Colman believes he got scammed out of over $1m
Poker pro Dan Colman took to Twitter to issue a PSA to the poker community. “It’s extremely likely Sean Perry is a scammer,” he wrote on Friday, warning: “Do not bet with him.”
He went on to say that there is a “very high probability” that Perry had fraudulently taken seven figures off him in a daily fantasy sports grift.
Colman’s announcement was met with mixed responses from the poker community. Most sympathized with his predicament, but a few people suggested that he was wide-eyed and gullible to take the bets. Others insisted that Colman’s supposed partner Sam Soverel must actually be in cahoots with Perry.
A case of three random DFS accounts behaving badly
Colman claimed that the scamming from Perry emanated from high-stakes Daily Fantasy Sports (DFS) betting between Perry and Sam Soverel, in which each player would draft three DFS accounts from a pool of six. Colman said Perry wanted more action and was willing to take Soverel’s side.
Colman believed that something was awry when he noticed how differently the bottom three accounts would behave, depending on whose side they were on any given day.
there was an incredibly high chance that these 3 accounts were controlled by (Perry)”
He noted: “After becoming alarmed at how differently these 3 random accounts set their lineups depending on who owned them, I had Aaron Jones take a look at 9 days of lineups and he ran an analysis based on their projections. He concluded that there was an incredibly high chance that these 3 accounts were controlled by (Perry), and that he would lay 10,000 to 1 odds on it.”
Colman also asked Ryan Daut for his opinion. Daut tweeted his analysis of the picks made by the two ‘random’ accounts that Colman had on one of the days in question:
Colman sought arbitration, the community weighed in
Colman contacted Perry and showed him the “overwhelming evidence”, requesting an immediate refund. When Perry declined, Colman suggested they get arbitration from Tom Marchese. According to Colman, Perry agreed but then later backed out, saying he was only willing to have someone arbitrate on the most recent bet.
Colman contacted Perry and showed him the “overwhelming evidence”, requesting an immediate refund
This unwillingness to have what happened scrutinized and judged by an unbiased party led to a number of high-stakes players, including Doug Polk, speaking out on the character of Perry:
Norman Chad also had a story about Perry:
Was Colman naive?
There was also a less sympathetic sentiment being expressed. Sports bettor Haralabos Voulgaris said: “Imagine getting outsmarted by Sean Perry,” to which Colman replied:
Voulgaris followed up:
It may be very likely that Colman was duped, but there is one loose end to all of this. If the three ‘random’ accounts were acting so schizophrenically, why didn’t Sam Soverel notice? Also, with plenty of established accounts to choose from, it’s absurd that three random accounts were in the mix.
Dan Colman can’t jump?
In the 1992 movie White Men Can’t Jump, Billy (played by Woody Harrelson) is a former college basketball player who makes his living by hustling ‘streetballers’ who assume he cannot play well because he is white. One such player is Sidney (played by Wesley Snipes), who loses twice to Billy, once in a half court team game and again in a one-on-one shootout for money.
Soverel’s reputation is far from squeaky clean
In a memorable sequence, Sidney proposes that he and Billy team up to hustle other players by deliberately setting them up to pick Billy as Sidney’s teammate. After a couple of initial wins, the pair lose a game due to Sidney playing poorly. It turns out that Sidney had double-crossed Billy by purposely playing badly to avenge his earlier loss to him, making Billy lose $1,700 to a group of Sidney’s friends.
Could it be that Soverel ‘white men can’t jumped’ Colman? It’s very possible. Soverel’s reputation is far from squeaky clean. He had his own brush with the poker police after allegedly angle-shooting when he mucked his hand out of turn in a spot that was advantageous to him in the WSOP $50K Highroller in 2019.
The possibility that Soverel and Perry might have tag-teamed him did seem to dawn on Colman the very next day:
“So it really only works because Sam was a part of it. Not sure if they working [sic] together but seems likely,” the poker pro concluded.