Las Vegas Sun

March 28, 2024

Poker pro in $6 million ticket flipping scam could spend 20 in prison

A poker pro could spend up to 20 years in prison in a scam in which he admittedly swindled $6 million from investors in a Las Vegas-based ticket business, according to federal officials.

Instead on investing in Super Bowl 2017 and 2018 World Cup tickets — as he’d agreed to — Seyed Reza Ali Fazeli used the funds to gamble in Las Vegas and for personal purchases, officials said.

Fazeli on Tuesday pled guilty in a Santa Ana, Calif., court to federal wire fraud, officials said. He’d been indicted in March.

The 49-year-old Orange County, Calif., professional poker player operated Summit Entertainment, which used the websites onlinetickets.com and pacertickets.com, officials said. Investors from Las Vegas, Houston and California wired him roughly $6 million from May 2016 to May 2017.

Fazeli had told the victims that he would purchase a substantial amount of Super Bowl and World Cup tickets, which he would re-sell for a healthy profit, officials said. But he “failed to provide any profit distribution,” telling the victims that the sales went poorly, because the NFL had prohibited resales.

Officials said this was false, and that Fazeli never purchased the tickets.

The FBI investigated the case. Fazeli’s sentencing, which could land him 20 years in prison, was scheduled for Jan. 28, officials said.

Anyone who may have been victimized by Summit Entertainment or Fazeli is asked to call FBI’s Los Angeles Field Office at 310-477-6565.