The Absolute Poker Cheating Scandal Blown Wide Open

[Azoy?]

Whole story can be read by clicking on this link.

A few weeks back I blogged about allegations of cheating at an online poker site called Absolute Poker. While things looked awfully suspicious, there wasn?t quite a smoking gun, and it was unclear exactly how the cheater might have cheated.

A combination of some incredible detective work by some poker players and an accidental (?) data leak by Absolute Poker have blown the scandal wide open.

You can read the first-hand account in the following thread at 2+2 Poker Forum, but here?s the short version:

Some opponents became suspicious of how a certain player was playing. He seemed to know what the opponents? hole cards were. The suspicious players provided examples of these hands, which were so outrageous that virtually all serious poker players were convinced that cheating had occurred. One of the players who?d been cheated requested that Absolute Poker provide hand histories from the tournament (which is standard practice for online sites). In this case, Absolute Poker ?accidentally? did not send the usual hand histories, but instead sent a file that contained all sorts of private information that the poker site would never release. The file contained every player?s hole cards, observations of the tables, and even the IP addresses of every person playing. (I put ?accidentally? in quotes because the mistake seems like too great a coincidence when you learn what followed.) I suspect that someone at Absolute knew about the cheating and how it happened, and was acting as a whistleblower by sending these data. If that is the case, I hope whomever ?accidentally? sent the file gets their proper hero?s welcome in the end.

[eroswebmaster]

Yeah old news in the poker world.

[eroswebmaster]

TheVoid who won the WCOOP at pokerstars also lost his money due to multi-accounting in that tourney.

[woj]

cheating in an online poker game? gee, that's shocking...

[kirupai]

Originally Posted by eroswebmaster

Yeah old news in the poker world.

The problem with this scandal is that everything is pointing to an inside job, with people as high as founders involved in the scam.

Not just some random guy doing the scam.

[eroswebmaster]

Originally Posted by woj

cheating in an online poker game? gee, that's shocking...

this goes beyond collusion tho'.

Absolute released tournament history to a player who requested it..what they didn't mean to do was release everything, which they did.

What the players have done is gone through everything with a fine tooth comb, and they've found for example an account so old, it would have to more than likely be set up when the site was still in test mode.

This account's IP addy is in Costa Rica where absolute apparently has some offices.

Anyway, it was then and only then an account by the name of Potripper began to play just about every hand and do so correctly.

They have this guy calling off his stack with like King or Jack high and it's good..I mean on the river where potripper led out, got raised all-in and he called off everything and was good.

Looking at his poker tracker stats some players had on him, he had infinite river aggression, this means that in 100% of his river action he either folded or raised, he never called, which means he knew exactly 100% of the time what action to take.

Many more hands like this...this has been going on for weeks now...people sharing hands across multiple boards and comparing notes.

[eroswebmaster]

Originally Posted by kirupai

The problem with this scandal is that everything is pointing to an inside job, with people as high as founders involved in the scam.

Not just some random guy doing the scam.

Yes, I know...and when I say it's old news...I mean that is old news.

In the beginning they actually thought Marc Seif was involved. My roommate is very close friends with Marc Seif, and she states with 100% certainty that he is not involved. But I'm gonna have to wait until all of the evidence comes in.

[eroswebmaster]

Oh to add...shit with absolute started going down about a year ago right after the UIGEA went into effect.

A lot of my friends were like $10/$20+ limit grinders on there who all of a sudden could no longer beat the games...then when clearing bonuses Absolute started bouncing checks, or claiming their bonuses were calculated wrong etc. So they all left back in spring.

[kirupai]

Originally Posted by eroswebmaster

Yes, I know...and when I say it's old news...I mean that is old news.

In the beginning they actually thought Marc Seif was involved. My roommate is very close friends with Marc Seif, and she states with 100% certainty that he is not involved. But I'm gonna have to wait until all of the evidence comes in.

My bad, I thought you meant that stuff like this has happened before. But yeah I agree its rather old stuff.

[eroswebmaster]

Originally Posted by kirupai

My bad, I thought you meant that stuff like this has happened before. But yeah I agree its rather old stuff.

no problem man...I play Pokerstars and fulltilt, and I'm glad that they do all they can to protect players. I know it's not possible in every situation, but I do trust that they try.

There was the infamous ZeeJustin scandal, and that 15 year old kid at pokerstars who got caught multi-accounting, then a bunch of accounts tied to him got busted again and some fairly known players got their accounts seized because they allowed him to play on them.

