Poker Celeb Nik Airball Alleges A Well-Known Player Cheated Him Out Of $1 Million

There’s never a dull day in the world of poker. While much of the Poker Tournament elite is out of the country for the WSOP Paradise in The Bahamas, a few key figures from the West Coast high-stakes cash game circuit have alleged a cheating scandal against a well-known high roller who goes by the names ‘Mars’.

Nik Airball (real name Nikhil Arcot) is a fixture of the Hustler Casino Live game, one of the most-watched poker streams on the Internet. He’s had a wild year on that stream where he was up over $1 million until St. Patrick’s Day when he lost $750K in one session. Since then, he’s delivered a lot of action on every stream he’s been on.

Wesley Fei is another high roller who is a fixture on the Hustler Casino Live stream. In the handful of sessions I’ve watched that feature Wesley my takeaway is that man is simply not afraid to lose money. He’s the poker embodiment of ‘scared money don’t make money’ because he doesn’t think twice but risking huge sums at the table.

Cheating Allegations Fly After Millions Exchange Hands

These two players, Nik Airball and Wesley Fei, are alleging that another well-known poker player who goes by the name of ‘Mars’ is cheating. Nik Airball alleges that ‘Mars’ cheated him out of $1 million over ‘in a series of poker games’ using an elaborate scheme.

In Airball’s first tweet, he said “Just found out that someone who I thought was a close friend of mine cheated me out of $1m in a series of poker games. Very hurt and upset for obvious reasons, more details soon.” He then followed it up with these two tweets:

Jon Sofen of PokerNews spoke with Wesley Fei, the other poker celeb alleging that ‘Mars’ has been cheating. Wesley alleges that ‘Mars’ brought his own deck and dealer to a home game with $25/$50 and $50/$100 blinds. He alleges the deck was see through in a way that one could see cards by wearing special contact lenses.

Wesley told PokerNews he’s lost $1 million in this game, that Mars has won $1.6 million, and that Mars brought two players to the game and collectively those guys are up about $3.1 million. Wesley Fei also shared screenshots of text messages with ‘Mars’ confirming he brought decks to the game. Others on X brought forth allegations as well.

Mars denies cheating after being confronted with evidence of a marked deck after a poker game

According to Wesley Fei, Mars has denied cheating but admitted to bringing the deck which they discovered to be marked to their poker game. The response from Mars was “maybe you’re losing and you don’t want to pay so you’re changing the deck.”

Wesley spelled it out: they never use this kind of special deck at their game. It is not a deck of cards that can be purchased at a regular store. The deck is marked. And Wesley alleges his screenshots shows that Mars admitted to bringing the deck(s). Wesley Fei told PokersNews that all of this evidence together “confirmed he cheated.”

The player who goes by ‘Mars’ hasn’t Tweeted since these allegations surfaced over the weekend. For the most part, he just retweets Hustler Casino Live posts. And it should be very clear, but the Hustler Casino Live has no connection to the cheating accusations other than these poker players have appeared on the stream before. There are no allegations of wrongdoing whatsoever on the stream itself.

With millions of dollars exchanging hands, it remains to be seen what happens next and if these allegations will pick up any more steam.