Superusers and Silence: How UltimateBet let players get cheated for millions

Ste05

I decided to post a thread here about this, so that anyone who is still playing on UB or AP can see the kind of site they have their money on and just to highlight the issue some more.

I think this shows the level of detail and information that is available and painstakingly gone through by internet players as a self-regulatory body in an effort to keep the reputation of Internet Poker as clean as possible.

Originally posted here and here


EDIT: Removed Quote Tags to try and help with the sizing, but the original author is Cornell Fiji on 2+2 (linked above)

May 20, 2008

AN OPENING THOUGHT

This following is a summary of this thread which originally appeared in the High Stakes No Limit forum on twoplustwo.com where the story of corruption at UltimateBet originally broke. UltimateBet, an online poker room founded in 2001 and one of the largest in the online poker industry, has been given ample opportunity to refute any of the statements in that thread, but have chosen not to do so as of this writing. Every claim made in the summary that follows in this thread is backed up by insurmountable evidence, which can be provided by request. Some of that evidence is included in this thread and there are links to many of the source in this thread. If UltimateBet or Absolute Poker feels inclined to refute anything that is said in this summary, they’re urged to do so.

I believe that it is important for online poker players to know about the unethical business practices of UltimateBet and Absolute Poker. It is also imperative to understand that these unscrupulous activities are not an indictment on the entire online poker industry. As you read this thread please keep in mind that UltimateBet and Absolute Poker are owned by the same company. They are also regulated by the same puppet regulatory commission. Most poker sites are run with the utmost integrity and security. UltimateBet and Absolute Poker are the exception and not the rule.

I urge the concerned reader to pass word of this summary on to other interested parties. The spread of this information will ultimately protect poker players from unknowingly exposing themselves to the corruption detailed below. If any reader is unfamiliar with any poker or technical terminology contained within, please let me know and an explanation will be provided.

I would also like to express my sincere gratitude to every one who investigated this scandal and who have worked tirelessly to uncover the truth and demand restitution for the affected parties. I did not participate in any part of the investigation myself, all I did was summarize the hard work of posters such as 'trambopoline,' 'dlpnyc21,' Nat Arem, and 'Josem.' Special thanks also to poker columnist Gary Wise who assisted in the editing this post.

Last, I want to make it clear that neither Two Plus Two Publishing nor any of its associative media is in any way responsible for these investigations, nor the accusations made based on their results. We thank Two Plus Two for providing an open forum in which those who have been investigating UltimateBet’s actions could gather and exchange information.

Steven Ware
Cornell Fiji

INTRODUCTION

It has been one hundred fifty days since allegations about suspicious activity in the high stakes no limit games on UltimateBet were first made public in this thread in the High Stakes No Limit forum (referred to as ‘HSNL’ from this point) on twoplustwo.com.

Several million dollars were stolen and the evidence in the HSNL thread indicates very strongly that:

• UltimateBet has known about the cheating for at least nine months.
• UltimateBet knew about but did not make any attempt to acknowledge the cheating before it was exposed on 2+2.
• People who worked for UltimateBet facilitated the cheating.
• UltimateBet actively took steps to cover up these crimes and thwart the investigation of this scandal.

Additionally:

• UltimateBet did not make any public statements or acknowledge that cheating had occurred until March 6th, 2008, three full months after the crimes became public.
• UltimateBet has not reached out to any of the players who were stolen from (many of whom still don't know that they were cheated). When players read the HSNL thread, discover that they have been cheated and attempt to contact UltimateBet, they’re forced to wait several days for an email response, only to be told that UltimateBet is 'looking into the allegations.'
• UltimateBet has not offered to reimburse any of the victims of the theft.

The first post in HSNL thread provided irrefutable evidence, including a graphic (below) proving that that the player NioNio's winning statistics were abnormal.

Note: this image was posted 3 lines into the first post alleging misconduct at UltimateBet

Over the 2,984 hands examined in the first post, NioNio won $293,677.16; a rate of approximately 155 big blinds per 100 hands played (bb/100).

Less than twenty-four hours after the initial allegations were posted on 2+2, on the 68th post in the HSNL thread, 2+2’er 'Josem' created the following scatter plot;

The yellow data point in the upper-right corner is the accused NioNio account

Some facts about the scatter plot image that was posted on January 9th:

• There are 870 “normal” accounts from a variety of sites and limits.
• Each of those other accounts has at least 2,500 hands logged on them.
• The graph expresses big blinds won/100 hands. BB/100 represents the total winnings, expressed in number of big blinds at the stakes being played, that each player won per one-hundred hands that they played.
• The mean BB/100 win rate in the sample is 1.528 BB/100.
• The standard deviation is 14.08 BB/100.
• NioNio is winning at approximately 10 standard deviations above the mean.

Assuming a normal distribution of win rates, the chance that NioNio's results could be explained by variance is 1:131,236,127,000,000,000,000,000.

Expressed another way, 1:131,236,127,000,000,000,000,000 is about the same as winning the powerball jackpot three days in a row.

This information was all posted and explained within 24 hours of the first post about this scandal on 2+2.

On March 6th, 2008 in a long-anticipated press release , UltimateBet concluded that after “extensive inquiry involving an independent third-party expert… NioNio account’s winning statistics were indeed abnormal” but did not reveal whether they’d found an unfair advantage existed. This press release is the only time that UltimateBet has publicly addressed this issue.

