WSOP Bracelet Winner Pleads Guilty to Hoax Threats Against Gaming Commission

08:22
26 Jan

A professional poker player from Las Vegas, Brent Carter, has pleaded guilty to federal charges in the U.S. District Court for sending malicious packages and threatening voicemails to the New York Gaming Commission.

Carter, 73, who won gold bracelets in the World Series of Poker in 1991 and 1994, had held a nearly 50-year grudge against the New York State Gaming Commission. In 1976, due to allegations of cheating, the Gaming Commission temporarily suspended Carter’s license to compete in horse racing. Carter was later cleared in an investigation but apparently wasn’t aware.

Serious Threats

Between 2019 and 2021, Carter sent letters containing suspicious-looking white powder to the Gaming Commission in Schenectady, New York. He also left threatening voicemail messages to the commission between October 2017 and November 2018. In one voicemail, he highlighted the October 1, 2017, mass shooting in Las Vegas that killed 60 people and injured 411, court papers showed. He said:
“Well it looks like the shooter in Las Vegas missed you guys. As long as you’re not available, you should be made permanently not available.” Schenectady police together with an FBI Joint Terrorism Task Force, and the U.S. Postal Inspection Service investigated the threats and found that the materials Carter sent to the Gaming Commission were harmless. Even after federal agents visited Carter, he continued to send the powder.

In October 2020, Carter tried to end his horse racing suspension and explained that he was having sleepless nights over the matter. However, the Gaming Commission had informed him in multiple letters that he was not suspended and they had not been received.

Judge Mae A. D’Agostino will now decide whether to accept the sentencing recommendation, leaving Carter facing time served and three year’s probation on his sentencing date of May 17.

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