Anyway, as long as this shit makes it to the public and people get thoroughly punished it will help some people feel better about playing online.

[d-null]

wow, I wonder if that is only the tip of the iceberg

I felt ripped off many times by strange variations in casino type online games, trends that seemed to defy the odds, like much tighter games when bonus money was being handed out etc, or dealers hitting blackjack at an unusually high rate

Live casinos or racetracks are the only places I would really consider now other than an occasional time waster.

[Showman]

AbsolutePoker.com says ?geek? hacked system to prove it could be done.....

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/21381022/

[Papillon]

wow thats a real bombshell

[Azoy?]

Originally Posted by Showman

AbsolutePoker.com says ?geek? hacked system to prove it could be done.....

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/21381022/

that geek is going to get wacked

[picaso]

shocking

[IllTestYourGirls]

glad I never played there.

[dig420]

I quit playing cash games online, too many freak donkey calls hitting their one outers. I think online poker went downhill as soon as it became illegal, it's very hard now to find out who the auditing companies are, and I just don't trust them.

Sucks, because I loved playing online.

[polle54]

Originally Posted by jetjet

wow, I wonder if that is only the tip of the iceberg

I felt ripped off many times by strange variations in casino type online games, trends that seemed to defy the odds, like much tighter games when bonus money was being handed out etc, or dealers hitting blackjack at an unusually high rate

Live casinos or racetracks are the only places I would really consider now other than an occasional time waster.

I think it's fairly safe to say that you have never been exposed to any kind of cheating on online poker rooms.

I have played 250k+ hands on PartyPoker, stars, everest and other places and I can tell you the statistics adds up over time.

as for the casinos it might be a bit different story. They don't have to be part of a big network and can might setup a scam.

[RawAlex]

polle54, you have to consider the odds and numbers. If the house shifts even 0.5% of the hands to favor one player or another, that can represent millions of dollars. This would be doubly interesting for the house if they have their own player (or play bots) in games profiting from it.

Consider the odds in most casino table games. In Vegas, they are typically 1%-2% house advantage, and nothing more. From that alone, Vegas casinos are able to net a shitload of money.

An online poker room shifting the game a couple of decimal points AND favoring their own player on top of it would be more than enough to skim millions a year.

[eroswebmaster]

"Online poker is rigged!" The mantra of the losing player.

[FuqALot]

I'm not saying online poker games are 100% honest, but the AP story doesn't mean they aren't. This just means some insider got a friend to join a poker tournament and he gave him some info while playing it. This stuff happens when you gives access to the wrong employees.

[darkwood]

thats something

[dig420]

Originally Posted by eroswebmaster

"Online poker is rigged!" The mantra of the losing player.

yeah, that's what all the columnists who depend on online poker for a living say. As if you have to be a moron to even consider the notion.

I say that's bullshit, you'd have to an idiot not to suspect it, and the absolutepoker bullshit proves it. If you're still spouting that line after all this, you're just not thinking straight.

[dig420]

Originally Posted by FuqALot

I'm not saying online poker games are 100% honest, but the AP story doesn't mean they aren't. This just means some insider got a friend to join a poker tournament and he gave him some info while playing it. This stuff happens when you gives access to the wrong employees.

It also happens when you have shills, and when you have bots. Look around you. How many GFY posters would you trust to run a clean poker site?

Well, it's the same kind of people that DO run poker sites.

[Kevsh]

Just what the online casino needs, another black eye. What better way to reassure players that online gambling is safe and the sites are trustworthy?

I'm sure the big ones are still raking it in but this can only hurt...

[eroswebmaster]

Originally Posted by dig420

yeah, that's what all the columnists who depend on online poker for a living say. As if you have to be a moron to even consider the notion.

I say that's bullshit, you'd have to an idiot not to suspect it, and the absolutepoker bullshit proves it. If you're still spouting that line after all this, you're just not thinking straight.

I have played close to 250K hands on line at various levels...my roomate plays $100-$200 + online every day and we don't seem to be having any problems.

She is also pretty tight with many of the online companies, in fact was tied very closely to Party Poker and helped them get started.

now, don't get me wrong, I'm not saying there has never been any collusion or multi-accounting, I know for a fact there has.

However, the whole thing about rigging poker so fish suck out on better players because they will more than likely put the money back into the rake machine vs better players taking it off line is bullshit.

