Maintaining their integrity
David Lappin and Dara O’Kearney, hosts of the popular “The Chip Race” poker podcast, have announced that they are cutting ties with WPT Global after the poker site signed Tony “Ren” Lin as an ambassador.
In a joint statement posted to social media on Tuesday, Lappin and Kearney said that when they joined up with WPT Global in June 2025, they did so because they “saw WPT Global making waves in the poker space and, in particular, in the Irish market. We wanted to be part of that and believed that our brands aligned, both in objectives and values.”
But WPT Global’s inking of Lin this week changed things, coming as a “shock” to the Irish duo.
“Given our personally held and outspoken views on the scandal surrounding him,” they said, “it was immediately obvious that our continued roles with the company were untenable. As a result, we are parting ways with WPT Global.
Lappin and O’Kearney added that they don’t have an “immediate plan for the future,” but hope to record more podcast episodes soon.
“The Chip Race,” which has won multiple Global Poker Awards, had been sponsored by Unibet for eight years, but that partnership ended on June 1, 2025. When the end of the sponsorship was announced last spring, Lappin and O’Kearney said they likely needed a new sponsor to keep things going, and fortunately came to an agreement with WPT Global quickly.
Lin helped friend cheat, still signed as ambassador
The scandal they reference occurred in October 2025, when Lin admitted to helping a friend in real time during a GGPoker tournament. That friend, who went by “RealOA” on GGPoker, won the site’s $10,000 GGMillion$ for $346,903. During the final table, he initiated a group chat with Lin and others, seeking assistance on a hand. Lin gave him advice on how to play it and that was pretty much that.
Afterward, third-place finisher “Buzzcut,” who was also part of the group chat but did not look at it during the tournament, saw RealOA thank Lin in the message thread. That prompted him to scroll through the conversation to see what was going on.
Lin apologized directly to Buzzcut for real-time coaching, but also called it “quite common and normal.” Buzzcut went public with screenshots of the message thread.
It didn’t take long for GGPoker to take action. It permanently banned RealOA from GGPoker and the World Series of Poker, which GGPoker owns. It “indefinitely suspended” Tony Lin from both brands’ events.
Lin issued a public apology for his actions, saying that he didn’t realize that RealOA’s hand was in play while they were talking, that he just wanted to help out a friend. GGPoker had disqualified RealOA from the tournament and took about a quarter million dollars from RealOA’s account to redistribute to the other players, and Lin voluntarily covered the remaining $96,000 in prize money.
That “indefinite” suspension was short-lived, as Lin participated in WSOP Paradise in December. And then, just yesterday, WPT Global announced him as its newest ambassador, to the resounding criticism of much of the poker community.
Image credit: PokerGO.com
