An amateur poker player has admitted to deceiving others about his terminal cancer diagnosis in order to obtain thousands of dollars in donations for the World Series of Poker tournament in Las Vegas.
Rob Mercer, hailing from Vallejo, Calif., confessed to the Las Vegas Review-Journal that he fabricated having Stage 4 colon cancer.
“I did lie about having colon cancer. I don’t have colon cancer. I used that to cover my situation,” Mercer disclosed. “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.”
Back in June, Mercer set up a GoFundMe page to raise funds for the $10,000 buy-in for the No-limit Hold’em World Championship.
The Review-Journal reports that he received donations totaling between $30,000 and $50,000, along with a complimentary stay at a suite in the Bellagio. He even received a $2,500 donation from fellow poker player Cody Daniels, who is also chronically ill.
Well I learned a $2500 lesson. Sadly, my kindness was taken for weakness once again. Just a shame. That’s all I can say. Hopefully gofundme peeps get their money back. Just sad sad sad.
– Cody Daniels (@CodyDaniels88) September 20, 2023
“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,” Mercer expressed to the newspaper.
Mercer came clean about his deception when fellow poker players who had assisted him in raising funds became suspicious of his health status and conducted an investigation.
He stated that he has now been largely ostracized from the poker community.
However, Mercer told the Review-Journal that he will not be returning the donated money because he believes he may have undiagnosed breast cancer. He confirmed that GoFundMe contacted him for violating its terms of service.
According to the paper, individuals who donated money to Mercer via GoFundMe were informed that they would be receiving refunds.
The World Series of Poker has not made a public statement regarding the incident at this time.
— With files from The Associated Press
At present, it is unknown whether the World Series of Poker will issue a public statement about this incident.
— With files from The Associated Press
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Denial of responsibility! Vigour Times is an automatic aggregator of Global media. In each content, the hyperlink to the primary source is specified. All trademarks belong to their rightful owners, and all materials to their authors. For any complaint, please reach us at – [email protected]. We will take necessary action within 24 hours.
