Straight Flush: The True Story of Six College Friends Who Dealt Their Way to a Billion-Dollar Online Poker Empire--and How It All Came Crashing Down . . .

by Ben Mezrich

Hilt pulled his suit jacket over his shoulders. Scott shook his head. A guy pissing in the street out front, a building smaller than your average Burger King—he’d set his expectations low, but this was kind of ridiculous. He nervously patted at his lapel, feeling the thick checkbook that was secure in the inside jacket pocket. To him, that checkbook may as well have been made out of solid gold. He could feel Hilt looking at him, and he knew that his friend understood exactly what he was thinking.

  It wasn’t just a checkbook; it represented six months of their lives, and more hard work than either of them had done in four years of college. They had sweated and bled—sometimes quite literally—for every penny in the temporary account associated with that book. Phone calls, letter-writing campaigns, flights to and from Florida, New York, Washington, D.C.—hours and hours chasing down possible leads, potential investors. Slowly building toward their goal. Once they’d hired the Korean software designers, it had been easier to start securing real commitments. But not a single dollar of the $750,000 had come easy.

  Just a week earlier, minutes before a presentation to a group of wealthy real estate developers in northern Florida, Scott and Garin had actually come to physical blows, after Garin had inadvertently left a piece of their presentation in the hotel room. Hilt had been forced to jump in and physically restrain Scott before they completely trashed the rented conference room. They had still managed to finish the presentation, Garin’s jacket ripped right down the middle, Scott’s hair askew—but the flare-up of tempers had only proven to them how much they had all personally invested in this. It was a shared passion, and sometimes inspired people did stupid, stupid things.

  Hilt finished with his jacket, then led Scott toward the small building. As Scott followed, he only hoped that this wasn’t one of those stupid, stupid things. The island of Dominica was a speck in the Caribbean that none of them could have found without Google, and yet here they were, in the island’s only real city, checkbook in pocket, potentially ready to place all the money they had raised into the hands of complete strangers.

  When the Costa Rican lawyers who were handling their incorporation had suggested that they use the Caribbean bank, Scott had understood the logic behind the idea. Absolute Poker was going to be an international company, with worldwide clientele. And despite what every lawyer had told them, the fact was, American banking laws and practices seemed to shift week by week. But now that they were actually there, strolling up a dirt path toward an unassuming wooden door, it was a lot harder to stay logical and relaxed.

  The lawyers had given them three island banks to choose from: the Loyal Bank of St. Vincent, Bank Crozier of St. Lucia, and Bank Caribe of the Commonwealth of Dominica. They’d immediately crossed off the Loyal, believing that if the company had to put loyal in its name, it probably wasn’t. Which left Dominica and St. Lucia. They’d decided to check out Dominica first, for the simple reason that the flight from Seattle had been cheaper. They were going to head to St. Lucia the next day. In between, they’d be staying in a hotel just around the corner, a disgusting little place Hilt had found on the Internet that offered tiny un-air-conditioned rooms teeming with cockroaches—because every penny they had would be going into that check.

  Hilt paused at the door, giving Scott a chance to fix his tie one last time. Then he led the way inside.

  I have to admit, this all looks pretty good.”

  Hilt was leaning forward in the seat next to Scott, at the edge of the mahogany desk, poking through the huge stack of papers in front of them. Balance sheets, financial statements, asset allocations—all of it printed out at their request by the bank manager, who had now stepped outside to give them time to look through things in private. Even more important than the papers, to Scott, was the manager himself; Scott hadn’t been able to stifle his surprise when he first stepped foot into the island bank and caught sight of the well-dressed, midfifties American, with his neatly combed silver hair, traditional-looking wire-rimmed glasses, and impeccable gray suit. The man had been accompanied by his son, a younger version of himself, with similar glasses and a similar suit. They both seemed extremely sharp and knowledgeable about the banking structures for the gaming industry, and once they had all situated themselves in the manager’s office, the two men had been very open about all aspects of their work. Bank Caribe handled many gaming sites, from sports books to online casinos, and they had even worked with Paradise Poker. They also handled money from many Wall Street firms, including dozens of American-run hedge funds. Everything the men told them seemed proper, professional, and satisfying.

