This past week, popular YouTube personalities Lugwig Ahgren and Alexandra Botez went public with allegations of content creators going unpaid for work done on ACR Poker. Soon after, ACR Poker issued a statement on the situation, claiming that fault lay in the hands of a third-party agency (in this instance, Scott Ball's company End Game Talent).
Today, on Matt Berkey and co's Only Friends Podcast, ACR Poker CEO Phil Nagy called in to further address the unpaid work claims and provide insight into his understanding of the situation.
Nagy and Ball not in contact
Nagy began his appearance on the show by saying, "I'll tell you what, business is really easy and people are hard."
The ACR Poker CEO went on to clarify why his company relies on third-party agencies to contact influencers and content creators on their behalf, explaining, "Do you know how hard it is to get ahold of someone like Ludwig [Ahgren]? When you live down here in Costa Rica and you're in your own little bubble, it's really hard to get this stuff done in first-world capacities. I can't—I don't go to the World Series and rub elbows with you guys, I don't do all of that. So, I rely on third-party companies to do a lot of this stuff."
Scott Ball (Image Source: Haley Hintze)Berkey then shifted the conversation to Nagy's personal relationship with Ball and how a partnership between them made sense. Nagy responded, "I do not wish anything bad about Scott. We had a lot of good times. We are not in contact anymore."
When asked about Ball's response on Twitter/X, Nagy said, "If you really wanted to sue me, you'd have a lawyer. If you had all of this stuff, you'd have a lawyer and you'd be coming after me. Meanwhile, I've got my lawyer trying to reach out to these agencies, trying to negotiate something because, I'll be damned... does anybody like having to pay for something twice?"
Nagy continued, saying, "End Game hasn't come after me... because I don't know. We're poker players, we deal with incomplete information. I can draw my conclusion."
ACR Paid $30 million to influencers
Nagy went on to talk about influencers in general and the sums of money involved in the dispute.
"Influencers have so much power," said Nagy. "But they have 10x the negative power than the positive. The problem is, it makes a company like myself not want to deal with them at all. Because the downside is so much worse than the upside is good.
"Everything that's in dispute over the period of a year, what I paid to influencers..."
Matt Berkey interjected at this point and asked how much this was.
"$30 million," replied Nagy.
"How much of that was End Game Talent?" asked Berkey.
"I'm not going to get into that," replied Nagy. "I believe in influencers, I support influencers. The last thing I want to do is s*** where I eat. If the influencers came to me and said, 'pay me what I'm owed and the next one I'll do 50% off and we'll continue our relationship'... done! That's what my lawyers tried to negotiate with the agencies. I know we'll come to an arrangement."
Nagy's appearance on the show begins around the 54:00 minute mark and lasts for nearly 25 minutes. Check out the full video above.
