According to allegations made by Dan “Jungleman” Cates (pictured) in a new interview, fellow poker players, poker sites, and other well-known members of the gambling community owe the high-stakes specialist millions of dollars. Speaking with iGaming, Cates laid out the debts and the obstacles that have limited his bankroll and effectively kept him from playing in the biggest games.

Much of that money comes from a single player – Dave Lerner – whom Cates claims owes him $1.9 million. “There was a situation where I got screwed over for a very large amount of money… His online name is PerkyShmerkyand he’s the biggest scumbag in the history of the world,” Cates said.

Cates asserted that he “didn’t know who he was at the time” when he agreed to play $3/$6 Heads-Up with Lerner and cross-booked the action at 100%, which effectively made the stakes $300/$600. “The first session, he beat me for like $460,000… Like a dumb ass, I snap-shipped the money to him and, in the next session, I completely destroyed him for $1,100,000,” he said. “I told him to send back the money, which he didn’t.”

Collecting debts from flaky opponents wasn’t Cates’ only gripe. He also dished some new details on the Durrrr Challenge and the huge amount of cash he had frozen on Black Friday. “I had a little less than 80% of my net worth on Full Tilt Poker,” he said. “I have a lot riding on getting that money back. It’s just very unfortunate that I can’t do anything about it.”

With Full Tilt back up and running, Cates is eager to revive the Durrrr Challenge, the contest dreamt up by Tom Dwan (pictured) in which Cates already boasts a commanding lead. But, according to Cates, Dwan’s mind is elsewhere: “He was saying how he wanted to wait for PokerStars to buy the challenge and how he needed to go overseas in order to play,” he complained. “Nothing ended up happening with that, which was really annoying for me.”

Dwan’s overseas exploits have been well documented in the poker media as of late. The 27-year-old pro has been spending a lot of time in Macau, battling some of China’s richest businessmen in ultra high-stakes games.

Interestingly, Cates believes that by focusing on live poker and abandoning online games, Dwan is losing his edge. “I’ve gotten a lot better and I’ve worked on my game a lot recently,” he said. “Besides the time in the US, I’ve been playing quite a lot of online heads-up. This also makes it more difficult for him to play the Challenge and, therefore, I would be fine with settling… I think I should be paid over one million, that’s for sure.”

To add insult to injury, the Maryland native has even more money riding on the Challenge that he feels might not be paid either. Cates cross-booked 20% of the Durrrr Challenge action with high-stakes gambler David “Viffer” Peat (pictured), even throwing in an additional $50,000 to Peat’s $62,000 on the side.

“Throughout the entire bet, Viffer has just been weird. I thought we agreed on something and, ever since, he has just been acting like a complete sociopath,” Cates said. “Because of the chances of him weaseling out of [the bet], I suggested an escrow, on which he basically responded that I should go f**k myself.”

Poker players reacted on the forums by calling attention to Cates potentially being naive. “Jungle is way too trusting, which in a vacuum, is a beautiful thing, but in the world of poker not so. Though it does seem he’s learning his lesson, albeit at a very high price,” said TwoPlusTwo poster EminentFate.

“I feel bad for Jungleman. Like most young people, his naivety led him into some terrible decisions/situations. Unlike most young people, those decisions had 6-7 figure consequences,” said poster KingOfLoss.

Despite the massive amount of money he is owed, Cates is doing just fine for himself: “It’s rather unfortunate, and the only good thing is that I have plenty of money. Right now, though, I can’t play the stakes I was playing pre-Black Friday comfortably without selling a bit of action. People underestimate variance a lot, but I can play pretty high comfortably.”

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