To say that he was "busted" gives the impression he did something illegal, this is the slant all the major news media outlets seem to be giving...which doesn't appear to be accurate at all.
He played in high stakes home games. There's no mention that the hosts were charging a rake. From my understanding of the law, as long as there is no rake, there is no crime. This is no different from a couple of buddies getting together to play poker in the privacy of their own homes...except the stakes are higher...but they are relative to their own lifestyles.
So one guy, is stealing from people in order to feed his
gambling habit. There's no evidence to show that the others knew about this. And now the people who stole from are suing the people involved in the
poker game..as if they knew something about this?
If someone stole from their own employer, and used the money to play in a local casino, would the employer have a hope in hell of suing the casino successfully to get the money back? Pretty doubtful. And this is basically the same thing, since the home games themselves were not illegal. But because it is "poker", the jilted investors are going to try to play the "poker is criminal" card in order to get some money.
Perhaps they should have done some due diligance before investing with this loser in the first place.