THE KEY PLAYERS

UltimateBet is owned by Tokwiro Enterprises ENRG, a privately owned company that also owns and operates Absolute Poker.

Tokwiro Enterprises ENRG is run by Joe Norton, the former Grand Chief of the Mohawk Territory of Kahnawake. UltimateBet and Absolute Poker are overseen and licensed by the “independent” Kahnawake Gaming Commission.

The Kahnawake Gaming Commission is a regulatory arm of the Mowhawk Indian tribe in Canada.

THE ABSOLUTE POKER SCANDAL: A Short Summary

Suspicious activity at Absolute Poker
In August 2007 a player on Absolute Poker with the username of POTRIPPER won the weekly $1,000 buyin tournament in a highly suspicious manner: he played an abnormally high percentage of his hands preflop and played near-flawless Poker after the flop, seeming to always fold when his opponent had a strong hand and raise when his opponent was bluffing.

With the field down to two players, the tournament culminated in an unbelievable hand where the board read 4K:diamond:K7:spade:. POTRIPPER’s opponent, Marco Johnson, playing under the name CrazyMarco, made a massive check-raise all in with a flush draw 92 only to be called by POTRIPPER’s T:club:9:club:. POTRIPPER’s ten high, no pair, no draw held up to win the tournament.

Johnson was suspicious of POTRIPPER’s play. He contacted Absolute Poker, asked for the play be investigated and that the tournament hand history be sent to him. Absolute Poker responded that they’d looked into his play and could not find anything suspicious. They emailed Johnson the hand history in an encrypted Microsoft Excel file. Since it would be tiresome to go through the Excel file and because Absolute Poker had apparently investigated the play, Johnson didn’t examine things any closer for the time being.

In September of 2007, this thread was posted in the high stakes limit forum on 2+2 alleging suspicious play in the $150/$300 limit games on Absolute Poker. There were three players--STEAMROLLER, GREYCAT and DOUBLEDRAG--who despite playing what can be defined mathematically as a losing strategy, were crushing the games. Suspicious posters on 2+2 started examining hands that they had played against these three opponents. In analyzing the hands they found that the three suspicious accounts played most of their hands preflop and then were very aggressive postflop. The most suspicious play generally came on the river (the final betting round,) where seemingly every single time an opponent of the named accounts bluffed, they would be called down lightly or they would be raised and forced to fold. Every single time.

Once the data was compiled, it was thoroughly analyzed both on a hand by hand basis and by looking at the data as a whole. The following scatter plot was created by 2+2 poster Nat Arem. In the scatter plot VPIP stands for the percentage of hands in which a player put non-blind money into the pot preflop.

The red dot on the top right of the graph is alleged cheating account



Out of a sample of 5,251 players, the suspects were an unfathomable fifteen standard deviations above than the mean.

Convinced that these opponents had the ability to see their hole cards, players emailed Absolute Poker’s security department en masse, presenting the evidence and demanding an inquiry. They were completely stonewalled.

The available data had made the investigators nearly certain that STEAMROLLER, GREYCAT and DOUBLEDRAG were cheating, but the only way to have definitive proof was to see the cards that those three accounts were playing. Thankfully, every poker site has the ability to review a player’s hands for suspicious activity, so the posters in this High Stakes Limit thread called and emailed Absolute Poker’s security department asking them to look into the issue.

On October 12th, 2007, Absolute Poker finally responded to the allegations saying (note: emphasis is mine):


The posters in the High Stakes Limit thread were sure that there was cheating going on but, as one poster pointed out; “Well WE will really never be able to PROVE that these players are cheating…without further knowledge of their opponents hands”

The Break in the AP Case
After reading the thread about possible cheaters at Absolute Poker and reading Absolute Poker’s official statement, Marco Johnson came to believe that all of the suspicious play on Absolute Poker was unlikely to be a coincidence. He went back to the e-mail he’d received in response to his inquiry in order to take a closer look at the hand history.

Upon this second look, Johnson realized that the hole cards of all of the players had been included in the email, an alarming fact as no entity including the Absolute Poker powers-that-be should have access to that information (a fact confirmed by Absolute Poker in their official statement published less than twenty-four hours later). The text version of the hand history can be found in this thread. You can also watch the hands played out on a video replayer that was uploaded onto youtube. If you read the hands or watch the video, you will have no doubt that POTRIPPER had the ability to see his opponents hole cards.

Upon examination of this master hand history, the cheating could not have been any more apparent (even someone who doesn’t play Poker regularly can watch that youtube video and see there’s something extra-sensory going on). After the second hand of the tournament, from the 10/20 blind level to the 100/200 blind level in, POTRIPPER only folded preflop four times. Each time he folded, a player behind him held a big pair. POTRIPPER played the tournament perfectly for someone with knowledge of his opponents cards, raising whenever opponents had nothing and folding whenever they held a strong hand.

After analyzing the master hand history, it was not only obvious that POTRIPPER and the other players were cheating at Absolute Poker, but also that the cheater clearly had access to a superuser account (a term applied to describe an account that could see every hand on the table in circumstances where those cards would normally be hidden). It was now apparent that Absolute Poker knew about the cheating, was intentionally engaging in a cover-up, and had deliberately lied in their press release that was sent out just one day earlier.

