British pro Charlie Carrel's public accusation that he is owed $60,000 from an agent for his online poker club continues to draw poker world interest and illustrates one of the many ways in which largely unregulated poker apps can lead to extremely messy situations.
Late last week, Carrel took to Twitter/X with a "heavy heart," claiming that he had been scammed for $60,000 by the director of the new British Poker Series, Shaun Johnston. Johnston also worked recently as an affiliate for an online club on GGPoker that Carrel operates, where the alleged scamming occurred.
Carrel took on Johnston as an affiliate last year after playing at a BPS stop and being impressed with Johnston's new operation. The two struck up a friendship, though that quickly soured over Johnston's alleged debts, with Carrel posting this last week:
How the relationship soured
According to Carrel, Johnston "hard-vouched" for two other previously unknown players who were to join Carrel's private room on ClubGG and play in a high-stakes game that would include Carrel and several other players. Carrel accepted Johnston's vouch and credited the new players for the sizeable $60,000 sum.
The new players lost the $60,000 in the game but never paid for the loss, leaving the other players in the game hanging. Carrel was not one of the big winners in the game, though he agreed to cover the $60,000 owed to other players while sorting out with Johnston what happened, expecting Johnston would honor the hard vouches. But Johnston claimed to be broke.
At the same time, according to Carrel, he learned about numerous previous incidents involving Johnston. "I have heard stories of him scamming dozens - literally dozens - of others," he told PokerOrg. Johnston was accused in the summer of 2023 of reneging on a debt while operating a different online club, which at the least raises the question of whether Carrel himself did sufficient due diligence on Johnston. If Carrel's allegations are true, it could likely be a $60,000 oversight.
The whole situation seemed way off to Carrel, who dug into the situation, and he became increasingly convinced that the players Johnston vouched for didn't even exist.
"I'm 95% sure that this was premeditated," Carrel stated. "He had 'players' play under his affiliate. They played all night and lost $60K. He hard-vouched for them. Then they don't pay; he can't pay. I think the players were both him on different devices with VPNs. We have a security team with access to device numbers."
Radio silence from Johnston?
Carrel, who ranks eighth all-time among British players on the Hendon Mob database with nearly $10 million in live tourney winnings, asserted in his Twitter post, "He claims he will work with me to pay me back, but he won't come clean about who else he has stolen from and/or owes money to, so I am ethically obliged to say this publicly."
Make that 'claimed', as Carrel clarified to PokerOrg that more recently, Johnston has stopped communicating with Carrel about the debt. Johnston, who reportedly has social media accounts on multiple sites, does not appear to have responded anywhere to Carrel's accusations, including in Carrel's Twitter thread.
Many respondents to Carrel's post offered their commiserations, though others took him to task for working with Johnston or for running what amounts to an unregulated online club. With Johnston unlikely to publicly acknowledge the alleged debt, it's also unlikely that Carrel would have any legal means to collect the $60,000.
The controversy, however, can't bode well for Johnston's startup BPS tour, which has already announced numerous stops in 2025, including one at Aspers Casino Stratford in mid-March.
PokerOrg has reached out to Shaun Johnston for comment.
