Ejected Passenger On Overbooked Flight Is A Poker Player

By Brian Cullingworth, Last updated May 18, 2017

Dr David Dao’s brutal removal from an overbooked United Airlines flight went viral on social media

The internet was buzzing over the past 36 hours with the story of an unfortunate passenger who refused to give up his seat on an overbooked flight awaiting take-off from Chicago.

Dr. David Dao, a paying passenger resident in Kentucky who had checked in and boarded, was among several passengers in a similar situation who were chosen at random and asked to give up their seats to enable the airline to carry positioning crew members.

It is now known that Dao is also a respected live poker player with career earnings of over $250,000 and a World Series of Poker track record.

Dao indignantly refused to give up his seat and the situation went from bad to worse from there, culminating in Dao being forcibly removed and suffering injuries in the process after the aircraft captain called in Chicago Department of Aviation security officials.

The incident, and the manner in which it was handled both on-scene and subsequently, has created a PR nightmare for United… and quite possibly future litigation.

Brian Cullingworth

Infopowa news was a staple of Casinomeister’s news from 2000 until 2019. Brian Cullingworth was the main writer, contributor, and was one of the most knowledgeable persons I have ever known involved in the online casino industry.

We first met in January 2001 at the ICE in London where I observed him going booth to booth interviewing online casino, software, and licensing jurisdiction representatives. Brian was also heavily involved with our forum as “Jetset“, he was involved as an informal consultant to eCOGRA, the OPA, and was a player advocate who assisted countless aggrieved players with his connections to industry folks. He also published “Casino Cautions” via Infopowa news for quite a number of years. These can be found in our news archives.

His passing in February 2019 was a dark day for us. He will be forever missed.


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