Absolute Poker Ultimate Bet Unethical Business Practice

As you may or may not be aware our company (which owns this site poker-prop.net) made a network wide decision to remove Absolute Poker and Ultimate Bet from our website as soon as the rumors of insider cheating at Absolute Poker came out in September 2007. At the time we did not have much of a forum or a section on our website to post the reasons behind our decision, so it seemed out of place and odd to give a detailed reason at the time. Also it was not known until recently that this removal would turn into a decision to NEVER under ANY circumstances promote either of these sites again, and we’ve also decided to give preferences to sites not promoting both Absolute Poker and Ultimate Bet when making business decision regarding joint partnership. There are however a couple situations where that is not possible to do as it would not be in our own player’s best interest (specifically prop teams we are affiliated with whose management continues to promote AP and UB). If we did not continue to work with these teams it would be disadvantageous to our players interest and therefore we make some limited exceptions. The bottom line is we are full supporters of organized Absolute Poker and Ultimate Bet Boycotts and may also be willing to financially contribute to private groups dedicated to exposing the unethical business practices employed by these two online poker rooms.

For those of you who do not know, Absolute Poker and Ultimate Bet are both owned by Tokwiro Enterprises ENRG, a private company ran by Joe Norton, the former Grand Chief of the Mohawk Territory of Kahnawake, Canada.

While our words might seem harsh as NEVER under ANY circumstances is a strong statement we will reveal in this detailed summary the following information.

Absolute Poker knew for some time that cheating had occurred at their online poker room involving employees of their company and made many attempts to cover it up, and to thwart investigation of the crime. Their only admission of guilt came after damning evidence was presented against them, and after they had been caught red handed in multiple lies.

Also in this post we will show that there is currently substantial evidence suggesting beyond a reasonable doubt that:

• A similar cheating scandal took place at Ultimate Bet
• Ultimate Bet was fully aware of this cheating scandal long before allegations of the said cheating scandal were made public.
• It was employees of Ultimate Bet that perpetrated (or made possible) the scandal.
• Ultimate Bet not only new about the cheating scandal but helped assists the cheaters to pull of off this scandals and also took several steps to both cover up the crime and thwart investigation of the said crime.

As it stands with now Ultimate Bet has accepted no responsibility, admitted no wrong doing, nor have they returned any of the estimated 1.5 million dollars stolen from their players, by a ring that had access to their opponents hole cards. No indication has been made that this issue will ever be resolved.

So while NEVER under ANY circumstances might be harsh, this is a company that has lied, covered up and also in all likelihood engaged in criminal activities. After having covered this up for so long there is little Absolute Poker or Ultimate Bet could do that would ever cause us to desire to promote them again. I feel rather confident I’ll never regret having used the word NEVER.

Here are the facts, starting with the Absolute Poker cheating scandal which has been resolved and leading to the Ultimate Bet cheating scandal which is still open and seems unlikely to be resolved.

Absolute Poker Cheating Scandal

August 2007 – The Absolute Poker $1,000 buy-in weekly tournament is won by a player named POTRIPPER. During the tournament he sees the flop an abnormally high percentage of the time and played remarkable poker after the flop (as if he knew exactly what each player was holding). The final hand of this tournament saw POTRIPPER call a massive check raise all in on a board of 4-K-K-7 while holding Jack – Nine. He had no pair, no draw, but his opponent was on a major semi bluff holding 9-2 suited for four cards to a flush. His opponent (Marco Johnson playing under the username CrazyMarco) who held the 9-2 believed that he had been cheated so he contacted Absolute Poker asking for the hand history to be emailed to him so he could look for suspicious play. Absolute Poker responded saying they had reviewed the hand history and did not find anything suspicious about the play. They did send Johnson an encrypted excel file however going through it would have been quite the task and because Absolute Poker said they did not find any suspicious play he decided to not examine the file any further for the time being.

Suspicious activity first posted online

September 2007, This thread was started on 2+2 noting suspicious activity of 3 player accounts at Absolute Poker, user names: STEAMROLLER, GREYCAT and DOUBLEDRAG who despite playing in such a way that is mathematically proven to be losing strategy, they were all crushing the $150/$300 fixed limit Hold’em games for massive profits many degrees higher than the means of the best players in the world.
After a few other high stakes players indicated they’ve also noticed suspicious play and all had never booked a winning session against these players a group effort was organized to examine compiled hand histories involving these players. This examination showed that each of these players played an abnormal high percentage of hands and after the flop played near perfect poker. Every single situation where one of their opponents made river bluffs, these named players would raise forcing their opponents to fold. Additionally these named players who rarely folded hands put very little money into pots when their opponents held strong hands (they knew exactly when to fold). After 5,251 hands involving these opponents where studied the following scatter chart was produced and posted by 2+2 poster Nat Arem..

The blue dots represent a group of random players in which 2500 Fixed Limit Holdem hands had been compiled using a variety of online poker rooms and stakes. The vertical placement of this dot is a player’s VPIP which shows the percentage of time a player voluntarily put money into the pot (non blind money). The horizontal position of the blue dot is a player’s average big bet win rate per 100 hands (notice the left side is negative, the right side is positive).

