Poker pro pleads guilty in $25 million sports betting fraud scheme

A Long Island professional poker player provided false information to sports bettors as part of a $25 million scheme. 

Cory Zeidman, 63, who is from Syosset, New York and now lives in Boca Raton, Florida, pleaded guilty on Wednesday “to conspiracy to commit wire and mail fraud” in a fake gambling advice ring that brought in customers across the country from 2006-20.

Zeidman and his associates were said to be claiming to have inside knowledge about “dirty referees,” fixed games, confidential injury information and predetermined outcomes that made betting “risk free.”

“Our company would occasionally provide potential customers with false information regarding information that our company had about various sporting events in order to induce those customers into paying fees in exchange for sports betting advice,” Zeidman told Judge Lee Dunst during the plea hearing. “Fees the customers paid and for which I profited.”

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He and his co-conspirators also “placed national radio advertisements to lure prospective bettors to retain the organization for sports betting advice,” the United States Attorney’s Office for the Eastern District of New York said in a statement.

“Zeidman and his partners baited unsuspecting victims with false claims of an edge in sports betting only to feed them lies and pocket millions of dollars from their savings and retirement accounts,” Breon Peace, United States Attorney for the Eastern District of New York, said in a press release. “Today’s guilty plea sends a message to all those who would prey upon the public by falsely advertising gambling as an ‘investment opportunity.’”

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Zeidman, who won a bracelet at the 2012 World Series of Poker, agreed to pay roughly $3.7 million in restitution to his victims and faces a maximum sentence of 20 years in prison.