According to a court document from the United States district court in Maryland, Thomas Goldstein, a successful lawyer and high-stakes poker player, has been indicted on 22 counts of tax evasion and other crimes.
Who is Thomas Goldstein?
Goldstein is far better known for his work in law than poker. He has appeared in front of the Supreme Court more than 40 times, and won a Peabody Award in 2013 for excellence in electronic media for his SCOTUSblog website after covering the healthcare ruling of the Supreme Court.
In 2016 he opened his own practice, Goldstein & Russell, P.C. (G&R), in Maryland. The company specializes in appellate litigation, a process which often sees him arguing before the United States Supreme Court to appeal the previous ruling of a lower court.
In an unusual move for such an accomplished law firm, there was no dedicated, in-house accountant. Instead, the firm manager was responsible for this, along with tasks such as picking up Goldstein’s dry cleaning.
Even if the name doesn’t ring a bell, you may have seen Goldstein play poker before. He was on the losing end of a particularly noteworthy hand on Hustler Casino Live, which regularly hosts major cash games players, including controversial figures such as ‘poker cheat’ Shane Hennen.
Disguising his face and being referred to only as ‘Thomas’, Goldstein inexplicably mucked the winning hand after rivering a straight. Had he just flipped over his cards, he’d have scooped a $543,000 pot.
That hand alone would be enough to put some players off of high-stakes games for life – but not Goldstein.
According to the court document, Goldstein approached a former client in 2014 and requested to borrow $10 million to play poker. This deal was formalized with Goldstein signing a promissory note that stated he would have to pay it back, with interest, by December 2015.
But Goldstein appeared to be losing. In a 32-month stint from March 2014 to November 2016, he borrowed more than $9.5 million to fund his time at the tables. He repeatedly extended the repayment date, and still owed just under $8.9 million by the end of 2022.
Throughout this period, Goldstein enjoyed intimate relationships with at least a dozen women. This is relevant to the case because he transferred them hundreds of thousands of dollars, and even opened joint accounts with some of them. All of this while owing a big, fat tax bill to the IRS.
Four of the women were hired as employees of G&R in 2018, allowing them to receive pay checks and benefit from the health insurance program without necessarily having any genuine work duties.
G&R funds were also repurposed to help Goldstein pay off over $1.1 million of debt in 2016, the same year that he understated his winning in gambling by over $3.9 million. He would later lie to an IRS Revenue Officer in 2018, claiming that he was unable to pay his taxes as the money was tied up in a huge legal case. In reality, much of it was being used to fuel poker games.
The 50-page court document reels off multiple instances where Goldstein provided false statements, left key information out of forms and documents, and used G&R funds and resources in ways he shouldn’t have.
Elite High-Stakes Games
Although Goldstein had racked up $9.5 million in debt by the end of 2016 from that ex-client we mentioned earlier, he simultaneously played super-high-stakes poker against three ultra-wealthy individuals – who are not named in the court document – from March to December 2016. The only information provided on them is that two were in Asia and one was in Beverley Hills.
Ahead of a major tournament or high-stakes poker game, it’s fairly standard to seek out coaching from experienced players. That’s exactly what Goldstein did, with the two coaches simply being named Professional Gambler-1 and Professional Gambler-2 in the document.
The three devised a strategy based on Goldstein’s opponents specifically, helping him to lock up approximately 107 million HKD, which was around $13.8 million at the time. Goldstein then texted his coaches with the results, as each of them had a piece of the action.
Goldstein now had plenty to play with, and made his way to Beverley Hills to take on the third opponent in a series of mega-stakes matches from November to December 2016 – some of which were attended by one of his coaches. The result? Goldstein pocketed an additional $26.4 million.
Yes. $26.4 million. Enough to pay the ransom of 5Dimes Tony five times over.
In texts quoted in the court document, Goldstein had calculated his “average win rate [was] $660k per hour over an extended period of 77-hours”, averaging $4.63 million profit per session 11 times for a total of $50.9 million.
None of these winnings were reported to the IRS. And, evidently, they weren’t used to pay off his $9.5 million debt, either.
Goldstein’s Luck Runs Out
While Goldstein was dominating these heads-up matches, he was losing millions in ring games. On four occasions in 2016, $871,000 was wired to his opponents, coming straight from G&R bank accounts.
From late 2016 to February 2017, Goldstein returned to his heads-up match in Beverley Hills. But this time, things didn’t go so smoothly. He would lose more than $9.5 million without having sold any of his action, and this would lead to him engaging in two fraudulent schemes via G&R.
But he kept playing the same opponent – and kept losing. After racking up another $500,000 in debt, Goldstein reached out to a contact at another law firm and asked if he wanted to invest in an upcoming poker match. What that contact didn’t know is that Goldstein had already played, and lost.
Despite some small wins here and there, Goldstein went on to lose a further $16 million in Beverley Hills from late 2016 to the middle of 2017.
In December 2019, things took a Hollywood twist. A ‘Producer’ set up a match between an ‘Actor’ and a billionaire businessman from Texas, where the billionaire lost $15.6 million. In an effort to avoid paying the full debt, he offered a smaller settlement. This was rejected by the actor, who in 2021 reached out to Goldstein and G&R in order to collect payment.
Goldstein was successful in getting the billionaire to pay up, earning G&R a $500,000 fee. However, Goldstein instructed the actor to send it straight to the Beverley Hills poker player to pay off part of his personal debt.
To muddy the waters even further, Goldstein made more than 200 cryptocurrency transactions in 2021, totaling over $8 million. There’s no public evidence that he played at crypto poker sites, but these payments will only bring further scrutiny.
His appearance in Dan Bilzerian’s book, The Setup, will do the same thing. Bilzerian’s net worth is estimated at over $200 million, and he’s known for his luxurious lifestyle and private jets. Yet, in his 2021 autobiography, even he wrote about his Goldstein’s outlandish spending.
“To this day, I have never met anyone with less respect for money proportionate to their net worth than Tom,” wrote Bilzerian, in a now-damaging assessment of Goldstein. “And I’ve met some true degenerates.”
As his client and friend, Bilzerian knew Goldstein pretty well. He writes of a time Goldstein entered a high-stakes cash game and didn’t look at his cards for two hours. He even hypothesized that Goldstein wanted to lose, on some level.
“People were all watching the game and talking about what a f***ing maniac he was. When I walked up, he had been playing without looking at his cards for two hours straight. Occasionally on the turn or the river, he would look and then fire huge bluffs.
“He loved the action, but it was almost like he subconsciously wanted to lose. I think he liked that everyone at the table loved him so much, and as a ruthless lawyer, he probably didn’t get that kind of a warm welcome elsewhere.
“The more he lost, the happier everyone around him got, and I think he was partially addicted to that feeling, but he was fully addicted to the rush of gambling.”
Bilzerian even wrote about a six-figure prop bet between the two where Goldstein put up his Ferrari as collateral and lost it after Bilzerian beat him in a race.
Goldstein Facing Prison Time
The IRS Criminal Investigation and Federal Bureau of Investigation are currently investigating the Goldstein case. If found guilty, he would face multiple charges carrying sentences of up to 30 years each, which could mean a lifetime behind bars.
For now, Goldstein remains innocent until proven guilty – but the evidence seems damning.