Dwyte Pilgrim Allegedly Defrauds Fellow Poker Pro Aaron Massey

Greg Shaun

6 years ago

Dwight Pilgrim has been accused by Aaron Massey of refusing to pay back a $7,500 poker loan. (Image: PokerNews)

Dwyte Pilgrim may have a difficult time finding another poker player to stake him. According to a fellow poker pro, Pilgrim doesn’t pay back loans.

Aaron Massey, a successful tournament pro, has accused Pilgrim of refusing to pay back a $7,500 loan. Massey says he gave Pilgrim the money to enter a 2013 WPT event at Borgata in Atlantic City.

Massey claims he’s received nothing but a bunch of excuses and that Pilgrim defrauded him.

According to a blog post written by Massey, Pilgrim came to his hotel room at Borgata and offered up an elaborate excuse as to why he needed money.

Pilgrim claimed his bank account had been frozen for 40 days.

He wanted to borrow enough to cover two buy-ins for the WPT Main Event and some extra spending cash. Massey was skeptical at first but gave in and loaned him the money.

“If this story isn’t true, and I lend you money based on a lie, and I don’t get paid back, then it is the same as stealing,” Massey alleges he informed Pilgrim.

Money Never Received

After 40 days, Massey came to Pilgrim expecting a payment. Pilgrim refused. Instead, he came up with another elaborate excuse, according to Massey.

Prior to this dispute, the two poker players were friends. Pilgrim, according to Massey, used the “friendship” excuse as a means for convincing Massey he’s good for the money.

Pilgrim never paid, and never offered up a legitimate excuse, so says Massey. However, at the 2013 WSOP, Pilgrim came to Massey asking to be staked despite being months overdue on paying his previous loan.

Massey then realized Pilgrim had no money but still bought him into some low buy-in WSOP side events at the Rio in Las Vegas. This was his way of getting his money back, hoping Pilgrim would cash in some of these events and would pay him the money.

Pilgrim played in some side events at the Rio but told Massey he didn’t cash. According to Pilgrim’s GPI player page, he cashed in three Rio Daily Deepstack events, totaling nearly $1,800.

Loan a Poker Player Money, Get Burned

Massey isn’t the first, nor will he be the last, to fail to collect on money loaned to a poker player. That’s the nature of the beast.

Apparently, Massey isn’t the only person Pilgrim has scammed. According to Massey’s blog post, another player named Nathan Burdette loaned Pilgrim $3,000 and never saw a penny.

Poker pro Brian Hastings also allegedly got burned by loaning Pilgrim money. He claims to have staked Pilgrim in a few events, including a Parx Casino $1,000 bounty tournament, an event Pilgrim chopped for $9,600 plus five $500 bounties.

Pilgrim didn’t pay Hastings the money, claiming he never received his winnings due to issues with an invalid driver’s license.

The moral of this story is to never loan Dwyte Pilgrim money.