Allegations of cheating in high-stakes poker home games involving several players who have also appeared on Hustler Casino Live! streamed broadcasts erupted publicly on Sunday, with Nik “Airball” Arcot and “Wes Side” Wesley Fei accusing Ye “Tony Mars” Shen of cheating several players, including Arcot and Fei, out of millions of dollars using UV-marked playing cards.
Allegations of cheating in high-stakes poker home games involving several players who have also appeared on Hustler Casino Live! streamed broadcasts erupted publicly on Sunday, with Nik “Airball” Arcot and “Wes Side” Wesley Fei accusing Ye “Tony Mars” Shen of cheating several players, including Arcot and Fei, out of millions of dollars using UV-marked playing cards.
Arcot went public with the first allegation regarding Tony Mars early Sunday afternoon on Twitter/X:
Arcot quickly followed that with a post naming Tony Mars (Shen) as the alleged primary cheater:
Less than two hours later, Wes Side Wesley joined Airball (Arcot) in accusing Tony Mars of the home-game cheating, which allegedly occurred in the SoCal home games over multiple sessions:
UV-marked cards, special viewing lenses allegedly used to cheat
Arcot soon followed the initial posts with a brief description of what he asserted had occurred in the games involving Shen, including card decks specially overprinted on their backs with large symbols indicating each card’s rank:
Arcot’s description was slightly inaccurate, as the cards allegedly used weren’t “see-through”, but were instead decks with overprinted card backs where the ranks could be seen by anyone at the table wearing contact lenses or glasses coated with UV-exposing filtering applied to the lenses.
The video below shows an example of how such a UV-marked deck appears through the filtering lenses:
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Unfortunately, both the UV-marked cards and the lenses or glasses needed to see the markings are widely available on the internet. The companies who are illegally making and selling the decks will even obtain decks made by most major card manufacturers, open and overprint the decks with the UV ink, then reseal the decks and sell them as “new” (but marked) decks.
Tony Mars allegedly allowed to insert cards and dealer into home games
Home poker games have always been susceptible to this type of cheating, but the SoCal games in which Shen’s cheating allegedly occurred victimized numerous seemingly oblivious victims despite the huge stakes involved, including both Arcot and Fei.
Amazingly, Mars/Shen was allowed to bring the marked decks into the games, even after allegations of his alleged cheating began surfacing in the Southern California high-stakes, Asian-American poker community a year ago. Shen was accused not only of rigging games, but of not paying at least one other player on an occasion when he still lost:
The allegations also included references to a former girlfriend of Shen’s who may have served as a dealer in some of the games. The former girlfriend also affirmed a different allegation that Shen, seemingly after having been caught cheating in an earlier game, was beaten in public and held captive for a month. That allegation remains hearsay, despite being affirmed by multiple posters on social media in the past 24 hours.
Both Nik Airball and Wes Side Wesley, who themselves have been involved in other controversial situations, have promised to publish more and firmer evidence regarding their claims.
Featured image source: YouTube / Hustler Casino Live!