THE ABSOLUTE AFTERMATH
In summary, the Absolute Poker press release had stated that:

• ”We spent extensive resources thoroughly investigating and analyzing our players’ claims.”
• 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.
• ”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”
• ”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”

Less than twenty-four hours later it was proven by the investigation’s collaborators that:

• It would be impossible to look at the players’ hole cards without immediately recognizing that POTRIPPER had a superuser account.
• Absolute Poker knew that their game security had been compromised and they tried to cover it up.
• Absolute Poker had planned on continuing to lie about the cheating and had no inclination to repay the players who had been stolen from.

The collaborators investigating Absolute Poker had provided proof of what had actually happened. They knew when the cheating had occurred and more importantly for our purposes, when it stopped. They knew how the cheating had occurred. The why should be obvious.

The last big question needing an answer was who was doing the cheating.

While inspecting the POTRIPPER hand history, some of the collaborators discovered that this file also contained the IP addresses and user details (including email addresses) of all players seated and observing the table. User #363 (which eventually was identified as the superuser account with hole card access) and POTRIPPER both had their accounts traced back to Costa Rica, the home of Absolute Poker’s servers. The e-mail address and IP address linked to #363 was the same as that of another observer using the e-mail address scott@rivieraltd.com, the owner of which was allegedly Absolute Poker co-founder Scott Tom.

Further investigations 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. Two hours after this discovery was posted on twoplustwo the DNS information at rivieraltd.com had been deleted. Tracks were being covered.

Mohawk.ca should also sound familiar to those of you paying attention so far. To refresh your memory:


The superuser account that cheated and stole money on Absolute Poker was being operated by Absolute Poker's founder and it also had direct ties to the Kahnawake Gaming Commission and UltimateBet. It was no wonder why Absolute Poker tried to cover up the cheating.

More details on the technical side of the Absolute Poker investigation can be found in the posts made after 10/16/07 in this thread).

For more information about the Absolute Poker scandal please check the links in this section as well as the websites which have been created to discuss this scandal such as,absolutepokercheats.com, and AbsoluteDetectives.com

SUSPICIOUS ACTIVITY AT ULTIMATE BET

By January of 2008, many high stakes no limit hold’em players on UltimateBet had become highly suspicious of the playing styles and win rates of some players on the site.

Investigating the hands that these players played showed that they saw as many flops and turns as possible, they called bluffs with incredibly weak holdings, and they seemingly never lost. These players were employing what should be a losing strategy and they were playing in the highest stakes games on UltimateBet, yet they showed the highest win rates of anybody playing any poker game anywhere in the world (other than the Absolute Poker cheaters).

Their abnormal playing style of seeing many flops and turns along with their regularly calling river bets with extremely marginal holdings at an alarming rate of success, indicated a possibility that these players, like the players in the Absolute Poker scandal, had the ability to see their opponents hidden hole cards.

UltimateBet was informed about this problem within twenty-four hours of the creation of the HSNL thread on January 8th, 2008. The Kahnawake gaming Commission was notified soon thereafter.


Collecting the Evidence
After the Absolute Poker scandal it was clear that the poker sites were unwilling to regulate themselves and that the Kahnawake Gaming Commission was also uninterested with protecting the game. Frustrated by what seemed to be another major cheating scandal by a Tokwiro Enterprises ENRG poker site, posters on twoplustwo set out to find the truth.

While reviewing hands that they had played, twoplustwo posters 'trambopoline' and 'dlpnyc21' noticed that they had both lost significant sums of money to the player ”NioNio”. In only 3,000 hands against trambopoline and dlpnyc21 ”NioNio”, had profited an astonishing $300,000.

”NioNio” had an incredibly high VP$IP of approximately 60/40 (meaning that he put money into the pot preflop with 60% of the hands that he was dealt and that he raised preflop with 40% of his hands, abnormally high statistics for a winning player in these games). He cold called 3 bets and 4 bets at an abnormally high frequency and he made very thin value bets and repeatedly made what would otherwise be questionable calls against bluffs. Essentially, his play was consistent of that of a poor poker player, not one who was winning $300,000 in 3,000 hands.

NioNio's play was nearly identical to the play of POTRIPPER with one exception; where POTRIPPER would only raise or fold on the river, NioNio would on occasion call. It would eventually become obvious this served to make his omniscience less obvious.

Concerned about NioNio's play trambopoline turned to www.MyPokerIntel.com, a website which records all high stakes games that are played online, to gather more evidence.

MyPokerIntel.com provides a summary of anyone’s last 14 sessions. In those 14 sessions, NioNio had 13 winning sessions and was up approximately 135k. His one losing session consisted of a mere 2k loss. The stats on MyPokerIntel.com also showed that NioNio had beaten the games at a rate of 114 big blinds per 100 hands over the 8,000 hands that he had played. As a base of comparison, the absolute best players in the world strive to win 15 bb/100.

What was even more incriminating was the fact that the last date he played on that account was September 4th, the same week the AP scandal broke.

Below is a spreadsheet that lists NioNio's profits from each session that he played on UltimateBet;

http://img148.imageshack.us/img148/4086/nioxh0.jpg [Ste05 EDIT: Image tags removed because the pic is bloody huge!!]

NioNio had won over 600k in a mere 64 hours of play, a hourly rate of $9,687.96/hr. One of the ‘wow’ figures from this investigation is that the average American works 2088 hours a year, not counting overtime. If NioNio worked for those same 2088 hours he would have an annual salary of $20,209,668.48.

Ulitmatebuddy.com is a website which provides a search feature for UltimateBet players. When trambopoline searched for NioNio on Ultimatebuddy, he found an odd message stating that NioNio's account no longer existed. This meant that his name was either changed or that it had been closed.