  Now, forty minutes later, it was time to make a decision.

  “What do you think?” Hilt said, leaning back from the papers and looking at Scott. “Half here? And half in St. Lucia, if it seems equally professional?”

  As usual, there was almost no inflection in Hilt’s voice. To him, this was business, and now that he’d seen the papers, he was able to put his emotions aside. Scott wondered if he himself would ever be able to be that levelheaded. For the moment, though, as he reached for the checkbook, he could feel his fingers trembling in time with his rapidly increasing heartbeat.

  “Call the manager back in. It’s time we open our first real bank account.”

  Finally, Hilt cracked a smile.

  “You think he’ll offer us champagne, to take back to our lavish hotel suite?”

  “For three hundred and fifty thousand dollars,” Scott said, breathing hard, “I’m going to hold out for a goddamn toaster.”

  CHAPTER 12

  Oh, man, this is never going to work.”

  “Shut up. Act casual.”

  “Dude, abort. I’m telling you, this is gonna end bad.”

  Garin gave Shane a shove and a glare, then quickly pushed his oversize luggage cart a few feet ahead, following the long line of tourists toward the double doors at the edge of the baggage and customs area. Shane hissed more terrified warnings after him but slowed his pace, letting Garin drift a few places ahead in the moving line.

  Scott wanted to laugh at his two friends’ antics, but he was a bit nervous himself. Looking at Garin’s luggage cart—weighed down by so many cardboard boxes that the little steel wheels of the cart were twisting and turning against the tiled floor, emitting odd squeals that seemed to echo off the walls—he found it hard to believe that he was going to make it through. Scott himself had three cardboard boxes on the cart he was sharing with Hilt and Shane. But his boxes contained only assorted clothes, shoes, and a handful of bathroom products that he thought he might have trouble finding in Costa Rica. The cardboard boxes were a hell of a lot cheaper than a suitcase, and he’d be able to throw them out after he unpacked at the house—in case, like in his dad’s basement, they eventually decided to turn the closets into bedrooms. Though if the house was anything like Shane had described it after he’d gone down, a few weeks earlier, with an IT guy to set up the phone lines and computer wires, well, Scott doubted they were going to have any issues with space.

  But five yards ahead and closing fast on the double doors that led out into the airport proper, Garin’s cardboard boxes weren’t just full of clothes, even though the scrawl of Magic Marker across the cardboard seemed to indicate just that. In reality, the goofball had packed away his entire desktop computer—monitor, hard drive, modem, keyboard, even a pair of speakers—and then piled clothes on top. Nobody had asked him any questions when he’d checked the heavy boxes in at the airport in Seattle, but now that they had landed at Santamaría, well, God only knew what would happen if the customs agents—who were milling about behind a long metal table just ahead of the twin doors in a group of about nine, in full uniform, with sidearms strapped to their hips—decided to pull Garin out of the line. Was a desktop computer something you were supposed to declare?

  Looking at the other people in line—almost all of them tourists, a mix of families, young couples on honeymoons, groups of guys on their way to party, golf, or fish—it was obvious that almost every America
n heading to Costa Rica was on vacation. Nobody else, as far as Scott could see, had packed up what constituted their entire lives—for what amounted to a one-way trip.

  Scott had no idea how long they were going to stay, now that they were actually there. The house that Shane had found was rented for a year, at four thousand dollars a month. According to Shane, the living room was big enough for a half dozen cubicles, which he and the IT guy had set up after multiple trips to the Costa Rican equivalent of Home Depot. And supposedly, there was even a pool out back.

  “Shit, I think the one with the mustache is going to nab him,” Hilt hissed, interrupting Scott’s thoughts, from a step behind.

