2010 was a banner year for Dan “Jungleman12″ Cates after his meteoric rise from hamburger flipper at McDonald’s to online poker champion. He absolutely dominated the high stakes poker scene by earning over $5 million in 2010 cash game profits. And the $5 million that Cates made put him at the top of the earnings list, and made him a poker household name.
Unfortunately for Cates, 2011 has been an entirely different story from last year. For one thing, he was forced to quit playing online poker at some of the sites he used to after Black Friday, and his bankroll was reportedly tied up on Full Tilt Poker. This being said, he’s had little chance to defend his unofficial online poker crown from last year.
But this is only the tip of the iceberg since Cates has now admitted to a multi-accounting scandal. Cates confessed to the serious allegation of multi-accounting while talking to SubjectPoker. At first, Cates flat-out denied being involved in this activity; however, his publicist, Noah Stephens-Davidowit, called the people at SubjectPoker to tell them that Cates lied.
So a second interview took place, and Cates told the site that he did engage in multi-accounting, thus admitting to an initial lie. Then he proceeded to admit that he played through his colleague Jose Macedo’s account. Getting into the specifics, Jungleman12 played $25/$50 PLO games for several sessions on Macedo’s account.
As many people know, multi-accounting is illegal at online poker sites. However, the lines have become pretty blurred with multi-accounting and poker coaching often becoming indistinguishable. Seeing as how Cates previously coached Macedo, it’s difficult to say how severe this instance of multi-accounting was. However, it is clear that many people are already labeling him a cheater no matter what the circumstances may be.
