http://www.billrini.com/2008/05/30/ultimate-bet-comes-clean-sorta/
Long story short, just like at Absolute Poker, a player at UltimateBet had a “super user” account enabling him to cheat for millions of dollars. I’m surprised that I’m just now hearing about this. The Absolute scandal made the mainstream media.
Is anyone surprised that the two sites have the same owners and same oversight commision?
I’m surprised that Absolute didn’t crash and burn after the first incident. I read through the OP of 2+2’s thread and, while it was a tad editorialized, the evidence is pretty damning. I really wonder what effect this is going to have for online poker in general. Because most people who find out about this will think that ALL poker sites are rigged. That’s going to be the worst fallout from this whole thing, IMO.
I don’t think that all sites are compromised, but we all have to be vigilant.
The problem is that this sort of cheating, if the cheater is clever and contrives to lose some medium-sized pots even when they can see they are beaten, is very difficult to spot. I think there is very little that can be done about it apart from stricter regulation of the providers, and stiff penalties for those who cheat in this way. Can they be charged with fraud, or something similar?
I do try to keep an eye on suspicious play, but at the levels I play at ($5 SNGs at the moment), anything that looks like collaboration could easily be down to inexperienced players - never attribute to malice that which can be explained by stupidity, etc.
I played last night and we had a guy who was pulling off some ridiculous stuff. He was playing 50% of the hands to flop and winning more than losing. This was not a cheap game ($100 1-table tournament) so his play was very suspicious and was commented on by a number of players.
This guy was most likely just drunk, but after I hear more stuff like this, I just don’t know. I’m thinking seriously about giving it up and only playing live from now on.
BTW, UB was very stand-up in the end. Everyone who had played against the cheater got a refund, whether he had been a winner or loser. One guy got $180K. :eek:
I’ll never play online poker. Between this stuff and the simple fact that half the guys at any given table could be on a cell phone shooting the shit and table talking it’s just not worth it.
You can say that UB was stand up in that the refunded everyone, that presumes that this guy who got caught was the only one doing it. How many guys were a little smarter and a little less greedy and simply went unnoticed and quit before getting caught.
I’ve been following this a little more closely than most here, I think. It’s been clear since early January at the latest that there had been superuser accounts on UB. That UB is stepping forward and admitting it now is not to their credit - they put it off as long as they could and they’re admitting as little as they think they can get away with. Some of Tokwiro’s statement, especially the parts about the vulnerabilities predating their takeover of UB and that any cheating was by former employees, is almost certainly bullshit. UB has been suspect ever since the AP story broke because they’re owned by the same people.
AP so far hasn’t seemed to be much hurt traffic-wise by the cheating, and it’s very likely UB won’t either. The cheaters did not play very often and only played very high stakes. I personally will never patronize a site whose integrity is so clearly nonexistent, but for most low- and mid-stakes players it seems people don’t care much since they were not at risk. The cheating was an inside job, which limits its scope. If other players were capable of cheating at any point I’m sure there would have been a mass exodus from both sites. In these cases it was site owners that were exploiting their software to make some extra money, and the vast majority of the high stakes players, the ones who were targeted, are leaving these sites.
Personally I’m happy to stick to Pokerstars and consider all other sites not sufficiently enticing to be worth the risk of playing elsewhere. FullTilt also has a very good reputation, though not as good as Stars. FTP in particular has had issues with mid-stakes limit hold 'em bots.
As with most other things in life, poker will always have a bit of caveat emptor. Smaller sites may be softer or offer good rakeback deals, but in return you’re taking on some risk that the site’s security is not as strong or that the site can even make good on its debts (the recent shutdown of numerous Prima skins, for example). But the big reputable ones are usually big and reputable for a reason. Do your research and you’re very safe playing online. A lot of people want online poker to be legalized again in the US precisely so stuff like this can be regulated and the sites held accountable.