A can of worms was opened in the poker world a few weeks ago when a clipped video featuring Ludwig Ahgren called out unregulated poker site ACR Poker for allegedly refusing to pay him out. Ludwig later clarified his comments that he had been paid for his services but had issues cashing out funds on the unlicensed site.
However, the fallout revealed that several other streamers hadn’t been paid by End Game Talent, a third-party company hired by ACR to find influencers. That company was run by the controversial Scott Ball, and ACR spoke of them in a statement issued to Poker.org:
“ACR Poker engaged a third-party agency to arrange brand marketing by streamers they purported to represent. Every streamer worked under their own talent agency. ACR paid the central agency, which was to pay the streamers through their respective talent agents. That arrangement unfortunately ended with serious disputes about whether the central agency stiffed or underpaid the various talent agencies or their individual streamer clients. ACR stands by our positive track record with sponsored players, marketing campaigns, and streamers’ talent agencies. The company that reportedly failed to pay talent agencies is believed to have been sued by the streamers’ talent agencies.”
ACR CEO Phil Nagy also went on Matt Berkey’s Only Friends Podcast to give an off-the-cuff interview in which he laid the blame squarely on Ball’s End Game Talent.
In response, Ball made a public post on X on August 25:
Now, Ball is further disputing those allegations stating that it was ACR’s non-payment of an eight-figure contract – rumored to be $30 million – that ultimately led to some influencers not getting paid, though many have.
“I think that it’s very clear that he did not talk to his legal or press teams and made a very poor, emotionally-charged decision tozf talk about a bunch of stuff,” Ball told PokerNews in an exclusive interview. “I think it was a pretty poor decision in the grand scheme of things.”
He added: “We worked with ACR for over seven years, and I can tell you their statement is just blatantly not true. As I’ve shown today, there are many receipts showing that we have paid lots of people, and many receipts showing that ACR owes us money. The reason I asked for arbitration amongst neutral people is because there’s no gray area here. Nagy is saying there’s no gray area either, but then I can offer him a freeroll in order to show this and put everything out there. I want everything public afterward because I want to clear my name and my company’s name.”
“I had a contract for tens of millions of dollars that was honored to a total of $0.”
Indeed, Ball shared various documents, spreadsheets, and messages with this reporter to validate certain claims. However, it was done so on the basis that copies could not be shared publicly due to various NDAs and ongoing legal proceedings.
Among the documents shared were a yearlong Insertion Order, and a spreadsheet highlighting payments to hundreds of content creators, with approximately 50 being unpaid and most being due either four or five figures.
“I had a contract for tens of millions of dollars that was honored to a total of $0,” claimed Ball. “End Game Talent did not make enough at any point to be able to afford getting stiffed tens of millions of dollars.”
According to Ball, ACR never made good on the contracts and shared text exchanges between himself and Nagy, as well as with someone named Juan, who he said is the CMO of ACR. In those messages, which spanned several months, Ball pressed for payment resolution with both Nagy and Juan either delaying or outright ghosting for weeks and sometimes months at a time.
“I’m not here to say its ‘me versus him, his word versus mine.’ I showed you receipts voluntarily of me asking him to just make everyone whole. That’s what I care about. Make everyone whole and we’ll fight about the money you owe me afterwards. Help me make everyone whole because I don’t have $10 million to make everyone whole. Please help me make everyone whole when he’s told me in the past, he would do this. He doesn’t do it.”
Nagy did not respond to attempts to reach him for this article.
Streamer Ludwig Regrets Unregulated Poker Site Sponsorship, Says He Never Got Paid
A Judgment Against Him
Court records from L.A. County show a default judgment from late June 2024 for $718,331 against End Game Talent from a breach-of-contract lawsuit filed by Loaded, LLC, another talent agency for streamers. This is presumably the “company that reportedly failed to pay talent agencies is believed to have been sued by the streamers’ talent agencies” as pointed out in ACR’s statement.
Ball does not dispute the judgment exists, but claimed it was awarded due to an oversight by his lawyer, who failed to respond on time.
