“Everyone wants a pound of flesh,” Vertucci said during an interview last week on the “Hustler Casino Live” stage, a delightfully gaudy elevated enclosure that is padded in maroon velvet and topped by a gargantuan golden crown. They’ve spread conspiracy theories about Lew and other poker players, Vertucci and his employees, and even the casino’s card dealers (although the show films at the Gardena casino, the two are separate business entities). Swept up by the intrigue and fueled by insatiable around-the-clock interest on Twitter and other online platforms, amateur sleuths have been busy. She criticized the incident for becoming a “spectator sport.” “It’s bad for everyone involved, unless you’re someone who likes to grab popcorn and watch a train wreck,” said Julie Yorn, a Los Angeles film producer and poker player who has played against Adelstein and Lew. Players around the world have been obsessively following the developments and daily gossip of what has been, by all accounts, a bizarre episode in poker history. Vertucci expects an open-ended result to infuriate the niche community.
