An online casino is being sued for more than £600,000 it refused to pay because it said a punter literally didn’t “play the game”.

Natalie Teltscher — screen name ‘the VOid’ — was a joint winner in World Championship of Online Poker’s No Limits Hold’Em Main Event tournament held last September. Nearly 3,000 people played in the marathon event lasting 22 hours, at which time the two remaining players agreed to split the £1.3 million prize purse.

But online casino PokerStars.com claims Teltscher used a stand-in during the whole time, in breach of competition rules.

Sleight of Hand

The High Court on the Isle of Man has been told that because she never entered or played in the tournament that PokerStars.com was entitled to disqualify both the her and the third party player.

The case was yesterday adjourned to allow contractual issues to be addressed.

“This, on the face of it, is or should be a fairly simple case,” said High Court Deemster David Doyle in his interim judgement. “Either the plaintiff is contractually entitled to the monies or she is not. Either the defendant was entitled to disqualify the plaintiff or it was not.”