After allegations of sexual harassment and intimidation surfaced earlier this week in opposition to Hustler Casino Live co-owner Nick Vertucci, the corporate introduced on Wednesday that he would not be a part of the streamed money sport present.
The information got here after Julia McBride, an everyday on the present, launched textual content messages from Vertucci by which he makes a number of advances on her, together with undesirable solicitations for photographs. The controversy surrounding the difficulty quickly led to extra gamers sharing their experiences, resulting in the present severing ties with Vertucci.
“Effective immediately, Nick Vertucci will no longer be involved with High Stakes Poker Productions,” Hustler Casino Live co-owner Ryan Feldman famous on the corporate’s Twitter account. “We look forward to continuing to deliver the best high stakes poker content to the community.”
Text Messages Released
Hustler Casino Live has been one of the standard streaming money video games with 364,000 subscribers on YouTube and 190 million complete views, however the controversy rapidly embroiled the corporate after McBride launched the publish on Twitter on Monday. She detailed receiving quite a few undesirable advances from Vertucci and was finally barred from showing on the present.
“Hey, baby-men who say I should’ve been direct with that creep in the texts I posted: I told him ‘no’ at least five times before he sent those texts,” McBride mentioned on Twitter. “I didn’t want to get banned from his stream so I was nice about it every time. He kept asking why, like I needed to justify my position. I said because he’s married. Other times I said because I had a boyfriend. Always with a smile. The creep ended up banning me anyway.”
Poker professional Kitty Kuo later informed her personal story by which Vertucci unsolicited confirmed her a photograph of his genitals whereas enjoying on the tables.
“I don’t give a shit if I can’t play at @HCLPokerShow,” Kuo tweeted. “But it did happen to me.”
Players Voice Support
Several well-known poker gamers got here out to voice assist for the ladies affected, together with Lodge Card Club livestream proprietor Doug Polk.
“Using a place of power to make unwanted sexual advances on women is horrific,” Polk famous. “This isn’t just being a creepy dude. Anything less than removing him from the show entirely is completely unacceptable.”
McBride additionally acknowledged {that a} vendor named Lauren not seems on the present after coping with even worse harassment. The vendor finally misplaced her job, based on McBride.
Nikhil ‘Airball’ Arcott, arguably essentially the most notable common on the present at present, mentioned he wouldn’t seem on the Hustler present till Vertucci was eliminated.
“I am appalled by the behavior of Nick Vertucci and deeply troubled by the additional allegations that continue to come out,” Arcott mentioned. “His gross misconduct towards Julia, Lauren, and other women is inexcusable.”
While some applauded the choice to take away Vertucci, others criticized HCL for letting his conduct go on for thus lengthy, solely responding after the allegations turned public. Before beginning the livestream with Feldman, Vertucci had reportedly been a police officer and ran an actual property academy.
Despite not being concerned within the day-to-day operations, it’s unclear if Vertucci will stay on with the corporate as a co-owner. A report from Poker Fraud Alert, nevertheless, indicated that he had agreed to sell his stake. Vertucci has but to reply to the allegations, and his Twitter account was disabled this week.
Hustler Casino Live just lately needed to cope with one other setback, which together with a one-week ban on YouTube and a few restrictions to their promoting.
