UB's new payout structure.

NickyOD

It appears that UB has finally taken some steps to fix their outrageous pay schedule. The other day, the $100+9 tournament paid spot 11-20 $107, which did not even cover the cost of the buyin plus fee.

It looks like they have flattened the upper pay spots a shade, and are offering more money (and more money breaks) in positions 11-20. Makes it worthwhile to play without satelliting in.

This will cause the $100 tournment on UB to be one of the sweetest tournaments on the net. You start with $2500 in chips, $5/$10 blinds, 15 minute levels, and one of the best structures otherwise. Sweeeeeeeeeeeeeet!

Samba

read the article in this months issue of e-gaming review it looked like they were headed for financial failure at one point

Imposter

Have you got a link? I can't see the article you are referring to on the front page.

Culchie

How could a site like Ultimate Bet go belly up?

You would imagine with the heavyweights they have endorsing the site (Helmuth, Annie Duke, Devil Fish, Lederer etc...) that it couldn't miss.

They are also probably the most active marketing Poker site out there as well.

Other than the start up capital costs, and percentage for support wages and marketing, surely it should be 'easy street' from then on in ???

DapperGent

I'm prepared to believe anything of a company that thinks Phil Hellmuth is a good representative.

NickyOD

Could you be more vague? Do you have a quote from or a link to the article. What did it say exactly?

Lafortezza

From egrmagazine.com

" Ultimate Bet, the Kahnawake-based online poker site, has rebranded in the UK as Ultimate Poker in advance of a huge marketing push into the British market. "

You need to be a registered member to view full story.

Nothing on the front page about UB being in trouble.

NickyOD

lafortezza wrote:

From egrmagazine.com

" Ultimate Bet, the Kahnawake-based online poker site, has rebranded in the UK as Ultimate Poker in advance of a huge marketing push into the British market. "

You need to be a registered member to view full story.

Nothing on the front page about UB being in trouble.

I registered on the site. Here is the article. I'm confised. Samba?


Ultimate Bet, the Kahnawake-based online poker site, has rebranded in the UK as Ultimate Poker in advance of a huge marketing push into the British market.
Ultimate Poker is the firm’s first significant attempt to crack the lucrative but competitive UK market, and is backed by a major online and offline advertising campaign.

“This isn’t a test, there are major marketing dollars allocated to this project,” Jim Ryan, CEO of Ultimate Poker’s software provider Excapsa, said.

“The site has been rebranded for the UK market, and we have just launched a major outdoor campaign with 2,600 taxi cabs branded with Ultimate Poker.”

“We have a major print ad campaigning and a major online campaign and I am very hopeful we will follow that up with a TV series.”

“All of this should be evidence as to how dead serious we are about succeeding in the UK marketplace.”

Ultimate Bet dipped its toes into the UK with headline sponsorship of the UK Guineas horse racing festival in 2004, and it is repeating the sponsorship this weekend.

Last year the million dollar deal allegedly failed to net more than 100 customers, but this time around the firm said it is expecting this year to present a much greater success.

“I dare say we will have more success with that event, as it was a one off event last year and now it is one of many events.”

Corben Dallas

cant see that happening, Samba maybe yur confusing the rebranding of UB for the Uk as something else.

UB have a nice interface,much better than teh dogs dinner that is Party Poker. But if they are looking to improve their system they should get rid of the stupid 'bonus dollars' system. I've had bonus dollars pending for months and seems total BS. either give them to me or drop teh stupid scheme.

PPP points or Ladbrokes Poker points seem to be at least clearer to the players.

Lafortezza

Corben Dallas wrote:

But if they are looking to improve their system they should get rid of the stupid 'bonus dollars' system. I've had bonus dollars pending for months and seems total BS. either give them to me or drop teh stupid scheme.

Do you mean a deposit or signup bonus? It's fairly clear to see the amount of hands that you have to play before the bonus clears. Click 'Cashie' then 'Bonus Account'.

On Party anyway.

Samba

They have been hit by a big ring of chip dumpers and their credit card charge backs have sky rocketed, they have been bleeding money for quite some time now.


I'll get the article later on, was reading it last night, they are in serious financial trouble over it.

NickyOD

Corben Dallas wrote:

cant see that happening, Samba maybe yur confusing the rebranding of UB for the Uk as something else.

UB have a nice interface,much better than teh dogs dinner that is Party Poker. But if they are looking to improve their system they should get rid of the stupid 'bonus dollars' system. I've had bonus dollars pending for months and seems total BS. either give them to me or drop teh stupid scheme.

PPP points or Ladbrokes Poker points seem to be at least clearer to the players.

Isn't there a section in the UB Cashier that tells you how close you are to earning your bonus money? Same set up as Full Tilt as far as I know.

Corben Dallas

i think so Nicky, sent an email to customer support and they came back with u have'nt played enough hands to claim it or some other BS

Culchie

Samba wrote:

They have been hit by a big ring of chip dumpers and their credit card charge backs have sky rocketed, they have been bleeding money for quite some time now.


I'll get the article later on, was reading it last night, they are in serious financial trouble over it.

OK, am I missing something here? .. I must be.

There are winners and losers the money goes round and round and so does the money, and then there is the site that takes it's rake regardless, 10% STT's and MTT and then the cash rake.

Why would chip dumping affect the sites profitability?

Samba

NickyOD wrote:

Could you be more vague? Do you have a quote from or a link to the article. What did it say exactly?

Try working 6 days in a row for 12 hours a pop and then replying to a thread on your way to bed

Interestingly there is no mention of the article in the online version that I can see. as I said I will type the article for you to see later on.

Apologies, I was very tired when I posted

Samba

Culchie wrote:

OK, am I missing something here? .. I must be.

