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[Editor’s note- It’s important to know, before reading this article, since the time of this publication Dewey Tomko has come out and said he knows nothing about this published op-ed. You can read about that right here: Dewey Tomko – Subject of Op-Ed Hoax? ]

Oof.

Perhaps when WSOP bracelet winner Dewey Tomko signed on to be a part of the Online Poker Security movement, along with Bill Byers and James Thackson, he didn’t expect to take the abuse he’s received in the media this week.

Late last week we pushed a post cracking wise (as we are prone to do) about the motives behind Tomko’s Op-ed in the Press of Atlantic City. We surmised that they are really just looking for work.

Read: Poker Hall of Famer Dewey Tomko – Untested Online Poker May Destroy The Game

Well, this post got a discussion started over at Two Plus Two in which both 2p2 head honcho Mason Malmuth and PPA VP Rich “The Engineer” Muny chimed in. Also, photos surfaced showing that Dewey used to be a paid sponsor for pre-Black Friday site Doyle’s Room.

Getting the business on Two Plus Two is one thing but then both Haley Hintze over at Flushdraw and Steve Ruddock on 4Flush both had some rough words for the celebrity endorser of James Thackson’s online security business.

We’ll let Steve Ruddock unload first:

Read: How Dewey Tomko Sold Out the Poker Community

It was one thing when a no-name poker player (Bill Byers) was willing to sign on to James Thackston’s “I can prove collusion is possible in online poker” argument, but it’s another thing entirely for a Poker Hall of Famer and fairly well-respected player Dewey Tomko to sign his name on the dotted line of this abomination masquerading as legitimate research.

This is precisely what Dewey Tomko has done by joining forces with James Thackston. He has given this study some measure of credibility (at least in the eyes of laypeople), which is incredibly sad because Dewey has been around the game long enough to know better.

He goes on and talks about how banning online poker would actually help the cheaters…

An online poker ban would allow unlicensed sites to thrive, and then we could see another cheating scandal like what occurred at Absolute Poker or Ultimate Bet. The fear of soft collusion as a reason to call for a ban of online gambling opens the door for real, significant crimes.

Way to look out for your fellow poker players Dewey.

Hintz, as per her style, didn’t bother to pull any punches either.

Read: Dewey Tomko and the Weird Online Poker Flip-Flopping Sellout

This new editorial touches on those credits, but skips over the other side of Dewey Tomko. That’s the Dewey Tomko who for years served as paid spokesman for Doyle’s Room, which was one of those very same “unregulated offshore poker sites” that Tomko now seeks to pillory by way of enhancing his own reputation, and maybe try to get the inside line on a new paid gig, perhaps as a games-integrity consultant.

She goes on to cite him as a hustler of epic proportions.

The thing is, if the powers that be understood how much of an inveterate hustler Dewey Tomko was, they’d look six or seven times at his possible motivations for getting involved in this debate… in this way. Tomko is one of the two or three most legendary hustlers the combined poker-and-golf worlds have ever known…

Finally, she alludes to who Tomko may have used to run with back in the day…

One of Tomko’s long-time friends in the industry, and in that world of poker- and sports-hustling? That would be Russ Hamilton, the man who ripped off players of the site he partly owned, UltimateBet, for tens of millions of dollars.

As new legalized sites find their way into the marketplace, security, in all forms, are going to be a consistent issue. Where there is as much money as there is in online poker, there are people looking to fleece it of such. Perhaps even those who claim to want to protect us from that fleecing. Stay tuned!