Cheating “Scheme” Confirmed at UltimateBet
Rather than notify users or post anything on its website, Ultimate Bet -- following the same, questionable path of its partner, Absolute Poker -- has decided to publicize news regarding allegations of cheating on its site by sending messages to various poker people who then pass the stuff along to the poker community at large. Around 9:00 p.m. (EST) on Friday, Mason Malmuth posted the following over on Two Plus Two:
Hi Everyone:
We just received this from Ultimate Bet and they asked us to post it. So here it is.
Best wishes,
Mason
ULTIMATEBET INTERIM STATEMENT
Contact: Press@ultimatebet.com
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.”
Of course, when Ultimate Bet says they plan to communicate the findings to its customer base, I think we all know better. Only those among their customer base who happen to peruse forums like Two Plus Two, poker blogs, and/or a few of the poker news sites are ever going to hear the first word about cheating occurring on the site on which they play.
If you do happen to be one of those few who both play at Ultimate Bet and read the forums and/or Hard-Boiled Poker, tell me this: Does this vague report of a cheating “scheme” make you feel any safer about UB?
Labels: *the rumble, cheating, Kahnawake Gaming Commission, Mason Malmuth, Two Plus Two, UltimateBet
posted by Short-Stacked Shamus at 3/08/2008 12:03:00 AM
5 Comments:
Say it ain't so Shamus. If this kind of thing keeps happening, we're going to run out of places to play. The real threat though is that this just further fuels sentiment that "poker" is evil and therefore needs to be banned here in the good ole U.S. of A. A few bad apples in the game, can ruin it for everyone.
Thanks for getting the word out.
Regards,
cheer_dad
I knew that site was rigged, from the moment I lost my first dollar there!
/j.
Its in the same barrel with the other bad appel, owned by a thief/con-man. It's not surprising. Havnt'e even the paltry, grind up money I left there.
Another great article.
thanks for the reporting Shamus.
Typical though that I would read it here before I heard it anywhere else.
How come it isn't top news everywhere?
I am beginning to really loathe the online poker community and I am seriously on the verge of calling it quits.
i used to love to play poker online. won some tourneys, but always thought things werent right. id seen alot of bad beats more than you should, and some bettin patterns were questionable. i stopped play for money online with poker and moved to sports like bball, baseball, and football and just do the over-under line. ive had much more sucess. think about it.... you will lose 20,30,maybe 100 in poker most of time. start with a 10 bet and if you lose just double the next till you win. it brings me a 350 to 500 check in the mail once a month.
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