- Name: Matt Funke
- Amount Owed: $86 552
- Instagram: mattyfunke
- Website: SandIslandSports.com
- Website: “starwagering.com“
- Phone number: (310) 339-0707
- Second Phone number: (310) 500-7672
- City: Los Angeles
- Other Notes:
Scammer Detail: I had pretty much given up on this guy until I just saw he joined Telegram this morning using his original phone number (310) 339-0707. I still don’t hold out much hope for myself, but I would like to do whatever I can to prevent others from getting scammed by him. You should also check out his Instagram at “mattyfunke”. He pretends to be some Hollywood playboy when in reality he’s just a run of the mill PPH scammer. Back when this all went down in 2020, I had a private investigator look into him. With a few redactions, below is what I sent to the PI team back in 2020. Please let me know if you would like to see the screenshots described as additional proof.
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I was first connected with Matt Funke in August 2018 through xxxxxxx, a mutual acquaintance. I never actually met Matt as he operated in the Los Angeles area and I lived in New York so all of our correspondence was via phone/text at his number (310) 339-0707.
Up until Fall 2020, the relationship between Matt and I was a pretty typical agent/player relationship. I would do most of the betting on the PPH site SandIslandSports.com that Matt and his unnamed partners operated and when I won or lost more than the “meetup” number my partner, xxxxxxxx would meet with one of Matt’s runners in the LA area to exchange cash. Below is our first such exchange on September 10, 2018.
Occasionally, when the amount owed was large. I would send a wire to Matt from my checking account. These wires were usually (but not always) to Funke Entertainment LLC as seen in an example of such a conversation below. The first week of February 2020, after the Super Bowl, I deposited a cashiers check for $31,339 into an account belonging to Kagasoff Management and Edon Kagasoff. It is unknown whether Mr. Kagasoff is one of Matt’s partners or another client who was owed.
After making this payment, I did not correspond with Matt until September 24, 2020 when I was owed $64,132. I texted him on each of September 24, 25, and 26 and received no response to any of these messages from his (310) 339-0707 number.
On the afternoon of September 26, 2020, Matt texted me from a new number (310) 500-7672 asking me to call him at that number. In this conversation, Matt informed me that his house was raided in February and that my account had been transferred to another agent “Mike” and that Matt was no longer in the bookmaking business. He said he would talk to “Mike” and work on getting me payment and that he would have an update for me by the next day. As shown in the conversation above, neither Matt nor “Mike” contacted me on the next day (September 27, 2020) and instead, I contacted Matt on September 28, 2020 for an update. He replied to me the following day (Tuesday) promising that “Mike” would contact me on either Thursday or Friday.
I suspected that Matt was lying to me and pushed back on his promise. He assured me that he was in fact raided by “the feds” and kept reiterating that he was trying to help me. When I did not hear from “Mike” on any of the promised dates and I called into “the office” which is the customer service line for the Pay-Per-Head (PPH) sportsbook service that Matt’s operation had utilized. There, I spoke with “Dan” who verified that Matt was no longer the point person for my account and that he had in fact turned over his accounts to “Mike”, who had not been in contact with them for over a week.
“Dan” also told me that even though Matt was no longer responsible for my account, he was still involved with the operation and was receiving a percentage of customer losses for the accounts he had turned over to “Mike”. To me, the fact that Matt had a continued financial interest in my account and others was incongruent with his claim that he was no longer involved in the business, so I pushed back on him further. Matt responded to me by threatening to give my cell phone number to “the feds” and again reiterating that he was trying to help me. At this point, I stopped corresponding with Matt. I still call the PPH office about once a month to see whether they have heard from either Matt or “Mike” and as of today (April 28, 2021) they have not. The PPH tells me that they have terminated their relationship with “Mike” for non-payment and do not hold out much hope that they will recoup any of the money that they are owed.
At the time when I stopped contacting Matt in early October 2020, I was owed $86,552 by him and “Mike” as shown below in a screenshot from the PPH site, “starwagering.com“.
