Amateur poker player Rob Mercer admitted he lied about having terminal cancer and accepted substantial donations to fulfill his dream of participating in a prestigious World Series of Poker event in Las Vegas.
Mercer confessed to Las Vegas Review-Journal in a report published Wednesday that he made up a stage 4 colon cancer diagnosis on his GoFundMe page back in June so he could raise the $10,000 entry fee to participate in the major poker event.
“I did lie about having colon cancer. I don’t have colon cancer. I used that to cover my situation … What I did was wrong,” he continued. “I shouldn’t have told people I have colon cancer. I did that just as a spur-of-the-moment thing when someone asked me what kind of cancer I had.”
Poker Player Lies About Cancer Diagnosis To Get Into WSOP Main Event, Apologizes https://t.co/Z7Uj9g4OcB
— TMZ (@TMZ) September 20, 2023
Mercer was trying to raise enough funds for the entry fee, but he ultimately received much more than that. The total donation was between $30,000 and $50,000, which provided him the means to stay at a suite in the Bellagio. One fellow poker player Cody Daniels, who actually suffers from a chronic illness, donated a total of $2,500 to him. (RELATED: How South Korea’s Andrew Jeong Is Making Waves in Poker)
“I’m sorry for not being honest about what my situation was,” he further added. “If I would have done that from Day One, who knows what would have happened.”