Poker Pro Accused of Cheating to Win $3M

Posted on: December 4, 2023, 12:58h. 

Last updated on: December 9, 2023, 02:38h.

Corey Levitan Read More
Expertise: Commercial Gaming, Entertainment, Expert Insight, Las Vegas.

Ye “Tony Mars” Shen has been accused of cheating a private Southern California poker game out of millions. Fellow poker pros Nikhil “Nik Airball” Arcot and Wesley “Wes Side” Fei made their allegations on X/Twitter this weekend.

Ye “Tony Mars” Shen plays during a recent ‘Hustler Casino Live’ stream. (Image: pokerstrategy.com)

According to the “Hustler Casino Live” stream regulars, Shen brought a trick card deck to a recreational private game in Yorba Linda, Calif., where Arcot, Fei, and other friends played with blinds of $25/$50 and $50/$100.

Shen’s deck supposedly allowed him to see through the cards, presumably with the help of special contact lenses, according to the unsubstantiated allegations. For about a year, Shen supposedly won just over $3 million using this deck.

After a game, we found a cheating deck,” Wesley told Poker News, which broke the story. “The deck is a very good cheating deck that you can’t find. But we went to a very dark room and we used a blue light and then you can see the numbers on the back of the deck.”

Shen himself won about $1.6M, according to Wesley. However, along with his deck, he also brought to the games two co-conspirators whose winnings totaled $1.5M.

Wesley told Poker News that he has lost a total of $1M in the twice-weekly game, which he last attended in October. On X/Twitter, Arcot posted that he too was cheated out of $1M by “someone who I thought was a close friend of mine.”

“All details and what not will be released soon in more digestible format,” Arcot posted on Sunday.

Shen Denies Cheating

According to Wesley, after being confronted with the evidence, Shen admitted that the deck was marked. However, he denied cheating with it.

It’s a special deck and he admitted the deck has a problem,” Wesley said. Wesley said Shen told him he didn’t know who brought the deck to the game.

“Mars said, ‘Maybe you’re losing and you don’t want to pay, so you’re changing the deck,'” Wesley told Poker News. “If we are cheating, how can we lose?”

These allegations have nothing to do with “Hustler Casino Live,” which is still smarting over its own poker cheating scandal last year.

Shen has yet to acknowledge the allegations via his X/Twitter account, @Marsback2earth.