Dubai-based trader Iraj Parvizi has alleged collusion in a London casino poker game where he lost GBP 185,000 in one session.
Parvizi claim is included in a GBP 10 million lawsuit he has launched against Les Ambassadeurs casino in London as he asks for damages and losses sustained at a series of high-stakes poker games between 2010 and 2013.
The trader has named Josh Gould and Roland de Wolfe in his court filings, alleging that the two professional players were working together, encouraging him to bet as much as possible, before splitting the winnings, according to a report in The Telegraph newspaper.
Richard Marcus, who boasts that he was at one time a consummate professional poker cheat, is listed as an expert witness for Parvizi, and has asserted in the filings that the session in which Parvizi lost GBP 185,000 was “…utterly corrupted by collusion on the part of [poker players] Josh Gould and Roland de Wolfe”.
“I will not even concede to a small probability that this poker game… was fair and above board,” testified Marcus, who studied CCTV footage of every hand.
Les Ambassadeurs has denied any knowledge of cheating, but acknowledges that the Parvizi claim is “embarrassing.”
Parvizi was in the news earlier this year when the Financial Conduct Authority confirmed it is investigating him for alleged securities fraud in a major insider-dealing enquiry, Operation Tabernula. He has denies any wrongdoing in that matter.