The red dot on the scatter plot is that of the alleged cheating accounts. This image shows that these alleged cheating account won an unprecedented 15 standard deviations above the mean; Odds of this occurring naturally are mathematic improbability, in fact the odds of a DNA test being wrong are many times more likely and people go to jail often over DNA testing results.

Convinced that STEAMROLLER, GREYCAT and DOUBLEDRAG were able to see their opponent’s hole cards, high stakes player’s petitioned Absolute Poker to provide detailed hand histories and assist in the investigation. Despite weeks of phone calls and emails from high stakes players AP continued to ignore the evidence.

Absolute makes first public statement

On October 12, Absolute Poker finally responds to this situation publicly. Several items in this public statement were later proved to false and/or blatant presumably intentional lies.

Originally Posted by Official Absolute Poker Response To Player Fraud Allegations

Absolute Poker takes all allegations of player fraud and collusion extremely seriously. Fair play and security are of paramount importance to us. Our Security and Fraud Department is dedicated to ensuring that everyone on the site has a fair opportunity to win, and that no improper methods, devices, programs and/or other unfair advantages are ever utilized in our games.

We were greatly concerned by a recent thread on the 2+2 forums along with emails and other communications we received, regarding alleged player fraud. We thank the vigilant players who reported this matter to us, giving us an opportunity to investigate these serious allegations. We spent extensive resources thoroughly investigating and analyzing our players’ claims. While our investigation is ongoing, we feel that we have enough information at this point to share with you some of our findings.

Please be advised, that we will continue to investigate each and every claim of wrong-doing on an individual basis and we will report any further significant findings that are appropriate for public review. Also, please keep in mind, while we endeavor to provide as much information as possible on a public level, we take our players’ privacy issues very seriously, and will never compromise this. As a matter of Company policy, Absolute Poker never divulges personal information about our players nor do we make public any hand information that did not go to a showdown, ever. As a result, we are limited in terms of the level of information that we can provide for public review.

In response to the allegations, we froze the accounts of the players in question while we performed an extensive investigation. The result of our investigation is that we found no evidence that any of Absolute Poker’s redundant and varying levels of game client security were compromised. In other words, we have determined with reasonable certainty that it is impossible for any player or employee to see hole cards as was alleged. There is no part of the technology that allows for a “superuser” account, and there is no way for any person to influence the game software to their advantage. We base this finding on a thorough security check on a technological level, coupled with a thorough investigation of hand histories including those that did not go to a showdown. As a part of our investigation, we also tested the integrity of our certified random number generator (“RNG”.) We determined that our RNG was not compromised either.

Details of the investigation
We combed through all hands involving the accounts that were mentioned in the online forums. Please note that only a select number of hands were featured in the threads. Our ongoing investigation continues to show that there were countless instances where a somewhat unorthodox Poker strategy resulted in a loss. Allegations that the player accounts at issue “always guessed right” are unfounded.

We examined screen shots from Poker Tracker Software that displayed an “infinite” river aggression factor for one of the player accounts at issue. We examined similar screen shots which showed a lower but still relatively high river aggression factor. We were very concerned by this anomaly.

Accordingly, we reviewed each and every hand that this player played during the relevant time period and determined that while the play was extremely aggressive, particularly on the river, there were several instances where the player merely called on the river. Thus, the allegation that the player accounts at issue “never called on the river, they either raised or folded” are also without merit.

With respect to the allegation of chip dumping, we have determined that chip dumping by at least one of the accounts at issue, did in fact, take place. We have determined that the chip dumping was made to several seemingly unrelated accounts. We are continuing to investigate this issue.
Conclusion

A ‘super-user’ account does not exist in our software. Absolute Poker was created by Poker players who value security and fair play. The back-end of the Absolute Poker software prevents the possibility of any such feature. Our game client only receives data regarding an individual’s hand and no other player hole cards are ever visible – by anyone – except in the event of a showdown. Having said that, we will continue this investigation as well as look into any other allegations of wrong-doing. If appropriate, we will freeze funds and reimburse effected players.

Absolute Poker remains a 100% secure place to play. We value all of our players and we will continue to provide our community with a safe, secure and exciting online Poker experience.

The Absolute Poker Management

High Stakes players at 2+2 were convinced that cheating had occurred at Absolute Poker but without assistance from Absolute Poker (hand histories) there was no way to proceed any further.

The case blown wide open

Marcus Johnson (crazymarco) came across the cheating allegation posted on the 2+2 forum and was reminded of the incident a couple months earlier when he suspected that POTRIPPER had cheated in the $1000 buy-in Absolute Poker Tournament. He decided to go back and look at the file he had been sent and it was revealed that this file included the hand histories and down cards of every player through out the entire tournament. This was information that just 24 hours previous to the tournament, Absolute Poker had denied any employee would have access to. They had previously stated (in what had now been revealed to be a lie) that their database only stored hole cards that made it to show down.

