I've seen many staking dramas play out over the years I've played poker, from disputes over terms/fpps/when the relationship was over etc. but never expected to be involved in one myself.

For mainly amusement and because I obviously have too much money on my hands, I started staking randoms in the pokerstars 250k guaranteed on Sundays. If you don't know, it's an $11 tournament that has a massive field usually in the 30k range, so 1st place usually pays out well over $20k. It is affectionately known as the "Sunday lotto" because of the extreme amount of rungood needed to go deep.

Before I begin, I will concede that I do no background investigation into my stakees whatsoever. If the potential horses just post something amusing in 2+2's BBV forum along with their stars name I will ship them the $11 buyin. The terms are 80/20 in my favor, unless they final table, when it will shift to 60/40. Now I know you are thinking, "how can you trust these randoms?," and the answer is I don't really, but I have a fundamental belief in human integrity and that humans will generally do the right thing and honor their agreements. And if they don't, well, I lost $11.

Last Sunday I staked an Estonian player, "Jessica652," and despite questionable play she managed to finish 6th for $5,842.81, resulting in a theoretical staking win for me of $3,505.69 (60%).

After the score she shipped $1,168 (20%) and disappeared from 2+2. As you could imagine, comments ranged from "Brad deserves this for staking randoms" to "she should die a slow painful death."

Some Estonian 2+2ers were concerned by the apparent scaming, and took it upon themselves to track down Jessica. This morning she shipped an additional $600 and promises to get the remaining $1700 to me within 8 days. So the story could have a happy ending.

You can follow the story here .

I still have a fundamental belief in human integrity.