There are winners and losers the money goes round and round and so does the money, and then there is the site that takes it's rake regardless, 10% STT's and MTT and then the cash rake.

Why would chip dumping affect the sites profitability?

RIght, Player A. comes on and deposits 5k with a stolen credit card his mate opens up a real account.


They both sit at the table Player A. loses all his chips to his m8, the m8 requests a cheque and cashes it in . By the time the person who the card belongs to gets their bill the money has been cashed in.

He then rings his credit card company and says, i did not authorize this payment and so they then ring up UB and issue a charge back.

UB have to give the 5k back to the credit card company.


So in total that's a 10k bill for UB


The problem with this ring is that they had such an extensive list of credite cards, every time an account was banned, they just came back and opened a new one and started from fresh.

Culchie

Thanks Samba.

Very clever eh?
Yeh, the bit I wasn't factoring in was that it was a stolen credit card.

Biometrics is the answer !
Read the Irises of our eyes to log on with a webcam devise, and then whilst playing on line, we'll then be able to pick up on all those tells as well.

The future of On-Line Poker .

NickyOD

I can't believe that something like this could come anywhere close to crippling an online poker room, but if its in a mag there's got to be something to it.

With the type of security checks online sites are using nowadays how they could amass such a debt is incredible, having said that spoofing IP addresses, Mac addresses etc etc is all possible so all anyone would need a person's CC number and the other little 3 digit number on the card.

What I cannot understand is there is ALWAYS a money trail. How does the person who gets paid off not get caught?

Culchie

NickyOD wrote:

I can't believe that something like this could come anywhere close to crippling an online poker room, but if its in a mag there's got to be something to it.

With the type of security checks online sites are using nowadays how they could amass such a debt is incredible, having said that spoofing IP addresses, Mac addresses etc etc is all possible so all anyone would need a person's CC number and the other little 3 digit number on the card.

What I cannot understand is there is ALWAYS a money trail. How does the person who gets paid off not get caught?

He goes to his local casino !!

No money trail there

In America they have all these cheque cashing outlets as well

Lafortezza

Why is this a bigger problem for UB compared to other poker sites? So big a problem that they are in danger of going out of business?

Culchie

lafortezza wrote:

Why is this a bigger problem for UB compared to other poker sites? So big a problem that they are in danger of going out of business?

Isn't necessarily the site as such, it could be people working in the site.

All they'd need to do is have 'the guy that does the fraud check on the transaction database' as part of the scam who 'didn't notice that' .

Sure he may get fired but ... he is well payed off.

Samba

NickyOD wrote:

I can't believe that something like this could come anywhere close to crippling an online poker room, but if its in a mag there's got to be something to it.

With the type of security checks online sites are using nowadays how they could amass such a debt is incredible, having said that spoofing IP addresses, Mac addresses etc etc is all possible so all anyone would need a person's CC number and the other little 3 digit number on the card.

What I cannot understand is there is ALWAYS a money trail. How does the person who gets paid off not get caught?

UB Had very poor security and they were a soft target, the dumpers had a complete list of credit cards, including all of the details to pass any check.

Good chip dumpers can be very hard to spot, they make it look like they are bad players and they will lose money not only to their buddy but to many others, I.e they will go all in with A2 v AK


Most companies will have a charge back rate of approx. 1% so if there were

100 mil in deposits it's 1mil in charge backs, money simply gone.

UB had around or over 10%, perhaps now you can see how they were be losing money fast.

NickyOD

Holy Crap! :eek: Those Fools!

NickyOD

Something just occurred to me. As far as I'm aware you can't deposit 5K as a new user on UB. Used to be, you could only deposit a small amount until you got approved to deposit more. I think the max you could deposit in one day when you first signed up was $300-$500, and a maximum of a couple of thousand per week even going through Firepay.

Samba

Yeah

Samba

unbelieveable

Samba

wh00t 2000th Post!!!!



Their limits


old ones Visa: 750 a day, 2.5k a week, 5k a month

Netteller 2.5k a day
7.5k a week
15k a month

Firepay Daily 750
Week 2.5k
Month 5k

These were recently increased

Hitchhiker's Guide to...

samba, unless you can post the article, you shouldn't be saying too much about UB being near or not to bankruptcy. prob not the healthiest thing for boards.ie to have an unsubstantiated post like this (legally). could you post a copy of the article?

Hitchhiker's Guide to...

just to be clear, i'm obviously not doubting you, but just think it would be better if we could see the actual article (or maybe someone else could post it if samba is busy?)

NickyOD

I would have to agree, especially when you are affiliated with another website. I've searched all over the web for anything relating to this and drawn a blank.

Samba

Page 48.

Article Title

Fixing Fraud

Ultimatebet, an online poker site, ran into big trouble when it was suddenly beset by extreme fraud. Within a matter of months credit card chargeback rates had jumped higher thatn 10% of deposists - an unsustainable level equating to roughly 20% of its gross revenues. UltimateBets's fraud managers were overwhelmed. Without tools to identify and stop the perpetrators. UltimateBet faced the real possibiltiy of financial faulure.


Further on (i'll be screwed If I am typing out this whole article)

"We were at a crucial crossroads" said Heick "We Knew if we didn't fix this problem, Ultimatebet would go Under"


In short, they have adopted solutions and they are and they are confident that they have managed to crack down on this ring.


But you are right Roundtower, not fair on the guys from boards to put them in such a situation, editing everything accordingly.
And they appear to have found a solution to the problem for some time now and are confidently tackling it.

I would say poor Phil was worried I recieved a phone call from a friend this morning, did you hear about UB? they are going bust.... they were at one stage on the brink of bankrupcy.

Looks like your funds are safe