  Scott followed Hilt’s gaze and saw the customs agent eyeing Garin as he approached the steel table. For a brief moment it looked like the agent was going to say something—but then he shifted his attention to a middle-aged man in a heavy down jacket, just ahead of Garin, signaling the man over to the table. Garin plodded nervously on. Even from that distance, Scott could see the sweat beading on the back of his friend’s tautly muscled neck. Somehow he was still moving forward.

  Just as he reached the double doors, he turned his head the slightest bit to give Shane a big smile—and a silent “Screw you.” The screech of the cart’s wheels still echoed off the walls.

  Finding a taxi that could fit all four of them and Garin’s computer was a true test of their patience; there had to be two dozen of those damn drivers grabbing at them as soon as they’d stepped out of the airport onto the sidewalk, some so aggressive and even threatening that Scott was worried one of his friends might start throwing punches. But eventually they were able to find one who spoke enough English to figure out that four athletically built guys and a half dozen cardboard boxes weren’t going to fit in one of their compact little clown cars. For a handful of colóns—the Costa Rican currency, which was colorful, the wrong size, and looked like it had come out of a board game—he brought them to a friend with a van, who was nice enough to help them load the boxes into his trunk. Even so, by the time the boxes were all loaded and they’d jammed themselves into the backseat—literally on top of one another—they were all covered in sweat. The heat and humidity were intense, even though the driver had the van’s air-conditioning turned all the way up and there was a pretty stiff breeze coming out of the hills beyond the city. But the heat was something Scott knew he would get used to; like the Spanish music that was now blaring out of the van’s crappy speakers, so loud it made the windows shake, it was just another detail of their new environment.

  Then they were off, the man driving like a maniac through the thick airport traffic on his way to the city proper.

  “Give the man the address,” Scott said to Shane, trying to find space in the back of the van between Garin’s cartoonishly long arms and Hilt’s spark-plug shoulders.

  “There isn’t an address,” Shane responded.

  “What the hell do you mean?”

  “I mean in San José, nobody has an address.”

  Shane leaned forward so that the driver could hear.

  “We’re going to Escazú. Start with the Tony Roma’s restaurant, go a hundred meters west, a hundred meters south. The white house on the corner.”

  Scott stared at him. “Really?”

  “That’s how it works here. You’ll see.”

  The driver wasn’t arguing, so obviously he didn’t have a problem with the directions. Scott leaned back against the seat, trying to find a comfortable position. Outside, the city flashed by. It was midafternoon, just like the last time he’d arrived in San José, but the roads seemed even more congested, traffic going in every direction. As before, he was amazed at how alive the place felt, how it seemed to throb with energy. So many cars, people, noise—even above the insanely loud music pumping through the van’s speakers, the sounds of the urban sprawl felt like a hand, reaching right through those trembling windows, grabbing at Scott’s skin. This was it. He was really here; this was actually happening. It was goddamn exhilarating.

  Nearly an hour later they were still engulfed by the thrill of it all when Shane shot a finger toward the window by his head.

  “This is it. Casa Absolute Poker.”

  The house was situated on a low hill, in a pretty, leafy residential neighborhood in one of the more upscale suburbs of the city. From the outside it wasn’t anywhere near as lavish as Scott’s dad’s house, but it was big, and there certainly was a pool. And the neighborhood was pretty nice—though there didn’t seem to be any nearby transportation, supermarkets, or even a general store, and they didn’t have a car. But as they exited the cab, the driver handed them a card, telling them they could call his company anytime. Scott tipped the man well—he had a feeling they were going to be taking a lot of cabs for the time being, whether they liked it or not.

  Shane led them inside with a proud sweep of his hand. And once Scott was through the high Spanish door and into the living room, he had to admit that Shane had done pretty well for them.

  The living room had high ceilings, a good number of windows, and plenty of natural light. The floors were carpeted, the walls bare, but the interior was exactly as Scott had hoped. Shane and the IT guy had put up a half dozen prefab cubicle walls, converting the room into a serviceable office space. There were wires running everywhere; bright orange and green rubber snakes, some as thin as Scott’s fingers, others as thick as garden hoses, running between the cubicles, along the walls, even through the doorway into what looked to be a galley-style kitchen. It was an electrician’s nightmare—but, as Shane had explained already, a truly necessary endeavor.