Within hours helpful forum posters were able to convert this file into a format which they could be shown with all cards exposed on a hand replayer. The entire tournament replayed with all hole cards exposed can now be watched on YouTube.

POTRIPPER VIDEO PART 1

POTRIPPER VIDEO PART 2

POTRIPPER VIDEO PART 3

POTRIPPER VIDEO PART 4

Anyone who watches this video will see beyond any shadow of a doubt POTRIPPER knew what his opponents held on every single hand.

The motivation for cheating is obvious, all that was left in question was how did this player gain access to all players cards AND who was behind this cheating? These questions where answered when one of the collaborators investigating the hand history discovered that the file sent to them included user details as well as hands. Specifically the file included players IP address and email addresses, not only for players who participated in this tournament, but also for observers as well.

It was discovered that account #363 had observed PotTripper during the entire tournament. This account was later revealed to be the one in which had access to players hole cards. It was further revealed that both account #363 and POTRIPPER had IP addresses that traced back to Absolute Poker’s own servers. The IP address on account #363 matched that of another observer account with an email address of scott@rivieraltd.com, which allegedly is the email address of Scott Tom, said to be a major share holder and co-founder of Absolute Poker. Further investigation revealed that rivieraltd.com’s mail server IP (66.212.244.147) was allocated to Absolute Entertainment SA at Mohawk Internet Technologies data center (po12.dr4.kdca.mohawk.ca.

A couple hours after this information became public the DNS information at rivieraltd.com had been deleted. Obviously the perpetrators of this crime were paying close attention to the investigation as it was updated on forums. The deletion of the DNS was an obvious attempt to remove tracks.

Absolute Poker Caught in Multiple Lies

While it’s irrelevant to this case, in a post on Poker Affiliate World, which has been since deleted, an affiliate manager of Absolute Poker named Daniel made a claim that there was no evidence these players had cheated or “chip-dumped”. The chip-dumping part was obviously a false statement and perhaps not an intentional lie, but it was a lie and for the first time revealed the incompetence of Absolute Poker’s staff to respond factually on this matter. Also not important to the evidence a customer support rep perhaps made a Freudian slip (although more likely was a language barrier and a poor choice of words) that 99.9% of their players can not see others hole cards. These situations though are all minor as Absolute Poker had been caught red handed in the lies that mattered most.

For example AP claimed: ”We spent extensive resources thoroughly investigating and analyzing our players’ claims.” And “The result of our investigation is that we found no evidence that any of Absolute Poker’s redundant and varying levels of game client security were compromised.” When in fact, it would it is impossible for anyone to view the entire hand history of the POTRIPPER tournament play without immediately realizing that this user had access to players hole cards.

Further more Absolute Poker stated, ”we have determined with reasonable certainty that it is impossible for any player or employee to see hole cards as was alleged. There is no part of the technology that allows for a “superuser” account” later Absolute Poker would admit that this is exactly what happened, a super user account was accessed and view all their opponents hole cards.

Additionally Absolute Poker said”We base this finding on a thorough security check on a technological level, coupled with a thorough investigation of hand histories including those that did not go to a showdown” however the odds of POTRIPPER correctly guessing the way he had through out the tournament were about equivalent to the odds of winning the state lottery two days in a row.

Conclusion on Absolute Poker Cheating Scandal

Player’s money was only returned and Absoulte Poker only admitted the cheating after they had been caught red handed in a cover up. Prior to being caught red handed, Absolute Poker adamantly denied such cheating had occurred and indicated no intention to return money which was stolen from their players.

Absolute Poker has tried to spin this story favorably and in what should be considered an outrage and mockery even went as far as to state they’ll start a series of poker security summits to show how their system was compromised and how others can avoid it.

The bottom line here folks is Absolute Poker knew their security was compromised, adamantly denied it, blatantly lied and went out of their way to cover it up, all until they were caught with their pants down and their hands in the cookie jar. Nothing Absolute Poker has done to this point should be considered at all admirable.

What might of happened had Absolute Poker not been caught red handed?

Well actually we have some insight on how it might have played out but first let’s catch you up to speed.

Absolute Poker and Ultimate Bet are both owned by Tokwiro Enterprises ENRG, a private company ran by Joe Norton, the former Grand Chief of the Mohawk Territory of Kahnawake, Canada.

Both Absolute Poker and Ultimate Bet are licensed by Kahnawake Gaming Commission which is the regulatory arm of the Mohawk Territory in Canada.

Guess what? Evidence strongly suggests that a cheating scandal at Ultimate Bet has robbed players of millions of dollars as well, and considering this time the hand histories will not be released, this time the perpetrator has gotten away with it and no money has been returned and no admittance of wrong doing or admittance of security issues at Ultimate Bet have occurred.

Details on Ultimate Bet Cheating Scandal

January 2008, a group of forum posters examining their hand history stumble upon Ultimate Bet accounts which had a similar win rate and playing style to those of POTRIPPER, and the other accounts alleged to have been used for cheating at Absolute Poker.