In order for an account on UltimateBet to have a user name changed or for an account to be closed the owner of the account must personally contact the company and the security department process the request. This is the first indication that UltimateBet knew about the cheater several months prior to the January 8th post on 2+2.

As many of you know, when you cash out of an online poker site, the cash out must first be cleared through the site's security department. Major withdrawals from new players are examined with additional scrutiny.

It defies reason to believe that a red flag was not raised when a new player began beating the highest stakes games on UltimateBet at a win rate that was ten standard deviations over his expectation. But even if UltimateBet's security department was so incompetent as to not investigate NioNio's account while the cheating was taking place it is virtually impossible that they did not investigate him when he requested to have name changed and cashed out in September 2007 .

It is simply unfathomable that red flag was not raised when NioNio, the most successful Poker player in the history of the world, a guy for whom logging onto UltimateBet was like going to an ATM machine... and stealing the whole thing, abruptly decided a couple days after the Absolute Poker scandal became public that he wanted to close his account. The only rational conclusion is that UltimateBet had full knowledge of the cheating as it was taking place and deliberately allowed it to continue just like at their sister site Absolute Poker where the founder of the company was cheating and orchestrating cover-up.

After 'trambopoline' and 'dlpnyc21' showed beyond any reasonable doubt in the HSNL thread that NioNio was cheating, many more 2+2’ers began compiling their hand histories and searching through www.myPokerintel.com for suspicious accounts.

If it was happening with one account why couldn’t it be happening on others? Within a matter of days, posters on 2+2 identified a number of accounts as having highly suspicious activity. They all played the same 60/40/aggressive style that was shared by NioNio and the superuser at Absolute Poker and all stopped playing around September 07, 2007 when the Absolute Poker scandal broke. They also all had had success at a profit rate of several degrees better than the win rates showed by the best players in the world.

These suspicious accounts were:
Flatbroke33, iLike2win, monizzzle, nionio, nopaddles, nymobser, nvtease, sleeplesss, stoned2nite, utakeit2, and whackme44.

Prior to January 8th, 2008, the day that the allegations were posted on twoplustwo, eight out of the ten accounts had been closed or had their screen name changed. Upon releasing these names in the HSNL thread, which was obvious was being closely watched by UltimateBet, the last 2 accounts were immediately closed or had their account name changed. This is known because within 24 hours they no longer appeared on ultimatebuddy.com when searched for. Just like with Absolute Poker, UltimateBet's management was covering their tracks.

Nat Arem (N82 50 24 on twoplustwo) was able to give trambopoline some further damning information. From the contacts he had from the AP scandal, he was able to confirm 3 things;

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

The operator of these accounts would play high stakes no limit as NioNio. After they cheated someone out of enough money to inspire suspicion, the operator would then switch to the Nopaddles account. After they had exhausted the entire player pool by cheating everyone with both accounts, they again changed screen names and ran the same scam as nymobser and sleepless.

It should again be pointed out that it is standard procedure for an account asking to change its screen name to be scrutinized by a poker site’s security team. Looking at a single session that NioNio or Nopaddles played would be enough to show an almost imperceptibly small chance that the accounts were not cheating. It is simply beyond the realm of possibility that several insiders did not realize that these accounts were cheating when these accounts were investigated after requesting a name change in the middle of 2007. Instead of stopping the theft UltimateBet allowed them to change screen names and in doing so facilitated the cheating.

If you have a gmail account, you will be able to access this spreadsheet containing the playing statistics from all of the accounts in question. This is an incredibly damning piece of evidence;
Spreadsheet with the playing data from the cheaters at UltimateBet.

The detailed hand logs in that spreadsheet contain of all data from each session played by the cheating accounts. One can see the exact time each account played each session, how much was won and other pertinent info.

Looking at the times that the cheating accounts played one can observe instance after instance where one account would sign in, play a short session against a particular player, then sign onto a new screen name and play another session against the same player, making huge profits on each account. This was done in order to minimize the amount of hands that each account played against each high stakes player in hopes that the lack of data would keep the cheating under the radar. Once the two accounts had played all of the regular high stakes players they would be closed and two more accounts would be opened and the process repeated.

Here is a screen shot with some specific stats from these players:

.
The date next to their name indicates the last date they played on UltimateBet;

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.

Other than their one press release stating that a three month extensive investigation revealed that NioNio had "abnormally high winning statistics" (something that was proven three lines into the first post in the HSNL thread) UltimateBet has not made any public comments about these findings. UltimateBet has also largely refused to discuss this scandal with its players other than to say that their investigation is ongoing. UltimateBet has not acknowledged their involvement in the cheating.

To this date the perpetrators of the Absolute Poker scandal have not been charged with any crimes. It is unknown if UltimateBet has filed charges against the people responsible for this multi million dollar theft or crimes related to the cover-up of these crimes.

CONCLUDING THOUGHTS

Out of the hundreds of online poker sites, the only two sites to ever be caught exploiting a superuser account to steal from its customers are both owned by Tokwiro Enterprises ENRG and licensed by the Kahnawake Gaming Commission.

The players on UltimateBet were victims of a serious crime: grand larceny facilitated by a company that operates virtually outside the law. I hope that the efforts spent investigating and publicizing this story will help the victims of these crimes find restitution. I hope that this story will also highlight the need for independent regulation in the online poker industry.

