James Thackston's Revenge Quest against US Online Gaming

Up until a week ago, few people outside of online gaming insiders knew of James Thackston. After all, he was merely a behind-the-scenes entrepreneur trying to hawk his online poker security-testing software to any site or major casino corporation that would listen. And listen they did, with everybody in the gaming industry turning Thackston down.

Like a jaded kid, the software engineer has since launched a crusade to blackmail, extort and, if necessary, destroy the very foundation that online poker is built upon. Luckily, though, it seems like Thackston may have been caught in his web of deceit before he truly got started.

Long-time journalist Haley Hintze, who writes for iGaming.org, wrote a lengthy piece that documents some of Thackston’s evil attempts to push his bogus poker-security software on companies, then threaten them when they didn’t accept. Here’s one excerpt from Hintze’s article:

It was only after Thackston’s strange, perhaps extortionate offers were repeatedly rebuffed that he finally switched tactics, attempting to publicly destroy the very industry he sought to contract with – essentially because they wouldn’t buy his goods. (Indeed, Muny used the word “extortion” when revealing some of the e-mails, which he received from their original recipients.) That included reaching a deal with a self-important, far-right political pundit named Cheri Jacobus, who in concert with Thackston has spent more than half a year spreading falsehoods about the supposed vulnerabilities of online poker to massive-scale money laundering.

Hintze goes on to show some of the ridiculous emails that Thackston sends to companies who refuse his software. For example, he sends one email to Caesars executive Jan Jones that states because he failed to secure investments for his eSAFE projects, he’s been forced to “take actions detrimental to the internet poker cause.”

Thackston also started a website called PoliticsOfPoker.com, where he began listing numerous articles on the anti-online gaming subject. He’s since been behind some mainstream-published news articles that attack internet gaming and create seeds of doubt in potential players’ minds.

One such example was a piece that ran in the Press of Atlantic City (since removed) that questioned the security of New Jersey online poker. This open-editorial was supposedly co-written by three-time WSOP champion Dewey Tomko, who, when asked about the piece by Nolan Dalla, denied having any knowledge of it.

Hintze claims that Thackston has since disappeared after he began taking heat across the internet for his recently revealed actions. But as strong as his vendetta seems, he probably hasn’t totally abandoned his self-serving revenge mission.