Mike Postle Cheating Lawsuit: Plaintiffs File Response to Stones’ Denial of Responsibility

Action is heating up in the California lawsuit pitting 88 poker players and alleged cheating victims against Mike Postle, Justin Kuraitis, and King’s Casino Management, the parent company of Sacramento’s Stones Gambling Hall. On Monday, May 4, 2020, plaintiffs’ counsel Maurice “Mac” VerStandig filed memos of opposition to dismissal motions previously filed by Postle’s two co-defendants, Kuraitis and King’s Casino Management.

The legal heat here is in VerStandig’s response to King’s Casino Management motion, which notoriously proclaimed in that motion, along with several other reasons seeking cause for dismissal, that, “Casinos do not owe a general duty of care to gamblers.” Stones’ defense also included the claim that all the evidence in the case amounts to a massive case of losing poker players’ sour grapes, despite statistical analysis showing Postle’s win rates exceeding win rates by multiple orders of magnitude.

• Sick Heater or Sick Cheater? StonesLive Player Under Suspicion
• Updates on Mike Postle Poker Cheating Scandal at StonesLive
• Mike Postle Denies Cheating Allegations On The Mouthpiece Podcast
• Is Mike Postle Really A Cheat?
• Mike Postle, Stones and Kuraitis Named in $10million Cheating Scandal Lawsuit
• Veronica Brill - The Real Hero Of The Stones Live Poker Cheating Scandal
• Has Matt Berkey Discovered The Postlegate Cheating Method?
• Is Jonathan Little Unfairly Cashing in on Postlegate Scandal?
• Top 5 Hands Mike Postle Allegedly Cheated On Stones Live Cash Game
• Postlegate Whistleblower Veronica Brill Reveals Inner Workings of Stones Cheating Scandal
• Mike Postle Will Not Go To Jail Over Cheating Scandal
• Mike Postle In Hiding As $10Million Lawsuit Heads To Court
• Mike Postle's Magazine Releases Anonymous Article Casting Doubt on Cheating Claims
• Anonymous Claims That Mike Postle Played At Other Casinos During Alleged Cheating Streak
• Alleged Poker Cheat Mike Postle Finally Acknowledges $10million Lawsuit
• Another Delay in Mike Postle Cheating Case
• Stones Gambling Hall Asks for Postlegate Cheating Case to be Dismissed
• Mike Postle Files Response in Poker-Cheating Case
• New Defense Briefs and Alleged Victims Lawsuits Filed as Postlegate Continues
• Second Lawsuit Filed Over Mike Postle Poker Cheating Allegations
• Mike Postle Amends Dismissal Motion in Poker Cheating Case
• Plaintiffs Seek Sanctions Against Alleged Poker Cheat Mike Postle
• Mike Postle Accused of Dodging Legal Service in Second Poker Cheating Case
  

VerStandig’s response skewered those claims. Not only did VerStandig’s response reiterate the analytic nature of the evidence, it castigated Stones (King’s Casino Management) and it’s counsel for ignoring its responsibility to its customers. 

“The crux of Stones’ Motion is that Plaintiffs’ Complaint and the allegations therein can be chalked up to the paradigmatic sob story of gamblers – sore losers claim they were cheated because they cannot accept the superiority of an adversary,” wrote VerStandig. “To whittle Plaintiffs’ argument down to a disparaging conclusion is not only offensive to Plaintiffs, but, too, to the very gaming community from which Stones draws its customer base.”

Stones’ attempt to ignore its corporate and civic responsibilities to its customers has, as reported previously, drawn widespread responsibility across the gambling world. Further, according to VerStandig:

“Both Stones and Mr. Postle profited off his cheating, and Stones is thusly liable for its own actionable conduct.”

Stones profited from the Postle-centered “Stones Live!” games in several ways, VerStandig’s response noted. Besides rake generated from the webcast cash games themselves, the “Stones Live!’ shows were a huge promotional vehicle for the Sacramento poker room.

“Stones did this as a means of promoting its relatively new casino, allowing for targeted marketing to card players conveying the atmosphere of a poker ‘destination’”, VerStandig wrote.

The response also gave VerStandig another opportunity to chastise Stones Gambling Hall for another ongoing lie. Following her shunning by Stones and the “Stones Live!” coordinator, Kuraitis, lead defendant Veronica Brill took her cheating accusations public via social media. That led to a firestorm, extensive hand analysis and eventually the lawsuit, yet early on, Stones promised to conduct a thorough investigation into the cheating allegations and make those findings public, the latter of which, at least, remains undone. In addition, the supposed “independent” investigator leading the investigation turned out to be the personal counsel of one of Stones’ primary owners.

VerStandig had no additional response to the filing of the responses, except for a touch of snark on Twitter: