Poker Livestream Removes Founder After Sexual Harassment Allegations

After allegations of sexual harassment and intimidation surfaced earlier this week in opposition to Hustler On line casino Stay co-owner Nick Vertucci, the corporate introduced on Wednesday that he would now not be a part of the streamed money recreation present.

The information got here after Julia McBride, a daily on the present, launched textual content messages from Vertucci wherein he makes a number of advances on her, together with undesirable solicitations for pictures. The controversy surrounding the difficulty quickly led to extra gamers sharing their experiences, resulting in the present severing ties with Vertucci.

“Efficient instantly, Nick Vertucci will now not be concerned with Excessive Stakes Poker Productions,” Hustler On line casino Stay co-owner Ryan Feldman famous on the corporate’s Twitter account. “We look ahead to persevering with to ship the very best excessive stakes poker content material to the group.”

Textual content Messages Launched

Hustler On line casino Stay has been one of the crucial in style streaming money video games with 364,000 subscribers on YouTube and 190 million complete views, however the controversy shortly embroiled the corporate after McBride launched the submit on Twitter on Monday. She detailed receiving quite a few undesirable advances from Vertucci and was finally barred from showing on the present.

“Hey, baby-men who say I ought to’ve been direct with that creep within the texts I posted: I instructed him ‘no’ at the least 5 instances earlier than he despatched these texts,” McBride mentioned on Twitter. “I didn’t need to get banned from his stream so I used to be good about it each time. He stored asking why, like I wanted to justify my place. I mentioned as a result of he’s married. Different instances I mentioned as a result of I had a boyfriend. At all times with a smile. The creep ended up banning me anyway.”

Poker professional Kitty Kuo later instructed her personal story wherein Vertucci unsolicited confirmed her a photograph of his genitals whereas taking part in on the tables.

“I don’t give a shit if I can’t play at @HCLPokerShow,” Kuo tweeted. “Nevertheless it did occur to me.”

Gamers Voice Assist

A number of well-known poker gamers got here out to voice help for the ladies affected, together with Lodge Card Membership livestream proprietor Doug Polk.

“Utilizing a spot of energy to make undesirable sexual advances on girls is horrific,” Polk famous. “This isn’t simply being a creepy dude. Something lower than eradicating him from the present completely is totally unacceptable.”

McBride additionally acknowledged {that a} vendor named Lauren now not seems on the present after coping with even worse harassment. The vendor finally misplaced her job, in keeping with McBride.

Nikhil ‘Airball’ Arcott, arguably probably the most notable common on the present presently, mentioned he wouldn’t seem on the Hustler present till Vertucci was eliminated.

“I’m appalled by the conduct of Nick Vertucci and deeply troubled by the extra allegations that proceed to return out,” Arcott mentioned. “His gross misconduct in direction of Julia, Lauren, and different girls is inexcusable.”

Whereas some applauded the choice to take away Vertucci, others criticized HCL for letting his conduct go on for thus lengthy, solely responding after the allegations grew to become public. Earlier than beginning the livestream with Feldman, Vertucci had reportedly been a police officer and ran an actual property academy.

Regardless of now not being concerned within the day-to-day operations, it’s unclear if Vertucci will stay on with the corporate as a co-owner. A report from Poker Fraud Alert, nonetheless, indicated that he had agreed to promote his stake. Vertucci has but to answer the allegations, and his Twitter account was disabled this week.

Hustler On line casino Stay just lately needed to take care of one other setback, which together with a one-week ban on YouTube and a few restrictions to their promoting.