Man lies about having cancer to raise $30,000 to enter poker competition

A man has admitted to lying about terminal cancer to raise money to enter a poker tournament.

The Las Vegas World Series of Poker tournament is said to cost around $10,000, with the highest buy-in event at a staggering $250,000 for the Super High Roller.

Rob Mercer from California was so desperate to take part that he set up a GoFundMe page for his fake "stage 4 colon cancer".

In total, he swindled people out of thousands, which he later admitted it to the Las Vegas Review Journal.

"I did lie about having colon cancer. I don’t have colon cancer. I used that to cover my situation," he said. "What I did was wrong. 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."

He continued: "I’m sorry for not being honest about what my situation was. If I would have done that from day one, who knows what would have happened."

A spokesperson for the crowdfunding website told the outlet that donators will be getting full refunds.

"GoFundMe has zero tolerance for the misuse of our platform and takes swift action against those who exploit the generosity of our community," they said.

"We have removed this fundraiser for violating our terms of service, all donors have been fully refunded, and Rob Mercer has been banned from using the platform for any future fundraisers. Additionally, GoFundMe cooperates with law enforcement investigations of those formally accused of wrongdoing."

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