It’s really tragic when a promising young person’s career is ruined by a bout of extreme greed. Jose Macedo, once considered as the Portuguese Poker Prodigy, had just seen his whole future in the poker industry crash and burn when he admitted on the 2+2 forums that he was operating a poker scam which involved ‘sweating’ his fellow poker players and exploiting their trust.

About the Scam

Macedo was one of the most promising poker professionals in the high stakes poker tables. He was winning a lot of money and was very talented in his own right. However, all that talent has just gone to waste when he began exploiting the trust of his fellow poker players. Macedo ran a ‘sweating’ scam. Other poker players allowed him to see their hole cards via Skype so that he could give them advice. But little did they know that Macedo was actually relaying the information he gave them to their opponents, who were often just Macedo’s friends – or in some cases, Macedo himself. Macedo earned $30,000 from these scams – which is a lot of money, but ultimately pales in comparison to what he would have gotten if he had just played his poker career straight.

Wasted Future

One has to admire Macedo for being brave enough to own up to his own wrongdoings. But then that won’t change the fact that he had proven himself to be untrustworthy. Macedo is now ruined in the eyes of the poker industry. At the cost of $30,000, Macedo lost his teaching spot at PokerStrategy, where he had been teaching people about poker. Macedo was also poised to be one of the most notable Lock Poker pros – a great position, considering how Lock Poker is rapidly rising in the online poker industry. However, now he has been banned from playing in the MERGE poker network, and it’s unlikely that he’ll be welcomed elsewhere. Most of all, however, Macedo will be losing a whole host of friends. It would be difficult to find friends who would stick with him through this, especially since it’s entirely possible that he had played them at one point or another.

It would be premature to say that Macedo will have a bad future from now on. But one thing’s almost for certain – he’ll not have a good future in poker, not anymore, not after this.

Other People Found This Page When Searching For: