Hustler Casino Live is a poker stream. It runs out of the Hustler Casino in Gardena, California, just south of Los Angeles. The cameras read every hole card through an RFID chip embedded in each playing card. The broadcast runs on a thirty-minute delay so no one at the table can use the feed.
On the night of September 29, 2022, the stream was playing a 100 dollars and 200 dollars no-limit hold'em cash game. The minimum buy-in was 20 thousand dollars. The maximum was 100 thousand.
Garrett Adelstein was in seat one. He had played on Hustler Casino Live more than any other recreational professional and was widely respected as one of the strongest live cash-game players in the world. Robbi Jade Lew was in seat three. She had played on the stream only a handful of times and was almost completely unknown outside of the Los Angeles game.
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The hand began with Adelstein raising preflop with eight of clubs and seven of clubs. Three players called. Lew called from the blinds with jack of clubs and four of hearts. The flop came ten of clubs, ten of hearts, nine of clubs. Adelstein had an open-ended straight flush draw. Lew had jack high, no pair, no draw of any kind.
Adelstein bet 2,500 dollars. Lew raised to 5,000. Two players folded. Adelstein called. The turn came the three of hearts. Adelstein checked. Lew bet 10,000. Adelstein raised to 20,000. Lew called.
The pot was now 88,000 dollars. The river came the three of clubs, missing every draw on the board. Adelstein moved all-in for his remaining 109,000 dollars, hoping that Lew would fold whatever marginal pair she might be holding. Lew thought for a long time. She called. Adelstein turned over his hand. Lew turned over her hand. Lew had won the 269 thousand dollar pot with jack-high.
The room went silent. Adelstein walked away from the table. He returned a few minutes later and asked Lew directly, on camera, whether she had cheated. She offered him the money back. He took it.
The next morning, Adelstein posted a 1,800-word statement on Twitter alleging that Lew must have known what he was holding. The clip went viral. By the end of the week, the hand had been viewed more than 15 million times across YouTube and Twitter. By the end of the year, the total was more than 25 million.
Hustler Casino announced an independent investigation by the Los Angeles law firm of Manatt, Phelps and Phillips. The firm reviewed the broadcast tape, the RFID system logs, the security camera footage, and the seating arrangements. The investigators found no evidence that Lew had received any signal during the hand. They published their report on April 3, 2023, and concluded that there was no support for the cheating allegation.
There was a separate incident. After the hand, a Hustler Casino employee named Bryan Sagbigsal stole 15,000 dollars in chips from Lew's stack while clearing the table. He admitted the theft to Hustler Casino security within 48 hours. He returned the chips. The casino fired him. He was not criminally charged because Lew declined to press charges. The Sagbigsal theft was unrelated to the cheating allegation, but for several weeks it was widely cited online as supposed evidence of an inside-job signaling system.
Adelstein has not played on Hustler Casino Live since the night of the hand. Lew has played a handful of times. As of 2026, the two have never appeared at the same table again. Adelstein has not publicly retracted his cheating allegation. Lew has not sued him. The two principal documentary series about the hand, both released in 2023, came to opposite conclusions about whether cheating occurred and presented the same available evidence.
The hand is now the most-watched single cash-game hand in poker history. It produced no criminal charges, no civil suits, and no formal regulatory action. It produced one fired Hustler Casino employee. It produced one investigation report saying no cheating happened and a permanent split in the live-stream poker audience over whether the report was correct. For most viewers, the question of whether Robbi Jade Lew cheated is now a Rorschach test. The video is on YouTube. You can watch it and decide.