The first account discovered as NioNio who managed in 64 hours of play to win $600K playing No Limit Texas Hold’em at Ultimate Bet. In the first 2,984 hands examined NioNio had won 293,677.16; a rate of approximately 155 big blinds per 100 hands played (bb/100).

The following scatter plot originally posted on 2+2 by Josem gives indication of his success compared to other player.


About this scatter chart. The blue dots represent the win rates of 870 poker players all taken from various stakes and poker room at No Limit Texas Hold’em games. There are a minimum of 2500 hands logged on each of these users, and the dots indicate average win rate per 100 hands (horizontal position) and Voluntarily Put Money in Pot (vertical position). He yellow dot represents NioNio stats.

Very few players who seen as many flops as NioNio won much at all (most lost), in fact the amount of winnings by all those players who seen even close to the amount of flops he had combined is fairly insignificant compared to the distance he has on them on the right side of the chart.

According to this data about 95% of all No Limit Texas Hold’em players average a win rate between -26.5bb/100 and +29.5bb/100.
The mathematic probability that NioNio could of won 155bb/100 with this accounted sample size is a 1 in 131,236,127,000,000,000,000,000; this approximately the equivalent odds of the same individual winning the Powerball Jackpot 3 days in a row.

This of course implies beyond a shadow of any reasonable doubt that NioNio, unless having advanced psychic abilities, had access to each player’s hole cards.

On January 12th Ultimate Bet was notified of this evidence and would be reminded of it multiple times daily from there on out. It was not until many weeks later, March 6, 2008 that Ultimate Bet broke their silence and made the following statement (which to date is the only statement they’ve made on the issue).

Originally Posted by Originally Posted by Ultimate Bet

Montreal, Canada (March 6, 2008) – UltimateBet (UB), one of the ten largest online Poker cardrooms, today issued the following interim statement with respect to allegations of unfair play on its site.
“On January 12, 2008, UltimateBet was alerted to allegations that a player with the online handle “NioNio” exhibited abnormally high winning statistics and was accused of having an unfair advantage during play. These allegations were made both directly to UltimateBet by concerned players and the KGC, and indirectly through several web forums. The allegations also included reports of suspicious activity concerning the deletion of the NioNio account and other accounts that may have been related to this scheme.

“We immediately launched an extensive inquiry involving an independent third-party expert to review hundreds of thousands of hand histories, all of which were promptly locked down and made available to this expert. The initial findings of our third-party expert confirm that the NioNio account’s winning statistics were indeed abnormal, and we have expanded the investigation to look into whether an unfair advantage existed, how such a scheme might have been perpetrated, and whether additional accounts beyond those of NioNio were involved.

“UltimateBet is in regular communications and contact with its regulatory authority, The Kahnawake Gaming Commission (KGC), and will continue to cooperate fully with that body.

“UltimateBet is determined to complete a full and thorough investigation. We pride ourselves on providing a safe, secure playing environment for our customers. The investigation has proven to be extremely complex and, therefore, has been more extensive and taken much longer than initially expected. We continue to aggressively pursue the matter and will communicate the findings of our full investigation to our regulatory authority and to our customer base as soon as practicable.”

Incriminating details regarding Ultimate Bet’s cover up

The NioNio account stopped playing on September 4, 2007; the same week which the Absolute Poker cheating allegation where first made public. Also a search of his account using UltimateBuddy, a tool that tracks Ultimate Bet players revealed after this date his account no longer existed. What are the odds of coincidence that the most success poker player in the history of Ultimate Bet would decide to cashed out and cancel his account the same week that news of a cheating scandal perpetrated by an insider at Absolute Poker (which is owned by the same company that owns Ultimate Bet)?

Here is the problem with that situation. If you’re management for Ultimate Bet / Absolute Poker and you honestly had no knowledge of the cheating which took place (as was claimed at the time) and the most successful player ever to have played on your poker room cashes out $600K and request to have his account closed at the same time your company is being investigating for the largest known cheating scandal in poker history, wouldn’t you take a really close look at his request?

Second problem: Suppose the account was closed because this player did trigger security alarms, this would mean Ultimate Bet confiscated the funds but none of the players cheated were notified nor has any received any reimbursements.

Third problem: Suppose the player simply changed usernames. Again if right in the middle of a major cheating allegation at another site your company owns, a player whose win rate far exceed those of any poker player in history asks for a username change, would this not warrant serious look into his account?

Over four months have passed since Ultimate Bet received notification of this mathematically improbably win rate and yet no indication whatsoever has been given that the players cheated will have their funds returned nor has Ultimate Bet claimed any sort of responsibility for the situation.

More cheating accounts found at Ultimate Bet:
A few days after the NioNio cheating allegations were made, members of the poker community got together looking for other accounts which played the same 60/40 style (60% voluntarily puts money in pot / 40% preflop raise) and displayed win rates multiple times better than the best No Limit Hold’em players in the world.

