.

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you doubt someone who is broke sold action to a 1mm buy-in game?

Most likely he's deep in makeup and has agreed to pay his backer first before any other debts, in exchange for continued backing. I think Jungleman alluded to something like this in an old Polk interview. Haralabos can't force him to pay just because he had a win that night because the win is probably a drop in the bucket to what he owes the backer.

I think his backers are pretty shady and might want to just keep him around as a "white monkey", to dance around and amuse them and their pals. The debt has gone on so long despite him having access to good games that it seems like he may be trapped in some sort of indentured servitude.

Think He probably just went on a downswing in Macau games which is normal but then Covid happened and games stopped. Probably the opposite for ROBL.

I dont understand how Dwan (& by Dwan, I mean anyone) can win a $1M+ pot & not instantly pay back the guy sat next to him the 350k he owes him. What kind of morally bankrupt human being/community are we dealing with here? What is the explanation? does he genuinely owe some other scary foreigners money?.

Edit: Above posts obviously explain it away somewhat, but its weird how secretive it all is.

Yeah, I think Dwan must have some more powerful & influential friends/backers than it appears. Otherwise, there's no explanation for why he hasnt faced serious repercussions in a decade.

It would be pure speculation, but given his obsessive crypto tweeting, I wouldnt be surprised if he talked some whales into using some bs crypto product which turned out to be a scam (IE Coinflex), and then when it blew up he agreed to pay them back what they lost out of fear they would hire debt collectors, triads, etc. I think rich chinese billionaires are a lot scarier than guys like Haralobob.

One of the few use cases for crypto is for high stakes poker (because you want to transfer huge sums quickly without the bank flagging it as suspicious), but it can blow up in people's face when they realize the hard way why the traditional safeguards/regulations are there in the first place.

I think this would be more feasible than him going on a neverending downswing in nonstop access to super soft games

With his apparent gambling issues on display in this thread, it's probably Tom Dwan who put way to much money into crypto schemes and lost it

Probably that as well, but if you look at his nonstop crypto tweeting combined with the fact he plays nosebleeds live, I can easily see him talking others into using some crypto product. So he could say hey I'll hold your money in my CoinFlex Premium account and we'll get 5000% APR guaranteed. They say sure sounds great. Then CoinFlex halts withdrawals and Durrr is forced to pay his buddies back 100 million dollars. So maybe hes not on a downswing at all but just owes a motherload amt to begin with.

Unless I misunderstood what he was referencing, I believe Haralobob claimed Tom went from purely poker and then into sports betting and then crypto. Undoubtedly he was -EV in sports betting and definitely losing in random crypto shitcoin "trading" (pure gambling and massively -EV unless you have insider info over which there is no oversight in crypto so insider trading and pump and dumps are the norm)

Also as to the questions of why Bob doesnt "do something" about the debt.. hes not stupid enough to risk his comfy rich life (the debt is irrelevant to him and hes only collecting due to principle) by doing something stupid like hiring some hitman debt collector to break Tom's knee caps.

lol reading comprehension.
7 figures is not 7 mil.

Where is this Doug Polk pod wtf

wow you sure have a bunch of very interesting theories!

jesus christ. can we get a new thread or some cliffs?

Cliffs:
Haralabob is still owed 350k from some sports betting shenanigans with TD a decade ago.
Jungle is still owed for the abandoned durrrr challenge.
Peter jetten is owed like 250k and he won’t be paid in Jeiju, dammit, he wants cold hard American dollars.
Attention hungry Texas man Dougglass polker has a new podcast about the TD debt situation even though barely any of it (maybe jetten and his recent comms with TD) is really new news.

not defending Dwan here but he's basically lived the past 20 years of his life inside of casinos playing the highest stakes games in the world where lending 6+ figures happens all the time, there's a good chance he is owed just as much as he owes. doesn't make it right but i think there is a distinction between someone like him and a scumbag like Maurice Hawkins.

and Doug Polk is still a leach who brings no value.

Actually curious, is it legal to just take someone else's stack? Even if the floor knew about the debt it seems like some kind of legal loop hole