WSOP Champ Cory Zeidman Sentenced for $25M Betting Fraud

• Poker pro sentenced for multi-million-dollar sports betting scam
• Zeidman misled investors with claims of insider sports info
• Homeland Security uncovered long-running fraudulent handicapping scheme

WSOP bracelet winner Cory Zeidman has been sentenced to 46 months in federal prison for conspiracy to commit wire fraud, as first reported by PokerNews. He has also been ordered to pay $3.7 million in restitution to his victims.

The veteran poker player, 62, pleaded guilty in a federal court in New York last December to defrauding customers in his sports handicapping business.

From 2004 to 2020, Zeidman and his co-defendants falsely claimed to have “insider knowledge” on sports events – including “privileged” information about player injuries, “dirty referees,” and “fixed” games – when none such existed.

They collected around $25 million in “exorbitant” fees from customers for providing info that “was either fictitious or obtained from an internet search,” according to prosecutors.

‘No-Risk Proposition’

The group used names designed to sound like legitimate investment firms, such as “Gordon Howard Global” and “Ray Palmer Group,” and advertised their services on national radio.

Potential investors were told the group had exclusive tips from doctors about player injuries and briefings from television executives on supposedly predetermined game outcomes – information they claimed made sports betting a “low or no-risk proposition,” according to court documents.

“In the words of [German philosopher Friedrich] Nietzsche, ‘Everything the state says is a lie and everything it has it has stolen,’” he proclaimed.

But according to his victims — who alerted Homeland Security to his scheme — it was Zeidman who was doing the lying and stealing. That’s a far cry from his PokerNews self-description as “an individual with the highest level of morals and integrity.”

‘Outright Lies’

“Sports bettors sought Cory Zeidman’s advice before gambling their money — but it was Zeidman himself who was scoring big through his deceptive practices, outright lies, and high-pressure tactics that exploited unsuspecting clients,” special agent Charles Walker of Homeland Security in New York said in a news release that accompanied Zeidman’s arrest.

According to the Hendon Mob database, Zeidman has accumulated nearly $700,000 in gross tournament winnings over a 25-year poker career. He captured his WSOP title in 2012 in seven-card stud. Before that, he was perhaps best known for allegedly slow-rolling Jennifer Harman with a straight flush against her full house at the 2005 WSOP Main Event.

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