Midway Poker Tour founder pledges to return players whole 17 months after payout debacle
Dan Bekavacthe owner of the Midway Poker Tour who won a Mid-States Poker Tour (MSPT) event last week for $193,000 (and his third MSPT title), says he’s ready to begin the process of paying players from a 2020 charity poker tournament debacle.
In October 2020, Bekavac hosted the first Midway Poker Tour $1,100 buy-in Main Event at a Chicagoland-area hotel that attracted 266 runners. The tournament started off without a hitch, but things turned south when the cash players began to realize they weren’t going to receive their full winnings.
In total, about 30% of the entire prize pool went unaccounted for, or about $62,000. Only about $12,000 had been reimbursed at the last check.
Find out what happened at the Midway Poker Tour here.
Bekavac begins the reimbursement process
Bekavac won the MSPT Riverside on March 21 for $193,000, and days later he said PokerNews he is ready to begin the process of making Midway Poker Tour players whole.
He texted affected Midway Poker Tour players and copied PokerNews United States Editor-in-Chief Chad Hollowaywho finished fifth in the same MSPT event.
“I promised to give everyone back, and even though it took a while, I’m finally able to do it. And it’s not just because I won, although winning helped expedite this, you can confirm with Chad I contacted him last year to set this up,” Bekavac wrote.
Holloway has repeatedly reported on the MPT debacle, including a January 21 story about Bekavac participating in an MSPT event while ghosting Midway Poker Tour players who were owed money. He confirmed that Bekavac initially reached out late last year with the stated intention of trying to make the players whole.
History of the Midway Poker Tour Scandal
Because of Illinois Charitable Gaming Laws and Regulations According to the rules, the Midway Poker Tour was only allowed to pay out $500 cash in addition to the buy-in to those who cashed in, regardless of how much they won. The event had a charitable component and was intended to help raise funds for the 4 CHILDREN Sake non-profit organisation.
To cover overpayments, players received precious metals which they could then sell for cash, a loophole in the law that other Illinois charity tournaments had used in the past. The state attorney general’s office even made a visit to make sure there was enough precious metals on site and accounted for.
But the law did not allow the resale of the precious metals on site, which meant that players were forced to collect the money from an off-site business, certainly a disadvantage, but still better than what was to come.
When the players went to sell the metals, they discovered that they had been acquired at their retail value, or rather at a steep markup. The problem was that they had no way of reselling them at retail price, which meant they couldn’t get enough money to cover their full payment. In other words, the metals they received were not worth the money owed to them.
The following is a list of players who owed money as a result of the 2020 MPT Main Event while accounting for approximately 30% of the missing value at the time.
| Location | Player | Cash prize paid | Remaining price | Total payment announced | Missing 30% value |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Renato Spahiu | $1,600 | $53,460 | $55,060 | $16,038 |
| 2 | Satoshi Tanaka | $1,600 | $36,580 | $38,180 | $10,974 |
| 3 | Joseph Paris | $1,600 | $24,200 | $25,800 | $7,260 |
| 5 | Amanda Heidbrick | $1,600 | $12,520 | $14,120 | $2,756 |
| 6 | Josiah Santos | $1,600 | $10,000 | $11,600 | $3,000 |
| 7 | Steve Federspiel | $1,600 | $8,080 | $9,680 | $2,424 |
| 9 | Bob Pepe | $1,600 | $5,080 | $6,680 | $2,000 |
| ten | Frank Lagoditch | $1,600 | $3,690 | $5,290 | $1,107 |
| 19 | Kevin Maahs | $1,600 | $1,000 | $2,600 | $300 |
| 22 | Alex Tremanis | $1,600 | $1,000 | $2,600 | $300 |
Bekavac has apparently made arrangements with unpaid players to make them whole in a few upcoming live tournament stops.
He also accepted an interview on an upcoming episode of the Poker PodcastNews to discuss the recovery process, what happened in October 2020, and share his side of the story.
Right now, it looks like the patient players affected by the Midway Poker Tour payout debacle could be cured, but only time will tell if that will come to fruition.
PokerNews will continue to monitor the situation and offer updates as they occur.