Nick Vertucci, the co-owner of Hustler Casino Live, has received backlash for a comment he made about a trans member of the professional poker community.

Kylie McDaniel had called out the Hustler Casino Live podcast on Twitter for the way it approached the Jami Lafay spat:

Vertucci’s response is what caused a backlash on Twitter:

People instantly commented that the tweet was out of line, hateful, and disrespectful to the trans community. About five days later, Vertucci issued an apology:

Vertucci noted that the only person he was not apologizing to was Kylie. Some people were not happy with the apology itself, with one Twitter user labeling it as an “utterly cowardly non-apology” and saying that he was lying about trying to be respectful with his original tweet.

Vertucci has long courted controversy in the poker world. It was his show, Hustler Casino Live, that was at the center of the Robbi Jade Lew cheating scandal.