Buried in your Friday news dump is a wild story in which Federal agents have reportedly seized documents and a ton of cash from one the nation’s largest football survivor pools, Ron & Mike’s Football Pool.
ESPN’s Darren Rovell broke this story Friday evening, and the details are pretty staggering. According to players who spoke to Rovell anonymously, there are at least five pools with at least $2.5 million earmarked to the winners.
“Please be advised that the Ron and Mike website has been forced to shut down at this time and is unlikely to open again,” said a note sent to people who were still alive in the pools. “We understand your frustration and anger at this time but closure of the pool is beyond our control. We apologize to those that are still alive in our various pools and we ask for your patience and understanding while we contemplate the next steps. Unfortunately at this time we cannot make any additional comments.”
Ron Kroenengold and Mike Bernstein are the two men who run the pool, and their lawyer Joe Conway has “confirmed that the website was voluntarily shut down after circumstances earlier in the week caused their business to be compromised.”
Conway said the only other information the men have been given is the search warrant that was used to seize the documentation and assets.
Rovell notes that if Kroenengold and Bernstein did not take any money from the winnings in these pools they did nothing to break the law. However, if they did take any money they’d be “charged with bookmaking and profiting from a gambling activity.”
“The men did plenty to conceal the operation,” Rovell writes. “Money to the pools, all in cash, was asked to be addressed to Green River in Plainview, N.Y. A mortgage brokerage called Green River Capital is in town, but neither man works there. The mailing address provided corresponds to a box inside a UPS store.”
Though they did those things, Rovell also noted the two men weren’t completely hiding their efforts. They applied for and were grated the trademark to the name “Ron & Mike’s” back in 2012.