Zohair Karim Running Staking Ponzi Scheme: Glantz Scammed

Was it a Ponzi scheme or wasn’t it? Whatever title we give it, Zohair Karim’s scam is well and truly out of the bag after Matt Glantz went public with accusations of overselling action against the Florida pro.

Glantz took to Twitter to vent his anger at the situation, which apparently arose after Karim sold more than 100% of his WSOP action, unable to pay his stakers after he actually cashed for over $40,000 when he finished 237th in the Main Event.

In response to Chicago Joey’s enquiry about the incident, Glantz explained:

"Just @PakmanMMA running a ponzi bit. And our mutual friends knowing about it & being silent bitches so others fall prey. Almost $10k for me.”

Karim was quick to enter the Twitter discussion, admitting to his scam almost immediately and offering to come clean on the Chicago Joey Ingram podcast.

It’s normal in the world of poker tournaments to take pieces of people’s action in the hope of a big payout when they win, but for Glantz it won’t be happening to anyone who isn’t a close friend in future, his tweets continuing…

But the Poker Night in America host is more angry that people apparently knew what Karim was up to long before the summer’s biggest event took place, and didn’t let on to him or others who also agreed to stake him…

For the uninitiated, what basically happens with a staking scam like this is that the player sells, say 150% of himself for a tournament – in the Main Event in Vegas that’s worth $15,000 (without mark-up, an extra % which can be used by good players to pay expenses and accepted by stakers as they feel the player has more chance of cashing, for example).

With a $10K buy-in, that’s a healthy $5K profit – if nobody finds out and, importantly, if you don’t cash! Karim has lost out on both of these counts now, his $40K win not enough, of course, to pay out more than $100% of that – and Glantz’s public outing leaving the Orlando man’s reputation in tatters.

Not that Glantz has any ill feelings towards Karim on a personal level, however, stating “I wish I hated you or at the least didn't like you. This would be so much easier,” and later tweeting…

but felt compelled to let others know about the scam lest they fall into Karim’s net…

Although the details and numbers are sketchy to say the least, word is that Karim has been running this type of rip-off for a while – and the Ponzi scheme claims are because he has seemingly been using new staking money to pay off previous debts when his backers found out what he was up to. But they didn’t tell Glantz, and they didn’t go public. But Glantz is the wrong man to mess with…