Photo:Getty
Getty
An amateur poker player who set up a GoFundMe so that he could play in the World Series of Poker is now apologizing for lying about having terminal cancer.
Rob Mercer, of Vallejo, California, set up the fundraiser so that he could make the $10,000 buy-in to play in the No-Limit Hold’em World Championship,according to theLas Vegas Review-Journal.
“I did lie about having colon cancer. I don’t have colon cancer,” Mercer, 37, told the newspaper. “I used that to cover my situation. What I did was wrong. I shouldn’t have told people I have colon cancer. I did that just as a spur-of-the-moment thing when someone asked me what kind of cancer I had.”
He added, “I’m sorry for not being honest about what my situation was. If I would have done that from Day 1, who knows what would have happened.”
After receiving donations estimated between $30,000 to $50,000 — including a comped suite at the Bellagio in July — some in the poker community began to doubt Mercer’s backstory.
Nick Vertucci, creator of the Hustler Casino Live poker stream, was among those who initially contributed to the fundraiser, and then began seeing red flags, he told theReview-Journal.
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Vertucci said Mercer acted ungrateful for the suite, and he was also seen gambling in the casino pit — which didn’t sit well with donors who thought they were contributing to his participation in the poker competition.
“Deep inside, I just thought, ‘I don’t like this kid,’ ” Vertucci said on his YouTube show, per theReview-Journal.
For Mercer’s part, he told the newspaper that he came up with the ruse because he was embarrassed to admit that he might have breast cancer.
“GoFundMe has zero tolerance for the misuse of our platform and takes swift action against those who exploit the generosity of our community,” a GoFundMe spokesperson said in a statement shared with PEOPLE. “We have removed this fundraiser for violating our terms of service, all donors have been fully refunded, and Rob Mercer has been banned from using the platform for any future fundraisers. Additionally, GoFundMe cooperates with law enforcement investigations of those formally accused of wrongdoing.”
source: people.com
