New book on Aussie internet gambling informer
News on 5 Jun 2013
News on 5 Jun 2013
A few years ago the name Daniel Tzvetkoff was on the lips of everyone in the online gambling business as the tale of the 26-year-old Australian payment processing whiz kid’s arrest at a conference in Las Vegas and his alleged informant status with the US enforcement authorities unfolded.
Tzvetkoff and his multi-million dollar antics eventually faded off the front pages of the media amid claims that he had been relocated in a witness protection program, but this week the giant online bookseller Amazon brought the memories back in an announcement on a new book.
“Alligator Blood”, written by author James Leighton, is being published by Simon and Schuster and will be available in the northern hemisphere autumn, apparently covering: “…the incredible true story of the rise and fall of online poker, the successes, the losses, and the whizz-kids, charlatans and FBI investigations.”
Other descriptions describe the book as portraying “…the amazing success stories, colourful personalities and corporate sponsors [that] came with the scandal and corruption, as anti-gambling laws shut down many sites while enterprising young upstarts invented new ways to get around them.
“Among these was Daniel Tzvetkoff, a 26-year-old Australian who set up an online service to disguise gambling revenues as legal payments. His website made him one of the richest people in Australia almost overnight, but his playboy lifestyle was not to last. Faced with lawsuits from all sides, as well as criminal investigations, he struck up a deal with the FBI in order to save his skin, one which would shake the online poker industry to its core.”
Author James Leighton is a former lawyer turned full time screen-writer and author who enjoyed success recently with his biography on Manchester United legend, Duncan Edwards, which became one of the best-selling football books on Amazon.
Leighton writes that he has moved away from sports books to write the non-fiction thriller centred on Tzetkoff.
“Alligator Blood focuses on the incredible true story of Daniel Tzvetkoff, a tech whiz-kid from Australia who became one of the youngest self-made millionaires in the world in 2008 before being declared bankrupt and blamed for the complete collapse of online poker in the USA,” Leighton writes.
