Sammy Farha Video Shows Dealer Shove; Doug Caillier Says He Lost Job
Surveillance video from a Houston cardroom shows poker legend Sammy Farha shoving a dealer in the chest. The dealer, Doug Caillier, says the player who ended up without a seat was him.
At around 3:30 a.m. last Thursday, 22 October 2026 by PokerNews' account (some outlets say 21 October), Sammy Farha was playing his usual $1/$3/$6 pot-limit Omaha game at Houston Social Cardroom. Two players were all in, and Farha, 67, was not in the hand. He accused dealer Doug Caillier of pulling a losing player's cards out of the muck and turning them face up. Caillier's side disputes that, and so did the losing player, according to witnesses quoted in the coverage.
PokerNews has now obtained the surveillance video. It shows Farha leaving his seat after a dealer change, walking around the table and squaring up to Caillier. A floor manager stepped between them and a security guard moved in. Farha then extended his left arm and shoved Caillier in the chest. The two met again near the cashier's cage, traded a few words, and Farha walked off. The video has no audio and a short gap near the end. Caillier says he was punched in the chest and stomach and that Farha tried to slap him. PokerNews notes the footage looks more like a shove than a punch.
$1.3 million. That is what Farha took home for finishing second to Chris Moneymaker in the 2003 WSOP Main Event, the result that made his name. Twenty three years later, the argument that put him in the headlines was over a muck at a tinu game by those standards.
The fallout has been lopsided. Caillier says he went to a Houston emergency room, was treated for minor injuries and released, and filed a police report. The club suspended him, and he says he does not expect to be asked back. In a Facebook statement he wrote: "Now I'm unemployed." Farha was reportedly banned for life at first, but PokerNews says he was seen inside the building a day later. None of the coverage the Post reviewed reports an arrest or charge, and the Post found no public statement from Farha.
Caillier is no rookie. He dealt at the WSOP in the 1990s and worked at Aria and Resorts World. Several dealers and players told PokerNews that Farha has a long record of berating dealers, and he was involved in a fight at Legends Poker Room in Houston a few years back. These are allegations from the room, not findings.
A dealer pushes every pot without a stake in it. This week the table kept running, and the chair that went empty was the one behind the cards. The Spirit keeps score of who stays standing when the lights over the felt go low.
Should a poker legend be banned for life over a shove?
No right answer. Just your gut, and the Spirit watching.