Ten usernames were discovered which were: Flatbroke33, iLike2win, monizzzle, nionio, nopaddles, nymobser, nvtease, sleeplesss, stoned2nite, utakeit2, and whackme44.

Interesting note:8 of these 10 account had shown up on Ultimate Buddy as “account no longer exists” (indicating the account had been closed or the name changed). The other two accounts were deleted within 24 hours of being referenced on 2+2 as a suspicious account (obviously the perpetrators of the scam were following the evidence being shared on 2+2 closely).

Here are the win rates shared on 2+2 thread (linked in credits on bottom of page):

The date next to their name indicates the last date they played on Ultimate Bet;
Flatbroke33 = 8/11, 65.5 PTbb/100 over 3753 hands- deleted or name changed.
iLike2win = 6/22, 37.34 PTbb/100 over 5545 hands - deleted or name changed.
Nionio = 9/4, 57.3 PTbb/100 over 8100 hands - name changed to nymobser.
Nopaddles = 8/31, 89.6 PTbb/100 over 1508 hands - name changed to sleepless.
Nymobser = 9/26, 46.7 PTbb/100 over 899 hands - now deleted or name changed. This name was still active when it was first mentioned in the HSNL thread, but within 24 hours of it being identified in the thread the account was closed.
Monizzle = 11/20, 38.51PTbb/100 over 2265 hands - deleted or name changed.
Sleeplesss = 9/22, 98.87 PTbb/100 over 1561 hands - now deleted or name changed. This name was still active when it was first mentioned in the HSNL thread, but within 24 hours of it being identified in the thread the account was closed.
stoned2nite = 6/30, 129.2 PTbb/100 over 777 hands - deleted or name changed.
Utakeit2 = 8/29, 45.41 PTbb/100 over 8046 hands - deleted or name changed.
Whackme44 = 8/20, 47.73 PTbb/100 over 946 hands - deleted or name changed.
For the 7 accounts out of 10 that we received detailed records on, their total take was over $1.5 million. It is still unknown how much the other 3 accounts stole.

More incriminating evidence against Ultimate Bet

Nat Arem, who for those of you don’t know him is a quite credible source as he worked heavily in the Absolute Poker investigation and his works in the poker community are well known. He was the founder of thepokerdb, and is also involved in several other projects such as pddollars, thepokerfilm and others. Anyways, Nat through contacts he had from the Absolute Poker cheating investigation uncovered this damaging evidence:

• The NioNio account was changed to nymobser.
• The Nopaddles account was changed to sleeplesss.
• The changes were made on the same day.

It is improbable to believe that Ultimate Bet allowed two of their most successful players in the history of the site, one being the most successful players in history of No Limit Texas Hold’em (PERIOD), who both employed the 60/40 playing style to both changed their account usersnames on the same day.

It’s also improbably to think that no employee of Ultimate Bet suspected cheating, and what did they do? Rather than stop it they assisted the cheaters in their scandal by allowing them to change usernames in order to circumvent detection.

Our Conclusion Regarding Ultimate Bet and Absolute Poker Unethical Business Practice

It is clear the Ultimate Bet and Absolute Poker have been involved in cover ups, and at the very least one or more of their high ranking employees have been involved in criminal activity. If you take these unethical business practices seriously, your best course of action is to help reduce the poker room’s money supply.

I’ll warn you though all you can really do is your part. As long as sites continue to take deposits from fish, you’ll never bring down an empire the size of Absolute Poker or Ultimate Bet. There will always be affiliates making claims like Absolute Poker and Ultimate Bet are the best sites to play at now because all the pros left and there are only fish now. However valid this point might be there are still heaps or fishy games at Cake Poker, Bodog and other sportsbook focused rooms and networks. If you’re outside the US look no further than the Boss Media Network. They’re a bit larger than Ultimate Bet and I assure you the games are as soft as or softer than Ultimate Bet’s games.

Don’t let what others do discourage you. If you’re boycotting these rooms you’re not alone. (and we commend you for doing the right thing). There are many others doing the same, encourage one another and praise and give business to affiliates and companies that choose not to market shady rooms also many of these sites lost revenue when making this decision, an email note telling them you appreciate them removing these companies might go along way . If you open your next copy of Bluff Magazine or CardPlayer magazine and see a full page Ultimate Bet ad, cancel your subscription. If you visit certain poker sites regularly and you notice an Ultimate Bet ad, take a look around and see if maybe there is not a site with similar content that does not promote them. For example, I stopped visiting one site promoting Ultimate Bet recently and started visiting PokerPages instead. Don’t get to fanatic about it that it bothers you what others are doing, simply do you part and when you have another alternative use it.

For example we still have a relationship with a couple prop teams whose parent company markets these two rooms and we probably won’t be changing that either. If there was another alternative we’d take it, however these partners offer our players great value elsewhere and we feel it would be a big disservice to not provide our props with these offers. Also if you play at either room, we won’t hold it against you personally. We’ll just do our part to discourage others from patronizing these sites.