“In short, my attorneys are handling that and trying to get the default lifted so we can go back to offering a reasonable settlement to pave the road and come to terms that way. That was a mistake on my attorney’s part.”
Messages to lawyer David Boren, who was listed on court documents as counsel for Loaded, LLC, were not returned.
Why Not Sue?
In his interview with Only Friends, Nagy made sure to point out that if he had done anything wrong then he would likely be sued.
“In private text messages to me, he’s like ‘let’s f***ing go, sue me’ after telling me he love me,” said Ball. “I can’t sue a company in Costa Rica. I’m gonna get a judgment because I have contracts, I have receipts. I have them verbally and in text messages saying saving they owe me money. I have text messages of them ghosting me for several months about collecting the money we’re owed to pay influencers. I have receipts for all of this.
“There’s no doubt I would get a judgment, but the US can’t obtain any judgment from Costa Rica. I actually don’t think it’s ever happened before where the US has ever obtained a judgment from Costa Rica. So, I can spend hundreds of thousands of dollars to get a piece of paper that says they owe me money, but I’m never going to collect it. That’s why I like the idea of arbitration with respected poker players who are neutral.”
Seeking Arbitration
Ball reiterated that he is willing to go to arbitration with Nagy and ACR to resolve the situation.
“According to him in the [Solve For Why] podcast, in their statement, they’ve done nothing wrong and I’m the one that’s stolen a bunch of money, or they’re implying that I stole a bunch of money. If that’s the case, this is going to be very obvious in an arbitration situation, there will be no confusion, right?
“That’s the only way I have a chance in ever collecting a dollar that the other creators are still owed and that I’ve spent out of my own pocket to make people as whole as I can so far.”
Ball tossed out a few names as neutral parties for potential arbitration.
“I don’t even know Phil Galfond but I would love for someone like him and Shaun Deeb. It can’t be Phil Hellmuth because he is a shareholder. These kinds of guys that are neutral, get 10 of them together, let’s put out all of our information – their data, my data – let’s escrow, the funds, let’s put it on there and let them make a decision and then issue the funds however they see fit afterwards. That’s the only way I have a chance in ever collecting a dollar that the other creators are still owed and that I’ve spent out of my own pocket to make people as whole as I can so far.”
Disputing Repossession Rumors
Ball alleges that ACR while business with ACR was good for many years, they never made good on the final eight-figure deal and that all payments to the influencers were made via End Game Talent before it became insolvent, and at Ball’s personal expense as he’s liquidated assets, such as selling cars and recently listing his Las Vegas home for sale.
To that end, in the Only Friends Podcast Berkey suggested that Ball has had several vehicles repossessed. However, PokerNews did not find any repossession records and did speak with a representative of a high-end Las Vegas dealership that confirmed Ball had sold them several vehicles.
“I’ve had zero cars repossessed,” said Ball. “I bought cars and I sold cars very, very quickly when something significant in my life changed, which was not the plan and to try to make people whole as fast as I could. But I have had no repossessions of any of those vehicles. That’s how hundreds of the influencers that have been paid were paid. That’s some of the assets that I sold.”
Taking Issue with Media Coverage
Ball spoke with PokerNews after claiming he felt his portrayal by other media was biased.
“Berkey has his narrative and is not going to do anything that doesn’t support his narrative,” said Ball, who stated he was never contacted to give his side of the story. “I don’t want to say he doesn’t have integrity because I don’t know him that well, but he is not a journalist, and he has no journalistic integrity at all whatsoever. He talks about things as if they’re facts about people that have a great impact on their lives and the way they provide for themselves and their family and their livelihoods without facts and he speaks of them as if they’re facts. This is very, very dangerous. I just think it’s really sad that he goes around and promotes the propaganda.”
Ball continued: “Something we haven’t talked about today and I can show you this myself, I’m starting to get text messages from someone leaking my phone number of people literally threatening me and harassing me since the Solve For Why Podcast. I have been called a scammer and a thief and all these things because Matt Berkey feels like it’s ok to run his mouth and say these things with no real truth. If Matt Berkey sat with me today and saw all of the receipts there is no way in hell he would have said the things he said on his podcast. There’s no confusion here and what he’s doing is a big part of cancel culture. It’s a big problem in society.”
