George Cottrell, an aristocratic banker who was jailed for wire fraud, has lost an eye-watering $20 million in a cash game at Triton Montenegro.
The Brit was said to have been playing with Chinese billionaires and Hollywood celebrities alongside some of the biggest names in poker.
But the massive loss didn’t seem to dampen Cotterll’s spirits as he stuck around until the early hours trying to win some back.
One anonymous source contacted the British newspaper Mail on Sunday to say:
“Despite George losing so much money, he appeared to be enjoying himself and didn’t step away from the table until 7am. By that point he was $20 million [£15.7 million] down.”
Unfortunately, we haven’t heard which of the big name pros were lucky enough to get a seat against such company but Rob Yong did tweet some insight into how big this game was.
Partypoker figurehead and Dusk Till Dawn card club owner Rob Yong is always around when the big cash games are running but this was a little too much even for him.
The Daily Mail wrote:
“Ahead of the showdown, one British poker player posted on social media that the game was ‘way too big for me’, explaining that it would cost nearly $200,000 just to see the…flop.”
That’s some stakes!
Who Is George Cottrell
Now, the gambling world has more than its fair share of crooks and misfits. This is no secret.
But George Cottrell looks as if he would be as interesting a character as anyone we see at a poker table.
First up, he’s as posh as they come. His mother is Fiona Watson, a former model who once dated King Charles. Her father was Rupert Watson, the third Baron Manton.
Not the normal sort of family you’d expect to see involved in poker.
Cottrell had the kind of upbringing you can imagine and went on to build a career in investment banking with a side-gig of an advisory role to Nigel Farage, the architect of Brexit.
At the same time as the Brexit vote was being conducted in 2016, Cottrell got himself involved in a sticky situation that some of poker’s more shady characters would have been proud of.
You see, he found himself another sideline: laundering money for dark net drug dealers. Easy money if all goes well but there was a problem.
Cottrell decided to blackmail two individuals to the tune of $80,000 to keep quiet about their little business only to later discover that they were undercover FBI agents.
The initial charge sheet was 21 felonies long, mostly related to money laundering but also wire fraud, blackmail, and extortion.
But luckily for the young aristocrat, a plea bargain was offered where he would only have to admit to one charge of wire fraud and serve eight months in a federal prison.
And of course, given the high-profile nature of the Triton series, once this news about the $20 million loss became public, people were asking who this “Posh George” character is and no doubt wondering if he’d fancy a friendly game with them.
Some readers might have been wondering what George Cottrell was doing down in Montenegro.
Now, the incredible Maestral Casino in the city of Budva where the Triton event is being held is stunning, but there were some rumours about the city becoming a bit of a crypto hub in the region.
Last year, police raided a bar in the coastal town of Tivat with a gambling area that included a “cryptomat,” a terminal for trading a range of cryptocurrencies.
Cottrell has been linked to the industry but it’s only hearsay and his lawyer flat out denies the claims.
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