Article Credits: I claim no credit for the facts and details provided in this article. If anyone would like for me to link to their specific post or link to other source credits of the website, kindly PM me at this forum or email me at jim @ this site name and I’ll be happy to do so.

Much of the data, images, references to posts etc used in this article are courtesy of posts made at High Stake No Limit Forums. We’d couldn’t possibly cover this topic without giving a big shout out and thanks to all the players who worked hard on investigating these cheating scandals and those who really came together to catch Absolute Poker red handed, you guys are heros in our book.

This summary post on 2+2 was a major source for this article. Also wanted to give Nat Arem a link for the big roll he played in this. Other credits made available upon request.

Great post.
I have not seen the details in these stories untill now.
I agree with you 100%.

I played at Absolute once and would have gone back if it weren't for the scandal. I now don't play nor promote Absolute or UB. They suck anyway. Noones missing out on anything.

I have followed this story ever since it came out. I was posting at pocketfives at that time. But I never read UB's statement.

It's a ridiculous thing. It's fucked up.

Phil Hellmuth needs to get the fuck out of UB. I don't know if he's still their "poster child" or whatever, but he needs to go elsewhere.

Regarding the poker film, that was the cause of one of my bans on pocktfives, by the way. I actually think it was Nat who banned me, with his moderator privledges. I don't care for him. It was a fucked up thing to do, ban me because I suggested him and his buddies donate to charity. Truly fucked up.

Great post Jim.

Excellent recap of the situation Jim.

I'm a big Phil Hellmuth fan and I would really like to hear his opinion about all of this. We HAVE to assume that he is aware of it right? And it's surprising that we haven't heard anything about Hellmuth's take on it, I mean he has a blog, he's out in the public a lot. I don't know where I'm going with this, but I'm losing respect for him that he hasn't made any kind of statement and is still promoting them. Although, I do not know what kind of contract they have or that kind of thing, however, it still makes me ponder.

I found a link for boycott UB t-shirts
http://www.printfection.com/stopthecheating

Another discussion of this topic has started in 2+2 NVG forum (Link)

I recently came across an interesting site, which among other things

kept a blacklist.

http://wizardofodds.com/blacklist

There is also a link to another blacklist on that page.

Another interesting thing is that the only site recommended by him

is Bodog (Bodog is discussed elsewhere in this forum - thread about

malware..)

I've always liked Wizard of Odds site. They used to promote a few other sites but a few years ago changed to just promoting Bodog. At the time they did so I would of given Bodog a top recommendation also as their payouts were lightening fast, I never seen any indication all aspects of their business were run at all unfair, customer service was top notch and the company has always been more than willing to work with watchdog sites and timely resolve disputes.

I still see no problems with recommending Bodog but my only hesitancy is their involvement with Kahnawake Gaming commission which I'm not a fan of. In my opinion this this is just a legal cover though and Bodog remains licensed for their outside of North American business by the strictest of gambling commissions and they have a solid track record.

I know this is a bit but I don't mind being a bit so on anything that relates to protecting players funds and knowing where is safe to play.

http://www.ultimatebet.com/poker-new...ionio-findings

ULTIMATEBET ISSUES STATEMENT REGARDING UNFAIR PLAY

MONTREAL, CANADA (MAY 29, 2008) --- Tokwiro Enterprises ENRG ("Tokwiro"), proprietors of UltimateBet.com ("UltimateBet"), one of the world's largest online card rooms, today announced the results of its lengthy investigation into allegations of unfair play, which was triggered by concerns about an account named 'NioNio'. Tokwiro has worked diligently in cooperation with its regulatory body, the Kahnawake Gaming Commission ("KGC"), and with independent third-party experts to conduct a thorough investigation that included a comprehensive review of hand histories and game data, thorough analyses of software and network security, and audits of its security practices and procedures.
The investigation has concluded that certain player accounts did in fact have an unfair advantage, and that these accounts targeted the highest limit games on the site. The individuals responsible were found to have worked for the previous ownership of UltimateBet prior to the sale of the business to Tokwiro in October 2006. Tokwiro is taking full responsibility for this situation and will immediately begin refunding UltimateBet customers for any losses that were incurred as a result of unfair play.
The fraudulent activity was enabled by unauthorized software code that allowed the perpetrators to obtain hole card information during live play. The existence of this vulnerability was unknown to Tokwiro until February 2008 and existed prior to UltimateBet's acquisition by Tokwiro in October 2006. Our investigation has confirmed that the code was part of a legacy auditing system that was manipulated by the perpetrators. Gaming Associates, independent auditors hired by the KGC, have confirmed that the software code that provided the unfair advantage has been permanently removed.
Throughout the investigation of this incident, Tokwiro's consistent priorities have been:

1. To permanently remove the ability to engage in unfair play;
2. To complete its investigation and come to a full understanding of what occurred;
3. To refund the affected customers; and
4. To implement measures that prevents future incidents.

