Didn’t make good on his end of deal
College student Kevin met professional poker player Lenard “Lucky” Adams at the Seminole Hard Rock Hotel and Casino in Hollywood, Florida on January 10. Adams had a proposition for Kevin: make a huge 50/50 bet with him, and win or lose, Adams would stake him in a private game.
According to Poker News, Kevin, whose name was changed to protect his identity, lost the bet and never saw a stake or the promised game.
I started to realize that there was no game.”
“I believe he showed me a fake money order from Hard Rock, which said he had $2 million credit there. Once we did the flip and I paid him, he started pressuring me asking for more money. I started to realize that there was no game,” Kevin told the poker media outlet.
Kevin kicked himself as he left the casino drained of most of his bankroll, knowing he should have spotted the scam. He saw Adams on the Hustler Casino Live stream in October 2021 and figured he must have had the money. Little did he know that not only was Adams not good for it, but that he had been banned from the show for his criminal history.
Kevin has now sworn off poker, telling Poker News: “I guess I’m just not cut out for this world.”
Not his first poker scam
Adams is likely to have run similar scams many times, but Kevin’s is one of only a couple that has been made public, possibly because his victims were embarrassed to admit they were taken advantage of.
Another similar incident occurred in the spring of 2023, reported by “dcdan” on the Poker Fraud Alert forums. The player, who called himself a “young kid,” wrote that he met Adams playing poker. Adams took him aside and said he would stake him in a high-stakes, four-handed, private cash game involving Adams and two “whales” at Aria the next night. He and “dcdan” would split any profits they made.
The two played pit games together later that day and when Adams ran out of money, he asked “dcdan” to borrow $7,000 and the young man gave it to him.
“It happened so quick but soon enough it was gone, he ran off,” the victim said. “My number and Instagram were immediately blocked.”
A more disturbing past
As mentioned, Lenard Adams had a criminal history before these scams. In 2017, Northwest Indiana police charged him with multiple counts of rape, kidnapping, fraud, intimidation, and theft stemming from scams he ran on at least four women.
scammed the women out of “at least” $67,000 in cash, jewelry, electronics, and more
According to ABC7 Chicago, Adams’ modus operandi was to tell his targets that he was a neurosurgeon who needed money to buy children’s gifts for charity. He scammed the women out of “at least” $67,000 in cash, jewelry, electronics, and more. More women came forward after the police announced the charges.
Many of the charges were dropped, but in 2019, Adams was handed four consecutive 18-month sentences, split into three years’ probation and three years in a work release program. He was also required to pay $14,127 in restitution to three of the four women.