Please use this thread to discuss the the best way to convince UltimateBet to come clean about their involvement in this theft and to provide restitution for these crimes. Please also use this thread to discuss the best ways to ensure that a scandal such as this one does not taint the game of poker occur ever again.

Steven Ware
Cornell Fiji
















I hereby grant the right for anyone, including all members of the media to take excerpts from this summary and/or to republish it in part or in whole as long as the work is properly cited and credited to its author.

zuutroy

Can you ditch the Excel sheet...unreadable on my work monitor otherwise.

cooker3

Not followed this one as closely as absolute but yeah I would never open account with UB or AP unless there was a major overhaul of everything and I doubt that is ever going to happen.

Some good news is UB numbers have been dwindling despite staying in US post UIGEA so hopefully people are getting the message

Ste05

zuutroy wrote: »

Can you ditch the Excel sheet...unreadable on my work monitor otherwise.

Yeah, I did that, it's still pretty dodgy on my work monitor but not quite as bad as before.

ollyk1

How the hell are these guys still in business??

careca

So have we ascertained finally that online poker is rigged

Ste05

I think we have ascertained that if any site, in fact, was rigged, they would have been found out or will be exposed by the on-line community.

Hence IMO it proves that on-line Poker is, in fact, not rigged.

Drakar

I'd imagine if the capability is still there, that the riggers would be alot cleverer about it now (switching accounts more often, losing tourney pots that dont matter etc). I think now that they've seen where others have been spotted, they'd be much better tooled for avoiding attention now.

jbravado

The only reason that this came to light is because of the ridiculous sums the original accouts were winning. Presumambly, if the technology or whatever is there then someone COULD go about winnng/stealing a modest sum without attracting any attention whatsoever-ie a winning 5-10 player.
I would have imagined this is HUGE deal for the pokes online no?

green123

Ste05 wrote: »

I think we have ascertained that if any site, in fact, was rigged, they would have been found out or will be exposed by the on-line community.

Hence IMO it proves that on-line Poker is, in fact, not rigged.

if somebody had said this time last year that 2 huge sites like ultimate or absolute were rigged they would be laughed off this forum.

so maybe the other sites just have not been caught out yet.

and drakers point is a good one.
cheaters are less likely to be caught now, and if they are smart enough and just take relatively small amounts from the games, they will not be found out.
its only when they get too greedy that they arouse suspicion.

Drakar wrote: »

I'd imagine if the capability is still there, that the riggers would be alot cleverer about it now (switching accounts more often, losing tourney pots that dont matter etc). I think now that they've seen where others have been spotted, they'd be much better tooled for avoiding attention now.

Tight Ted

jbravado wrote: »

The only reason that this came to light is because of the ridiculous sums the original accouts were winning. Presumambly, if the technology or whatever is there then someone COULD go about winnng/stealing a modest sum without attracting any attention whatsoever-ie a winning 5-10 player.
I would have imagined this is HUGE deal for the pokes online no?

My thoughts exactly, the superusers will wise up to the fact that winning unreal sums of money will only get them caught. A smart poker player who knows about PT ect. could make millions cheating with one of these superuser accounts. This could be going on at every site.

30something

But everyone has been telling me that online poker is not rigged

Ste05

green123 wrote: »

if somebody had said this time last year that 2 huge sites like ultimate or absolute were rigged they would be laughed off this forum.

so maybe the other sites just have not been caught out yet.

They are not "rigged" in the classical sense that morans come along with, i.e. sites making "action flops"; having more cooler hands; loads of bad beats, etc.

Their RNG is fine, the problem is cheating, security and integrity of this particular organisation. Did you read the post. But incase you didn't, both UB and AP are both owned, operated and regulated by the same people. I would really ask people to not post anything here unless they have read the entire post.

Cornellfiji wrote:

Out of the hundreds of online poker sites, the only two sites to ever be caught exploiting a superuser account to steal from its customers are both owned by Tokwiro Enterprises ENRG and licensed by the Kahnawake Gaming Commission.

green123 wrote: »

and drakers point is a good one.
cheaters are less likely to be caught now, and if they are smart enough and just take relatively small amounts from the games, they will not be found out.
its only when they get too greedy that they arouse suspicion.

Why would they bother taking a "relatively small amount" - they would have to keep their BB/100 to within a manageable level, not just taking small amounts out. What is a small amount anyway?

Do you think any of the other major sites would risk their entire company going under by doing anything like this?? Stars, FT, Party, PPP, iPoker, etc. etc. Is it worth their while ripping off a couple of hundred K here and there and risking everything, when they make that every day by just operating and taking in rake?? Never mind the value of the company in it's own right.

green123

jbravado wrote: »

The only reason that this came to light is because of the ridiculous sums the original accouts were winning. Presumambly, if the technology or whatever is there then someone COULD go about winnng/stealing a modest sum without attracting any attention whatsoever-ie a winning 5-10 player.
I would have imagined this is HUGE deal for the pokes online no?

exactly.

somebody could easily take a few thousand a week from these big games without any suspicion. maybe 100k per year - a very nice living.
and its possible that some people are doing this now and have been all along and possible its happening on other online sites

its only when some fools get too greedy that they get found out. these cases could just be the tip of the iceberg

green123

Ste05 wrote: »

They are not "rigged" in the classical sense that morans come along with, i.e. sites making "action flops"; having more cooler hands; loads of bad beats, etc.