The Company said, "We would like to thank our customers for their patience, loyalty and support, as well as for their understanding that we are doing everything we can to correct this situation. The staff and management of UltimateBet are fully committed to providing a safe and secure environment for our players, and we want to assure customers of our unwavering resolve to monitor site security with every resource at our disposal." Investigation Timeline
These are the key events in the course of the incident.

• January 2008: UltimateBet is alerted to suspicions of unfair play on the part of the account "NioNio". Within 24 hours, UltimateBet contacts the KGC to provide formal notice that UltimateBet has initiated an investigation of the incident. UltimateBet subsequently forwarded a copy of all related data to the KGC.
• January 2008: The "NioNio" account and related accounts are suspended pending further investigation.
• February 2008: Preliminary findings indicate abnormally high winning statistics for the suspect accounts. After discussions with the KGC, UltimateBet engages third-party gaming experts to assist with the analysis.
• February 2008: Investigators confirm that the suspect accounts are associated with individuals who had worked for UltimateBet under the previous ownership.
• February 2008: UltimateBet discovers the unauthorized code that allowed the perpetrators to obtain hole card information during live play. The code was part of a legacy auditing system that was manipulated by the perpetrators of the fraud.
• February 2008: UltimateBet immediately removes the unauthorized code and works with the KGC and with third-party auditors to verify that the security hole has been eliminated.
• March 2008: Six player accounts are confirmed to have participated in this scheme. No accounts were deleted at any point, although some account names were changed multiple times. The following account names are known to have been used in the fraudulent activity: NioNio, Sleepless, NoPaddles, nvtease, flatbroke33, ilike2win, UtakeIt2, FlipFlop2, erick456, WhackMe44, RockStarLA, stoned2nite, monizzle, FireNTexas, HeadKase01, LetsPatttty, NYMobser, and WhoWhereWhen.
• May 2008: The investigation confirms that the fraudulent activity took place from March 7, 2006 to December 3, 2007.
• May 2008: Gaming Associates certifies that the software code that enabled unfair play was removed from UltimateBet servers in February of 2008.
• May 2008: Customers affected by this incident are identified, and plans for corrective action are reviewed with the KGC.

Corrective Actions Taken
The following actions have been taken or are currently underway as a direct result of this investigation.

• The security hole identified in UltimateBet's investigation has been permanently eliminated.
• UltimateBet is establishing a state-of-the-art software Security Center that consolidates and greatly enhances existing security capabilities. The first release of the new Security Center focuses solely on the immediate detection of abnormal winnings. Gaming mathematicians, poker professionals, and security software developers have all contributed to the specifications for the new Security Center.
• UltimateBet customers are no longer permitted to change account names unless they have suffered abuse in chat rooms. Requests for changes must be supported by proof of abuse and must be approved by the Chief Compliance Officer.
• In addition to its existing security department, UltimateBet has established a new specialized Poker Security team of professionals dedicated to fraud prevention.
• The refund process will begin immediately. The accounts associated with fraudulent activity did not use an unfair advantage in all play sessions. Regardless, UltimateBet is refunding all losses to these accounts.
• Accounts related to the fraudulent activity have been disabled, and the individuals associated with those accounts permanently banned from the site.
• UltimateBet has worked closely and transparently with its governing body, the KGC and its designated expert auditors, to determine exactly what happened, how it happened, and who was involved, and has taken action to prevent any possibility of this situation recurring.
• Tokwiro is pursuing its legal options in regard to this incident.

For further inquiries please contract press@ultimatebet.com

Looks good, although I wonder how much if any is just covering their asses like in the AP case. It seems a bit better though... Regardless this is a big hit to their reputation.

I do like UB and hope everything is legit from now on.

The good news is that players funds have been returned.

My first thoughts after reading the press release were:
How the F**k does someone swallow this story. Think about it, AP/UB are owned by the same company. This companies two online poker rooms are the only ones in which insider cheating involving use of hole cards is ever known to have occurred. The AP/UB scandals occurred at the same time, using the same method. We know Absolute Poker admitted a high ranking employee perpetrated that crime.

This press release would leave us to believe that there is no relationship between the two scandals, making their like nature just a coincidence. Its to much of a coincidence for me to buy or to believe this cheating was the results of some employees who worked for Ultimate Bet before they had bought that poker room.

Considering Absolute Poker lied many times and sent out different version of their story which were discredited each time and finally told the truth after being caught red hands, and considering this Ultimate Bet press release only come out after the PR hit they took has escalated to a point its value is larger than that of funds stolen.. I don't trust there version of the story as I feel there capable of saying anything.

My final thoughts are this:
Tougher times are ahead if we do not show we are capable of self regulation. The Absolute and Ultimate Bet situations were our first chances to really show our capacity to do so and as an industry its so far been an Epic fail. Industries not capable of regulating themselves are doomed to face government interference and are often proved not worthy of saving.

At this point I am really tired with the story and feel like its just beating a dead horse. I'll be happy to answer any question or discuss this topic further but unless I'm responding to a post or other major news breaks I'm done being the messenger on this topic for now.

Hopefully this is my last UB/AP rant!

