It looks like cheating. It smells like cheating. But IS it cheating?

I haven´t written any articles for a while but a recent incident in the poker world has made me reach for my pen. Last week during one of the country’s biggest live-streamed casino cash games at the Hustler Live Casino in Gardena, California, a very suspicious and scandalous event occurred during and after a $269,000 pot between veteran poker pro Garret Adelstein and debutante player Robbi Jade Lew, who quite consciously sat at the table with abundant exposure of large (allegedly implanted) breasts, which may have been part of a plan to deter attention from a much smaller cheating device in use at the table. I say “may have” because as of now there is now evidence of any cheating device in the game.

What happened was that Adelstein went all-in with what is known as a “semi-bluff,” which is when a player has several outs to make a strong hand at the river but going in has nothing. He also led the betting up to that point. Based on that actual hand and his pre-hand knowledge of Lew and her play, Adelstein did not expect her to call the $109,000 bet. But she did and won the hand…with Jack high…and no draw to finish any better than a pair.

But Adelstein also had nothing, and he got burned. After he lost and then saw with what Lew called, he went into a numb, cold stare at her, soaked in silent bewilderment. He literally could not believe what happened, and then in very little time determined she must have been cheating and later voiced that belief in a post shortly after the game.

So did lots of other people. First the controversy was stirred by the accusation that Lew had a vibrator on or around her vagina by which she received signals telling her Adelstein was bluffing and she had the best hand. Then the mechanics of the supposed communication shifted from the vibrator to a ring (one of several she was wearing on both hands) on her right middle finger. She later momentarily placed her right hand beneath the poker table, and when the hand came back up, the red stone in the center of the ring was gone, which was taken as getting rid of the evidence (the receiver), which is also supported by her drawing attention to her large breasts during the whole game so that her male opponent and onlookers would not spend much time looking at her fingers.

Also, it has been reported that Adelstein threated Lew after the event and that Lew ended up giving him back the money, which is further taken as evidence of her admitting to cheating. At the table, Lew maintained that she just concluded Adelstein was bluffing and made the correct call.

So, all in all, this looks like a great circumstantial case of cheating? But where’s the beef? If she was getting signals, who was sending them and how? Well, I am not an expert in programming or anything else related to high-tech digitality, but with the help of a knowledgeable friend, I can concoct a scenario of how she could have been receiving signals, but even so, remember that there would have to be at least one but probably more than one co-conspirator.

Okay…someone watching the live stream, possibly in a car outside Hustler Casino, or an accomplice indoors who was being fed info by a phone from someone else watching the live stream, would activate the cheating device to let Lew know she had the winning hand. Assuming that all audience members were banned from bringing cell phones inside the event, there would have to have been someone outside that room giving the signals. Unless the Hustler Casino was blocking all wi-fi signals, this would not be that hard to do.

But the problem here is that there is no mention of the transmitting of signals in the reports, only the receiving. In the infamous and similar Mike Postle poker-cheating-live-streaming case at Stones Gambling Hall in 2019, also in California, there was much clearer supposition/evidence of what actually happened. So, until a reputable investigation bears out some damning evidence, Ms. Lew, and her breasts and rings, fake or not, are all innocent until proven guilty!