:rolleyes: yes ste, that is obvious

Their RNG is fine, the problem is cheating, security and integrity of this particular organisation. Did you read the post. But incase you didn't, both UB and AP are both owned, operated and regulated by the same people. I would really ask people to not post anything here unless they have read the entire post.

yes i did read the post, and i read about it on 2plus2 when it happened

Why would they bother taking a "relatively small amount" - they would have to keep their BB/100 to within a manageable level, not just taking small amounts out. What is a small amount anyway?

100k per year would be a nice little bonus for an employee

Do you think any of the other major sites would risk their entire company going under by doing anything like this?? Stars, FT, Party, PPP, iPoker, etc. etc. Is it worth their while ripping off a couple of hundred K here and there and risking everything, when they make that every day by just operating and taking in rake?? Never mind the value of the company in it's own right.

no i dont think any of these sites would risk their entire company.

but i do think its possible that a few bad apple employees would fancy a nice bonus, and as long as they dont get too greedy, nobody will ever find out

Samba

Ste05 wrote: »

Do you think any of the other major sites would risk their entire company going under by doing anything like this?? Stars, FT, Party, PPP, iPoker, etc. etc. Is it worth their while ripping off a couple of hundred K here and there and risking everything, when they make that every day by just operating and taking in rake?? Never mind the value of the company in it's own right.

Of course they wouldn't, however what if they had a disgruntled programmer/ex-employee who had the highest level of security access that could compromise the integrity of a site?

It would be a recipe for disaster.

The most frightening thing to come to light from all of this is the clear lack of an entirely independent regulatory body

I always knew the Khanawakakakaka gaming commission was a sham, but these events have really highlighted their inadequacies, their seal of approval means squat and you just wonder what underhanded practices goes on by these companies under their seal of approval and the extent of the knowledge they have of these shady business practices.

I think this is a great opportunity for european countries to realise the value of the online gaming industry and to open their doors, i would like nothing more than to see many Irish sites become indegenous to Ireland with an Irish Regulatory body.

I would happily pay my rake with the comfort of knowing if I ever had such claims or allegations against a site that I could state my case under the law of my own country.

As things stands, most of the regulatory bodies who govern many sites are in far off places who will do little or nothing to address any complaints/allegations one might have against a site.

Tight Ted

green123 wrote: »

no i dont think any of these sites would risk their entire company.

but i do think its possible that a few bad apple employees would fancy a nice bonus, and as long as they dont get too greedy, nobody will ever find out

I don't think the employees would even have to be 'bad apples', 99% of people are gonna do this if they think they can get away with it.

UB and Absolute are MASSIVE. If this can happen there, it can happen anywhere.

Samba

green123 wrote: »

no i dont think any of these sites would risk their entire company.

but i do think its possible that a few bad apple employees would fancy a nice bonus, and as long as they dont get too greedy, nobody will ever find out

I should have shortened my post to get there first

eagle eye

I have read this since Ste mentioned it in the bbv section one or two weeks ago.

And here is some other UNRELATED goings on at ultimate bet also.


If your part of any major poker forum than you have probably read the threads flaming Ultimate Bet of once again cheating their players. Unlike the pot tripper incident or the recent NioNio this one has to do with a player who has done the remarkable and that is hit the Ultimate Bad Beat Jackpot not just once but twice in a row within two months of each other taking home just over $600,000 for his wins. Over the last week a few things that have made this newsworthy have been brought to the attention of other players. First Ultimate Bet announces all winners of the jackpot and from there they list the last 6 players who have hit it on their website. When ‘dhc2lovr’, who is the player in question, won the jackpot on March 25th it was announced just like every other jackpot has been since the promo was introduced. At that time it said;

Congratulations to the latest Bad Beat Jackpot winner dhc2lovr who hit on Tuesday, March 25 02:48:00 EDT at the table Tomnolen to the tune of $171498.31

dhc2lovr was again announced a Bad Beat winner on May6th however the company did not mention that this was his second win, which in all honesty would be major plus for the room and likely to bring in extra players. A few of the things mentioned across the public forums is the disappearance of dhc2lovr’s first win from the UB website. They have also claimed that his wins were within 6 weeks of each other and more astounding, within seconds apart. A few other “concerns “ have risen from the recent BBJ win but these are more than likely a coincidence and not a conspiracy.
As of right now everything is still speculation and rumours that really don’t have much to stand on other than the possibility of something shady happening which is backed by Ultimate Bet’s past indiscretions . The question that does remain is can this happen. Can a player win the BBJ twice? What are the odds of someone hitting a jackpot twice? According to a post on 2+2 the odds of a player losing a hand twice and winning in the Bad Beat Jackpot is 153,850,888,000. Even though this seems next to near impossible the odds are still there and it can happen.
I would think that a decent comparison would be the lottery and most of us are willing to admit it’s a fool’s tax and the probability of someone actually winning the lottery in their lifetime is slim to none. But people do win and more than once to! Simply searching for multiple lottery winners and you will come up with a host of players who were able to win the jackpot twice and sometimes as many as three times playing the exact same game.
The Canadian lottery game, Lotto 6/49 has had their fair share of remarkable coincidences over the last few years, from players hitting numerous jackpots, to a woman who won the same lottery twice, meaning she bought two tickets for the same draw with the same numbers and by luck she won. Another couple won a $1 million in 1999 and than hit another $20 million in 2007. There are multiple stories like this out there, so it’s not as uncommon as we would like to think. The odds of hitting 6/49 jackpot are 1 in 13,983,816, and that is just once in a lifetime. I have searched for hours and cannot find the odds for winning it twice. Although I am sure this number could easily be close to the BBJ or even higher. People do win it more than once and a lot more than you would think.
Just search in Google and you will come across various articles throughout the main stream media of players hitting multiple jackpots within the same game.
Does this mean I think the Bad Beat Jackpot provides a legit win? I really don’t know. If it was somehow rigged allowing dhc2lovr to win it twice I really think the company deserves the “Dumbass of the Year” award. However you want to look at it, the company has had shady dealings in the past. This is one of the main reasons they are not promoted on this site and won’t be any time in the future. If you want a room with some solid credibility take a look at our top five list.