Originally Posted by Leviathan101

Looks good, although I wonder how much if any is just covering their asses like in the AP case. It seems a bit better though...

Well they were a bit more experienced this time having had a practice round already with Absolute Poker

I've known since Sunday night this press release was coming, and I honestly feel it took them a long time to just get the story straight and they spent all of Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday making sure this press release did not contain anything that might incriminate them further.

Finally satisfied this press release had the highest expected value they sent it.

So with all that considered it better have been better!

hahah seriously. I'd like to say I trust them.
I don't, but the site is probaby legit now.

However I feel like in all likelyhood, they probably did close off the loophole. In reality it's bad for business, so likely they shut it down. I expect all the other sites to learn the same thing. regardless their general attitude toward the whole issue makes me believe that if anything else happens, they'll try to keep it under wraps.

Interestingly enough, I feel we did a pretty decent job of self regulation given we have no structure in place.
The players stepped up and got the job done. The fact that the company is corrupt doesn't mean we failed, but rather that we now know what must be done to prevent this in the future. We need an established legitimate and fair company to serve as an auditing/regulation firm. If a company doesn't open it's doors and reveal what they are asking for, players should immediately assume the site is operating under unfair circumstances to the players and cease play.

I agree to an extent but I also feel AP/UB is not deserving of trust or players money to till at least the following occur:

1) The names of the perpetrators are released, they are tried and they serve hard time.
2) Absolute Poker and Ultimate Bet become regulated and license by a reputable gaming commission.

explained:

#1 The reason I say this is because its the only evidence we have to know it was not owners who perpetrated the crimes. The fact that they had not caught it on their own for all this time shows gross negligence on their part. Such negligence that I have a hard time buying it and also that all this time has passed and no criminal charges have been filed, makes me skeptical that they were not at least criminally responsible themselves for the crime and more likely so the perpetrators of it. I see the chances the cheating occurred very high up in the company to be extremely high.. however if a group of 7 players (1 behind AP, 6 behind UB) all had a chance to defend themselves in court and point fingers, make deals so on and so forth much more truth should come out.

If it was in fact ownership or high ranking still employed management that perpetrated this crime, I think the chances they learn their lesson and clean up is close to 1%. Liars and cheaters are liars and cheaters and usually all they will do is find smarter way to lie and cheat.

#2 I am not exactly saying Kahnawake Gambling Commission is not reputable, but their so called independent and random audits ensuring game fairness sure failed miserable with Absolute Poker and Ultimate Bet. Could this perhaps of been because:

Originally Posted by jim

Absolute Poker and Ultimate Bet are both owned by Tokwiro Enterprises ENRG, a private company ran by Joe Norton, the former Grand Chief of the Mohawk Territory of Kahnawake, Canada.

Perhaps KGC is a great gambling commission for everyone else, but overlooked the crimes because the sites were owned by their former grand chief. Whatever the case might be there is a clear conflict of interest here. The same way a judge would not hear a case involving his childhood best friend or a detective would not handle and investigation when their child is a suspect, the KGC should not be the regulatory figure for Absolute Poker and Ultimate Bet.

Given the current circumstances I would see it to be in their best interest to secure licenses in a very strict district. I would suggest Malta or UK and would recommend not Costa Rica.

I believe both #1 and #2 seem logical. If neither occurs have to really wonder why they don't.

As it stands right now I do not feel the chances of cheating occurring have been reduced, I just feel the company will be smarter about the next time around.

If #1 and #2 happen.. I won't promote them.. because there are many good companies to chose from that we don't need to promote them here, but I would no longer be canceling magazine subscriptions when I see there ad inside them, and heck I might even go back to playing a little blackjack SNGs on the side there myself. At this point though the idea of me ever playing there again is a very distant possibility.

Originally Posted by Leviathan101

Interestingly enough, I feel we did a pretty decent job of self regulation given we have no structure in place.

The players stepped up and got the job done. The fact that the company is corrupt doesn't mean we failed, but rather that we now know what must be done to prevent this in the future. We need an established legitimate and fair company to serve as an auditing/regulation firm. If a company doesn't open it's doors and reveal what they are asking for, players should immediately assume the site is operating under unfair circumstances to the players and cease play.

This part I agree with 100%.
The area we failed was not taking a boycott serious enough. This is speaking as us as a group. Think of how many sites had Ultimate Bet ads on them last week and were pushing things like "all the good players left.. etc etc"
I think the players job was excellent. The true colors of a lot of the business side where shown in this ordeal.
Look at Gambling911 who breaks all these news stories first. They have not even mentioned UBs press release yet. Most likely because there not sure if they want to acknowledge it since they've been pushing the company so hard and have not mentioned anything about the UB cheating in the past.
Likewise there are some affiliates taking it serious. I just noticed in the past few days UB/AP was removed from Rakefreeze. Actually I noticed it today and am pretty sure when I looked last week it was there.
From the affiliate and business side of things. Its never to late to do the right thing and I still think removing Absolute Poker and Ultimate Bet ads is the right thing to do.