Poker Pro Given 12 Years For $53 Million Dollar Scam

5 years ago
Poker Pro Given 12 Years For $53 Million Dollar Scam
13:34
22 Aug

Bill Jordanou was a moderately successful poker pro in the late noughties with about $523,000 in tourney winnings between 2008 and 2013. One of the reasons he disappeared from the Aussie poker scene is that shortly after that he was hauled in by the Ozzie rozzers for his involvement in an alleged Ponzi scheme of breathtaking proportions.

Four years on bail later, and he’s finally seen his day in court. He pled guilty after a cross-examination which was described by the court as “embarrassing”. As there will there will be no trial, much will remain unknown. But one thing that was thoroughly established was the audacity of the operation.


It was one of the largest frauds ever committed in Australia. AU$72 million (US$53 million) went walkabout while in Jordanou’s care. The funds were raised as loans from institutional investors, the largest of which was Commonwealth Bank of Australia. The documentation provided to CBA was so blatantly fraudulent many are assuming the existence of a further inside man.

The funds were then used in part to make real estate investments, and in part to fund the purchase of “boats, Harley-Davidson motorcycles, a fleet of luxury cars, jewelry and for regular trips to gamble in Macau and Las Vegas” for Jordanou and Robert Zaia.

The court gave Jordanou 12 years for his trouble of which he will serve a minimum of 9. It would appear that Jordanou was much more Bernie Madoff than Phil Hellmuth in the end.


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Jon is a freelance writer and novelist who learned to play poker after watching Rounders in year 9. He has been giving away his beer money at cards ever since. Currently he is based in Bristol where he makes sporadic donations to the occasional live tournament or drunken late night Zoom session. He ...Read more

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