Poker Pro Andrew Feldman Loses £156,000 Gambling With Rabbi

Full Tilt Poker Pro Andrew Feldman has just been lumbered with a hefty bill, after losing his £136,000 UK High Court battle against 34-year-old Rabbi Simon Nissim. He has also been saddled with an extra £20,000 in court costs.
UK poker pro Andrew Feldman is known to have a gambling streak in him and at the age of 18 managed to blow a $100,000 bankroll, which he built up over the space of a year and a half, in just one day. As he explained at the time:
“One night, I was coming home from the casino where’d I’d lost quite a bit of money..so I was a bit steamed up. I thought yeah, whatever, I’ll go and get it back from poker..It took just one bad beat and then I started playing bad and by the end of the night I’d done half the roll…within the next few hours all that had been wiped out.”
In a case of history repeating itself, Feldman apparently lost between £700,000 and £800,000 in the first week of October 2008 playing online poker, and was later persuaded by Simon Nissim to try an recoup his losses by spread betting on the Dow Jones.
According to Feldman, the deal entailed Simon Nissim placing the bets on his own account, on the understanding that any profits would go to Feldman, who would in turn indemnify Nissim against any potential losses. The controversy arose after Nissim placed 77 bets over a four-hour period and blew £136,000 on Feldman’s behalf. Felman then claimed that he had not authorised the rabbi to place such a “huge volume” of bets, but only agreed on around five bets a session, and that Nissim had tried to cheat him.
Despite his protestations, Deputy High Court judge Richard Snowden QC ordered Feldman to pay the huge debt and said it was “inherently unlikely” Nissim sought to cheat Feldman, as he had put his own money on the line first, and summed up the case by saying:
“The undisputed facts provide more than sufficient grounds upon which to conclude that Mr Feldman agreed to indemnify Mr Nissim and acknowledged that the amounts claimed by Mr Nissim fell within the scope of the agreed indemnity.”