22 September 2023 , 15:24
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GoFundMe has taken action against a poker fraudster who lied about having terminal cancer and used donors' cash to play in the $10,000 (£8,145) World Series of Poker Main Event.
Amateur player Rob Mercer admitted this week he falsely claimed he had colon cancer and 6-12 months to live. He received the backing of the poker community when he said it was his dream to play the showpiece no-limit holdem event at the Paris and Horseshoe casinos on the Las Vegas strip.
His crowd-funding page raised in excess of $30,000, and the 37-year-old from Vallejo, California received other gifts including several nights in a luxury suite at the Bellagio.
But it was all lies, as Mercer confirmed to the Las Vegas Review-Journal after several donors became suspicious that he had fabricated his story due to vague answers and strange behaviour in Sin City. It quickly emerged that he had failed to verify his illness with a doctor's note, and after weeks of questions online, Mercer came clean.
“I did lie about having colon cancer. I don’t have colon cancer,” he said. "I used that to cover my situation. What I did was wrong. I shouldn’t have told people I have colon cancer. I did that just as a spur-of-the-moment thing when someone asked me what kind of cancer I had. I’m sorry for not being honest about what my situation was. If I would have done that from day one, who knows what would have happened.”
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Mercer played in the Main Event in July, but he busted before the money bubble and left empty-handed. Mercer insists he will not pay the money back, though, claiming he has "undiagnosed breast cancer" and he was embarrassed to say so.
Generous poker players put Mercer up in the spectacular Bellagio hotel on the Vegas strip for his stay in Sin City. (Bridget Bennett/Bloomberg via Getty Images)However, GoFundMe has taken action in the wake of his admission. The platform has confirmed it has banned him from creating crowd-funders in future, saying it has a zero-tolerance policy for those who "exploit the generosity of our community," via TMZ. The organisation added it cooperates with law enforcement if its users are "formally accused of wrongdoing.
GoFundMe has also started refunding the people who donated to Mercer's page, and the 37-year-old will be unable to use the platform in future if he indeed does have breast cancer, as he suspects.
Mercer bought into a record-breaking 10,043-strong field for the tournament. Daniel Weinman was the eventual winner, banking $12.1 million (£9.9m).
“Obviously, I was just trying to keep up with my story,” Mercer added, trying to explain his actions. “I didn’t want to get exposed because it looks bad. It does look bad. I lied. I’m not going to deny that. I lied. I should have just been transparent and comfortable with what is going on with me and tell people what was happening.
“At the end of the day, I lied to a lot of people because I was scared to tell the truth. And I guess I’ll have to pay for that.”