Ball was, however, contacted by Poker.org but declined to comment citing an alleged conflict of interest.
A Tarnished Reputation
Once considered a rising star in the community thanks to his role in building Twitch Poker, Ball’s reputation in the poker world has been tarnished in recent years despite winning two WSOP gold bracelets in 2021. A large part of that was Mike “The Mouth” Matusow publicly calling out Ball for allegedly defrauding a private app home game run by Phil Hellmuth.
“These things were debunked forever ago,” said Ball when asked about the assertions. “I was accused of stealing money from Phil Helmuth, but Phil Helmuth sent me a video and allowed me to post a video of him saying I didn’t steal money from him. The things that I did do wrong were I had pieces of people in a game that I didn’t disclose. I would never do that again. That being said, this is very common in the private poker game scene. This is not considered some crazy unethical thing. There are probably 10% of private games around the world that this is not happening. This is just a thing. Hosts are going to have pieces of people. It’s how it works. You just have to accept that if that’s a scene.”
Matusow’s allegations resurfaced, primarily in the Only Friends Podcast, as a part of Ball’s most recent predicament.
“I’m not worried about everyone having a great opinion of me,” Ball admitted. “I used to care a lot about what people think. I do want people to know that I do have integrity. I’m not a thief, I’m not stealing from people. I’m not cheating anywhere because these things are all 100% fact, I’m not stealing money. I’m going to continue to play poker for a living. I’m probably going to play more live tournaments and some online tournaments. I have no real interest in private cash game scene anymore. My focus is just trying to become the best version of myself. I’m going to continue to work out, exercise, study a lot, and just try to become the best player I can be.”
What’s Next?
“First and foremost, I want to see the remaining creators that are still owed get paid,” Ball claimed. “Secondly, I can’t get into too many specifics, but there are creators that agreed to reduce pay settlements in order to just get some money because knowing that End Game didn’t get paid. I would love to see the creators who are still owed get paid because everyone should be paid for the work that they do. Secondly, in a perfect world, I would love to see the creators that took reduced pay, potentially get the difference in which they didn’t get in full. That would be great.
“I don’t ever want to do business with them again, and I don’t want to associate with them, but I would love to see creators made whole.”
“I would love to get back some of the money that I have spent out of my own pocket, but that’s never going to happen even though I had a contract with them for tens of millions of dollars; which again, there’s receipts for these things. I don’t ever want to do business with them again, and I don’t want to associate with them, but I would love to see creators made whole, and potentially get something back that I have spent out of my own pocket because it’s been very hard on my life, obviously to liquidate almost everything you own, and help figure this stuff out and then just close this chapter.
“Nothing would make me happier than having all the influencers paid. Then I can worry about my shareholders and myself later,” Ball concluded. “I will happily, if [ACR] really agrees to do this, send out our invoices that are still pending so they know exactly what people are really owed and they can send me confirmation that they’ve been paid and we can close out all those influencers.”
For his part, Nagy did address the situation on the Only Friends Podcast and seemingly made an offer to influencers to make them whole.
“I believe in influencers. I support influencers. The last thing I want to do is shit where I eat. That being said is, once lawyers and agencies and everything got into it, it just all ground to a fucking halt. And I’m sorry, that’s the real world, right. If these influencers came to me and said, ‘You know what, we’ll go ahead and do it again, do this last whatever, pay me what I’m owed and the next one I’ll do it 50% off and we’ll continue our relationship—DONE! That’s what my lawyers are trying to negotiate with the agencies.
“Influencers out there, you can call it money in the bank until we come to some kind of agreement, I’m not going anywhere. If you’re starving, tell me, I’ll throw you an advance or something. I know we’ll come to an arrangement. It’s just get on your agent and make sure they’re talking to our guys and that it doesn’t drop.”
PokerNews will continue to monitor this story and offer updates if and when they become available.
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