Theres more about it here

green123

Tight Ted wrote: »

I don't think the employees would even have to be 'bad apples', 99% of people are gonna do this if they think they can get away with it.

UB and Absolute are MASSIVE. If this can happen there, it can happen anywhere.

Samba wrote: »

I should have shortened my post to get there first

i think ted has summed it up best

Goodluck2me

careca wrote: »

So have we ascertained finally that online poker is rigged

Ste05 wrote: »

I think we have ascertained that if any site, in fact, was rigged, they would have been found out or will be exposed by the on-line community.

Hence IMO it proves that on-line Poker is, in fact, not rigged.

i think it proves it is tbh. All this allegation did was prove that it can be done and that means that if it can then it will. its just human nature.
I'm not saying that every site is, and far from it more so that you should be much more wary of the possibility of it happening and not to just dismiss someone off hand.
I realise not every bad beat means its rigged, but you must be aware that with the rise of robots winning 1bb or w/e and the opportunity to cheat at poker, not everyone you are playing with is on the same playing field.

mewso

Doesn't it also mean that the idea of sites letting you change your name regularly to counter the likes of PT while originally seeming a good idea is probably now too big a risk having seen the value of being able to track players history from a regulatory point of view. Unless of course these sites allowed an independent body to keep a history of players regardless of name change.

Mr. Flibble

I didn't read the whole thread so apologies if this is stated above, but how is it known that the cheating users have super accounts and aren't just using Trojans to view opponents cards while playing?

mewso

Mr. Flibble wrote: »

I didn't read the whole thread so apologies if this is stated above, but how is it known that the cheating users have super accounts and aren't just using Trojans to view opponents cards while playing?

Well when the accounts that were used are successfully linked to the owners of the poker sites and considering the fact that it would be one hell of a mass trojan infection to achieve I think it's pretty conclusive. Even non-computer savvy folk have virus scanners and firewalls setup these days.

Mr. Flibble

musician wrote: »

Well when the accounts that were used are successfully linked to the owners of the poker sites and considering the fact that it would be one hell of a mass trojan infection to achieve I think it's pretty conclusive.

Right. Sucks to be a UB player then.

musician wrote: »

Even non-computer savvy folk have virus scanners and firewalls setup these days.

They may do, but a new unknown Trojan will show up on no scanner and firewall will generally do little to stop outgoing connections. So don't feel safe folks.

Mellor

Mr. Flibble wrote: »

I didn't read the whole thread so apologies if this is stated above, but how is it known that the cheating users have super accounts and aren't just using Trojans to view opponents cards while playing?

The fact that they had an edge over every player, and it would be very unlikely that he managed to infect every single computer he was to play against with a trojan

Mr. Flibble

Mellor wrote: »

The fact that they had an edge over every player, and it would be very unlikely that he managed to infect every single computer he was to play against with a trojan

Agreed (hadn't read that bit).

Simplicity

Have Cardplayer or any of the poker mags ran with these stories?

Tony3004

are the post replies on the thread on 2+2 being sarcastic or are the seriously suggesting that people run this hot . ..

DENIAL . there are definately smarter guys doing this regulary that are not so stupid/greedy

Daithio

Simplicity wrote: »

Have Cardplayer or any of the poker mags ran with these stories?

Not that I'm aware of. I think alot of people are afraid that if this story makes it past the internet forums it will have majorly negative ramifications for online poker. Which it probably will. I'm in two minds as to whether I'd like to see this story progress any further. If it meant possibly prosecuting the people involved and shutting down the sites, then I'd be all for it. But I'm a pessimist, I doubt it will have much more effect than scaring alot of people away. Apparently 60 Minutes are running the story though.

The United States Government could go a long way to resolving these issues by legalising the gaming industry within the US under the framework of a national regulatory body which would have powers to act against any company not being seen to comply with the statutory standards of practise.

Pipe dreams obviously but most simple and adequate solutions are.

hotspur

Deleted User wrote: »

The United States Government could go a long way to resolving these issues by legalising the gaming industry within the US under the framework of a national regulatory body which would have powers to act against any company not being seen to comply with the statutory standards of practise.

The companies would have to be licensed there for them to have powers. These gaming companies licensed from dodgy Indian territory in Canada or Costa Rica or what have you are a law unto themselves. You see the situation with the UK trying to bring online gaming companies in under their authority but priced themselves out of consideration when Brown slapped a big tax on it. The best they could really do was disallow advertising from non-white listed jurisdictions.

Of course Kahnawake is a joke, the Indian casinos would scalp you in their own land based casinos, you think the Mohawk's in Canada give 2 damns about you. What was funniest was when the Absolute scandal broke that Kahnawake contracted Australia's Gaming Associates to conduct the investigation. A few people on this forum may remember me telling them about this company years ago.

