BetMGM Poker has publicly announced the disqualification of a player from its recently concluded March Mania series.
The operator determined that the player who participated in Event #12, the Main Event of its March Mania series, violated its Terms & Conditions regarding account eligibility and control.
As a result, all payouts have been adjusted, with the remaining players advancing one rank in the final standings. The player in question has not been named.
“BetMGM Poker Integrity has concluded its review of March Mania Event #12 and determined that a participant violated our Terms & Conditions regarding account eligibility and control,” the operator issued a statement on social media. “The individual in question has been disqualified, and all payouts have been adjusted by advancing remaining players one rank.”
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“This action reflects our commitment to ensuring all participants meet account ownership requirements and eligibility standards,” the operator further wrote.
The March Mania series ran from March 25 to 30, featuring 15 tournaments across BetMGM’s shared liquidity network (New Jersey and Michigan) and the segregated Pennsylvania market, with nearly $450,000 in combined guarantees.
Event #12, the $250 buy-in Main Event, in which the violation happened, drew 293 entrants, generating a prize pool of $68,269, easily breaching its $55,000 guarantee. The winner, playing under the screen name “Spennnnnn,” took home $13,338.55 as their first-place prize. A total of 40 places were paid originally.
Rare Public Announcement
Now, four days after the event, BetMGM has concluded its review and taken action against the unidentified player. While the specific violation remains unclear, it is likely related to multi-accounting or ghosting.
The fact that the operator issued a public statement suggests that the player may have reached the final table or been involved in a big payout. The adjusted prize pool distribution has resulted in the 41st-place finisher, who originally bubbled, now receiving a min-cash of approximately $400.
Disqualifications or breaches of tournament rules in online poker are not uncommon, but it is rare for operators to issue public statements about such actions. Most bans and account closures happen quietly, with affected players informed via private email. That BetMGM chose to make this announcement suggests a serious violation.
Historically, high-profile disqualifications have occurred in major online poker tournaments, often with much larger prize pools. PokerStars’ WCOOP Main Event has seen multiple cases, including the 2007 winner “TheVOid” forfeiting a $1.3 million prize due to multi-accounting, and Dutch player “wann2play” losing his 2018 WCOOP title in 2020 after a two-year investigation. The runner-up was eventually declared the winner.
More recently, GGPoker disqualified Francesco Garofalo, screen name “forzaitalia,” from a $25,000 buy-in WSOP Online bracelet event in 2024, resulting in a massive $1.1 million prize redistribution.
Last year, WSOP Online in the US banned a bracelet winner and Michigan Online Player of the Year over alleged cheating.
However, in all these cases, players learned of the disqualifications only after affected participants received reimbursement notices privately.
Ongoing & Next Tournament Series for US Players
The March Mania series concluded on March 30, with the shared liquidity network (New Jersey and Michigan) generating nearly $350,000 in prize money across 2,664 entries. The Pennsylvania-exclusive edition awarded close to $200,000 with over 1,300 entries.
BetMGM may now be preparing for a bigger Championship online series, which could potentially be the last edition before Pennsylvania online poker merges with the existing shared liquidity network of Michigan and New Jersey players.
Meanwhile, PokerStars US is in the final stretch of its Spring Championship of Online Poker (SCOOP) series, which wraps up on April 7. The series guaranteed $2.25 million in prize pools for the MI-NJ shared liquidity network and $2 million for its segregated Pennsylvania leg.
WSOP recently concluded its March Mayhem series on March 30 and is set to run the next edition of its monthly Online Circuit series from April 4 to 15. The upcoming series features $1.4 million in guarantees for players in the NJ-NV-MI shared liquidity pool and $345,000 in guarantees for Pennsylvania, with both series offering a dozen gold ring events.
