#242: “Kings, Gods and Monsters – A Poker Myth”

Inevitably, there exists a lot of overlap between mythology and real life. The myths are, by their nature, the salient and primordial distillations of a fundamentally human experience and history has a way of repeating itself (usually because we are bad scholars). The content of our everyday lives often resemble stories and conform to classic story structures. Sometimes it is simple, sometimes complex. Sometimes it is unconscious, sometimes by design. Either way, we are living storied lives. In fact, look hard enough and you might even see a modern day Homeric Hymn playing out before your very eyes…

In Greek Mythology, is it said that Minos ascended to the throne on the Island of Crete. As King, he prayed every day to Poseidon to send him a snow-white Cretan Bull, a sign of support from the Gods. Poseidon obliged but said that Minos must sacrifice the bull to show honour to the deities. However, Minos decided to keep it because of its beauty, wrongly believing that Poseidon would not mind. To punish Minos, Poseidon made his wife Pasiphae fall deeply in love with the bull and unbeknownst to the King, she had the craftsman Daedalus make a hollow wooden cow which she climbed inside in order to mate with the white bull. The offspring of that unholy union was the Minotaur, a threat so great that Minos had Daedalus construct a gigantic labyrinth to conceal the beast. Minos then demanded that, at nine-year intervals, seven Athenian boys and seven Athenian girls be sent to Crete to be devoured by the monster.

In many ways, Isai Scheinberg is like Minos. He was King of the biggest online poker network and as such, it is likely that he prayed for the US Government to deliver him his Cretan Bull; to green light the development of online poker in America. But the US Government decreed that online poker must die and it passed the UIGEA. Regardless, Scheinberg kept operating, bullishly expanding Pokerstars, wrongly believing that the Government would not intervene. Their rival Full Tilt and it’s CEO Ray Bitar took similar risks, also enlisting the help of Daniel Tzvetkoff and his Intabill payment processor. When it was necessary, Tzvetkoff created shell companies – hollow wooden cows – so that Bitar’s and Scheinberg’s needs could be met. The offspring of that unholy union was millions of dollars in fraudulent transactions, a threat so great that Scheinberg needed Tzvetkoff to construct a complex money laundering apparatus within which the fraud could be concealed. As years went by, these fraudulent transactions and the illegality of these apparatuses would come to jeopardise the online deposits of ordinary poker players.

Enter Theseus, a founding hero and crusader who could no longer stand for the barbaric tradition of sacrificing his fellow-Athenians. Taking the place of one of the youths, he journeyed to Crete on a mission to slay the Minotaur. There, he was aided by the once loyal Daedalus who, through Minos’s own daughter Ariadne, told him to unravel a ball of thread (or ‘clew’) as he traveled to the heart of the Labyrinth. That way, he could find his way back out should he be successful against the Minotaur. Theseus followed their advice, came upon the sleeping beast and the two engaged in an epic battle. In the end, Theseus won, overpowering and eventually decapitating the Minotaur.

Enter US attorney Preet Bharara, a man with the reputation of a ‘crusader prosecutor’ who set his sights on bringing down Pokerstars, Full Tilt, Absolute Poker and all the criminal instruments associated with the companies. Realising he was bang-to-rights, the once loyal Tzvetkoff turned government informant, spilling the beans on all the illicit activities and players involved. His insider knowledge helped to unravel the complex laundering system, allowing Bharara to ultimately emerge as victor. In the ensuing days, the domain names of the offending poker sites and the contents of 76 bank accounts were seized. Bharara and the DOJ indicted those involved with the fraudulent payment processors, as well as the heads of each company.

For his treachery, Daedalus was imprisoned by Minos in a tower but he escaped by fashioning wings for himself and his son Icarus. Daedalus warned Icarus not to fly too high because the heat of the sun would melt the wax holding the feathers together, but Icarus got carried away soaring in the air, forgot himself and got too close to the sun’s rays. His wings came apart and he fell into the sea and drowned. Daedalus cried, lamenting his role in his son’s demise but he quickly got over it and flew on to Sicily where he lived out his days on the sunny south coast of the island.

Daniel Tzvetkoff was facing 75 years in prison for money laundering, bank fraud and conspiracy for processing $543 million in illegal internet gambling earnings but thanks to the deal he struck with Bharara and the DOJ, he was able to fashion himself a parachute. Freedom came at the cost of a $13million forfeiture but he served almost no jail time, a small price to pay for his greed and hubris. According to multiple sources, he is now back living it up in a mansion on the Australian Gold Coast.

After his corporeal death, Minos became a judge of the dead in Hades leaving his son Deucalion to become the new King of Crete. After the fallout from Black Friday, Isai Scheinberg was effectively imprisoned on the Isle of Man, leaving his son Mark to take over the day-to-day operation of Pokerstars.

What happened to Deucalion? He constructed an ark after Zeus decided to destroy all humanity with a great flood. The world was successfully restored and repopulated. Pokerstars purchased Full Tilt after their scandalous misappropriation of player deposits threatened to rid what trust was left in the game. Pokerstars made the players whole, faith was restored and, over time, new players from emerging territories joined the site.

But what, I hear you ask, happened after that? Well a generation later, an outsider named Idomeneus conducted a violent takeover of Crete. He was a bit of a shit – you know one of those ‘unfaithful to his wife, liked to take short-cuts, didn’t look after his people, played by his own rules’ kind of guys. While Crete fell into disrepair, he allowed himself to be seduced by Helen and got himself embroiled in the Trojan War. He was actually one of those sneaky fuckers inside the Trojan Horse. That’s right – he was one of the original insider traders. Remind you of anyone?

Well, Idomeneus survived the war but on his way home encountered a terrible storm – lets call it ‘Hurricane Quebec Securities Regulator’. Fearing for his life, he made a bargain with the Gods that, should he survive the tempest, he would kill the first living thing that he encountered in Crete. Well if Greek Mythology has taught me nothing else, it’s that those Gods really loved fucking with mortals. The first person Idomeneus meets is his own son Idamantes. Idomeneus murders Idamantes in cold blood and for his crime he is exiled from Crete.

Now I’m not saying David Baazov is going to throw anyone else under the bus, should the alleged charges brought against him turn out to be true. I’m not saying he would sacrifice his first born to avoid jail. I’m just saying that if this was a greek myth, there are no depths that a character in his position wouldn’t plumb in order to save himself or win back what he feels is rightfully his.

Exile can be temporary after all. Idomeneus could be plotting to win back Crete at this very moment. Given the state he left it in, it’s ripe for an invasion. In fact, he would probably only need half the army he needed the first time around.