My view on the whole issue of rigged online gambling sites is fairly different to most of you, but it's difficult to talk about without seeming like an idiot because of the company it puts you in. If you study the history of gambling right up to the present day then one thing that impresses you is the extent of rigging and cheating that has always gone on from both the industry and the punters.

There is a reason why Las Vegas is so full of rules, regulations, enforcement and compliance officers, checks etc. It is because the gaming companies would rip the public off otherwise. You really think their slot machines would pay out what they are supposed to if there were no checks or penalties? This is what the Nevada Gaming Commission writes in their booklet about their regulation:

"Public confidence and trust can only be maintained by strict regulation of all
persons, locations, practices, associations and activities related to the operation of licensed
gaming establishments, the manufacture, sale or distribution of gaming devices and associated equipment and the operation of inter-casino linked systems."

So what about online gambling? Well not all online gambling regulating jurisdictions are the same, there's quite a difference between being licensed in Alderney and in Costa Rica. But even in the better ones the companies are effectively free to rip punters off. What evidence do people really have that a blackjack or roulette game is paying out what you expect it to, and under all conditions? That the source code they gave for their RNG to an independent company for evaluation is exactly what they are running? The answer is none.

I disagree with the people who make the argument that it would be stupid to risk the reputation of a very profitable company in order to skim more money. Apart from the general fact that companies very often act similarly to psychopaths, the real point is that if they cannot be caught then THERE IS NO RISK. In an effectively unregulated industry like this they cannot be caught unless they engage in egregiously stupid behaviour. Anyone with half a brain running an online gambling company could make a ton more money by tweaking things a little one way or another in a risk free manner. And if they can then many certainly will.

If the biggest and most reputable land based casinos in Vegas need a whole bunch of people making sure that they aren't ripping people off do you really think some online company founded with porn money or based somewhere where the country it's in has no authority (Kahnawake) doesn't require the same level of scrutiny to prevent it?

I'm a skeptic. I know that online gaming companies have cheated people, so do you. I expect it to happen, most of you don't. I think that on the balance of probability online gaming companies are cheating people to a far greater extent than anyone realises.

I'm not one bit surprised by the UB thing because I have thought they were dodgy for years, I don't think it's one bad apple we are talking about. You know what really surprises me? That Fulltilt is on the level (as far as we know yet). And I'm sure you know what I mean by that. Maybe Matusow isn't so crazy after all

...now where's that tinfoil hat I made.

DEEP THROAT

Deleted User wrote: »

The United States Government could go a long way to resolving these issues by legalising the gaming industry within the US under the framework of a national regulatory body which would have powers to act against any company not being seen to comply with the statutory standards of practise.

Pipe dreams obviously but most simple and adequate solutions are.

Unfortunately they are more likely to use it as a reason to say "See We were right to ban it!:mad:"

On the Absolute Poker front they took some action along the lines of

1. They found out who the guilty party was and terminated him ( their phrase not mine ). It seems he was an "independent contractor" working inside the organization.

2. They got fined by the Kan... (I won't try and spell it) Gaming Comission. It was either 500k or 5mill.

3. They took the hit for all the loses.

Tourneys: The user was disqualified from all tourneys ( regardless of result )and every one moved up a place AND if you didn't cash your buyin(s) was refunded....

Cash Games: All loses incurred at tables with this player were refunded


If you play on AP the first thing you will notice is that the software is very similiar to pokerstars. It was deffo designed by the same developers and therefore the capability to create a backdoor or a superuser account must also be on stars.

OK I was obviously lazy in making my initial point.

The problem is regulation. The industry currently has no incentive to move from their present situation to a more strictly monitored one. The only motivation they could have is access to the highly profitable US market and granting that access could come with the regulatory bodies which are so badly needed.

I am too tired to write a detailed post on this now but I hope I'll bother tomorrow.

RoundTower

Simplicity wrote: »

Have Cardplayer or any of the poker mags ran with these stories?

no, they wouldn't run a piece discredting their biggest advertisers.

bohsman

Hotspur - there is a risk, the likes of casinomeister and wizardoffodds have caught out casinos http://www.casinomeister.com/rogue/casinobar.php obviously the likes of 2+2 have caught out ub and ap, then theres whistleblowers, obviously strict guidelines would be far better but I dont think the situation is all that bad.

ianmc38

I do have some serious doomswitch theories!

Spiritus

hotspur wrote: »

...now where's that tinfoil hat I made.

http://zapatopi.net/afdb/

Instructions on pdf just in case you lost it.

HighFinance

RoundTower wrote: »

no, they wouldn't run a piece discredting their biggest advertisers.

http://europe.cardplayer.com/poker-news/article/ultimate-bet-confirms-suspicious-activity-investigation

Glowingmind

HighFinance wrote: »

http://europe.cardplayer.com/poker-news/article/ultimate-bet-confirms-suspicious-activity-investigation

I heard the dude who wrote that is a suspect in some grizzly saw-esque events in the sackville region.

bohsman

HighFinance wrote: »

http://europe.cardplayer.com/poker-news/article/ultimate-bet-confirms-suspicious-activity-investigation

Not exactly discrediting UB, its their side of the story only.

DeadParrot

my friends wife is a canadian mohawk.
she has seemed a little flush lately

HighFinance

bohsman wrote: »

Not exactly discrediting UB, its their side of the story only.

They were asked for further comment at the time and declined. This is all we have (bar conjecture) until they release the results of the investigation.

Further comments here - http://forumserver.twoplustwo.com/showthread.php?t=195839