  When Scott and his team had first been told about the house, they initially thought they could buy computer servers and build a small server room in the house’s basement, or out back by the pool. But Shane and the IT guy had quickly discovered this wasn’t an option. Within twenty-four hours of being in Costa Rica, Shane had found out that the Internet crashed at least once a day; likewise, power was something that could go off and on at random. So instead, Shane had located a professional third-party server hosting—a place with the fairly ridiculous name HostaRica. HostaRica was, it turned out, the country’s largest hosting site, and Shane had been told it handled most of the gaming concerns in the area.

  So instead of servers, Shane and the IT pro had spent their time setting up workstations for desktop computers, which would be Scott and his team’s bread and butter. Each cubicle had been outfitted with enough wiring to handle a computer, a modem, and a separate phone line, and even though the Internet and the power would be going on and off at random, at least the servers running their software would presumably stay on.

  Aside from the wiring, Shane had installed in each cubicle a basic desk and little shelving units. Five of the cubicles also had desk chairs, but the sixth contained just a desk and shelves. Scott had to smile as Garin headed straight for the chairless cubicle, lugging his boxed-up computer behind him. When Shane had been setting up the house, they demanded he call them in Seattle so they could approve any expenditures over a hundred dollars; the chairs, it turned out, were a hundred and fifty bucks a pop. The discussion had turned into a heated argument, with Garin finally exclaiming that they didn’t need any goddamn chairs, he’d sit on a rock for all he cared.

  So Shane had bought chairs for everyone—except Garin. But to his credit, Garin didn’t voice a single complaint. He just went to work unboxing his computer and began the long process of wiring the damn thing back together.

  Meanwhile, Scott continued his tour of the house.

  The upstairs was as clean, sparse, and acceptable as the downstairs—more high ceilings, a pair of reasonably modern bathrooms, and five empty bedrooms. Shane had picked the biggest bedroom, which also turned out to be the only one with an air-conditioning unit built into the window. He’d also installed separate phone lines in all five bedrooms, which was a huge plus. In a pinch, they’d be able to use their bedrooms as offices as well, which meant they could double
their staff without having to think about moving. Scott had no idea how fast the company could grow, but this was as good a first headquarters as he could have hoped for.

  When he was finished with the tour, Scott gathered his team back in the living room. Hilt passed out beers from a cooler Shane had left in the kitchen, next to the refrigerator. Scott guessed the cooler had something to do with the shaky power grid, but he tried to put thoughts like that out of his head. There would be plenty of time to worry about such things in the weeks, months, and maybe years ahead.

  Right now, it was time to get things started.

  “Gents,” he said, raising his beer, a long-necked bottle covered in Spanish writing. “This just might be the start of something beautiful. So let’s set up some ground rules.”

  “Maybe no alcohol around the computers?” Garin said, eyeing Shane’s beer bottle, which was resting on the edge of the cubicle wall closest to his newly unboxed monitor. “These wires look pretty shady to me. I feel like my testicles are shrinking just from being this close to them.”

  “Your testicles are less important than the wires,” Shane shot back. “And you try and set up a computer network in a third-world country. Just be glad we have running water and the toilets work.”

  Scott shut them both up with a wave of his beer.

  “Testicles aside, Garin makes a good point. Once the computers are set up, booze stays upstairs, outside, or in the kitchen. The living room is for work. And that’s what we’re here for—to work. Everyone needs to be at his station at seven A.M. Eventually, we’ll have to work in shifts. Six P.M. here is nine A.M. in Korea, so we’ll have a team designated to deal with the software people once we launch the beta test.”

  The guys all nodded. Scott pointed to a small wooden side table Shane had set up outside the cubicles, near the door. There was a phone jack next to the table, and a place to plug in a modem.