Or the whole set up weird turn and river cards to create more rake etc., these "theories" have mostly been perpetuated by those who can't beat the game, and instead of looking themselves, look outwardly for an excuse.

The level of programming needed to create such programs to deliver suckouts...LOL

The simple fact is only a relatively small % of people are good enough to beat the game, a slightly larger % break even, and the rest, are for lack of a better word, losers.

[eroswebmaster]

Originally Posted by Kevsh

Just what the online casino needs, another black eye. What better way to reassure players that online gambling is safe and the sites are trustworthy?

I'm sure the big ones are still raking it in but this can only hurt...

Actually, there is a silver lining in all of this.

PartyGaming is trying to sell Party Poker, if someone like Harrah's, or MGM/Mirage were to buy it, then they would work on getting it regulated.

If they could set it up so that the main offices were in Nevada instead of the Isle of Mann *pokerstars* or Gibraltar *Party*, with all the servers in a huge warehouse in the desert. Tack on a regulatory commission, and the ability to seek legal recourse if necessary, I believe you would have players coming out in droves...you would have new players in fact, and those would include the people who were worried about dropping any money online in the past.

[VeriSexy]

Interesting to say the least

[RawAlex]

Eros, cheating at online poker is as simple as three or four friends on the same table playing with whoever walks in, they are in different places using second PC's with ICQ or even chatting on a conference call. Party Poker won't allow more than one user per IP per table, but that too is a pretty easy deal to get around. It is very simple to get that type of cheat going.

That is nothing compared to more institutional cheating. When you consider the money in play, getting a "house" player into tournaments to get some of the higher payouts would be a big bottom line boost to the company. If that one player knows the hole cards of everyone at the table every hand, he can pretty much run the table at any speed he likes. He doesn't have to win every hand, only has to win a few important hands to make it to the final table and soak up second or third place money. Do that on every big dollar tournament, and suddenly the profit levels explode.

There are plenty of options on how to do it. There is a huge difference between groups of players cheating and institutional corruption. We shall see how this turns out if it goes anywhere.

[FuqALot]

Originally Posted by RawAlex

Eros, cheating at online poker is as simple as three or four friends on the same table playing with whoever walks in, they are in different places using second PC's with ICQ or even chatting on a conference call. Party Poker won't allow more than one user per IP per table, but that too is a pretty easy deal to get around. It is very simple to get that type of cheat going.

There is almost no benefit in playing together with others. The only thing you know is 6 other cards being dealt, but there are so many other cards left of the 52 that it's very difficult to make any conclusive decisions. People doing this will end up spending more time talking to others than concentrating on the game.
I got to admit though, raising the pot to the max when one of the team members has a great hand is a different story.

About the poker sites cheating,
Eroswebmaster is right about everything he said... it's pretty damn complicated for poker sites to cheat, because in the end everything evens out anyway.

[RawAlex]

Fug, if you are holding a pair of 9s, and one of the other guys has a nine, then you know that your outs and potential for a set has dropped by 50%. In the same manner, if you pull a couple of decent clubs, and your other players all have at least one club, you have taken 3 card out of potential play for making a flush, which changes dramatically your play.

It isn't 100%, but it redoes the numbers and in the end gives you an advantage to NOT buy into bad hands.

Now, if you have 100% access to everyone's hole cards, you can back out of bad situations and kill guys who are bluffing. You only have to move the numbers about 2 or 3% to truly make a huge difference in the game.

[eroswebmaster]

RawAlex most colluders pretty much suck at collusion.

I know how simple it is for people to collude online, I know how to do it all by myself without needing any friends.

however, the sites have security software that looks for patterns, like accounts who sit down at tables fairly often, and if one account happens to dump chips to another, then that raises yet another warning flag.

They have caught a number of players who have used multi-accounts, and any accounts that are remotely tied to theirs get shut down as well.

Here recently JJProdigy he was only 15 the first time he got busted for multi-accounting, he got busted yet again.

Anyway, he paid people to use their accounts, or worked out a deal where they got the rake back or FPP's, he did this across quite a few accounts.

Well in the end, those people who only allowed him to use their accounts got popped right along with him, and any account that was associated with those accounts were either suspended or have been added to a watch list.

Let's use some common sense here. When Frank Rosenthal *the real life guy the movie Casino was based on," got here to Vegas, one thing he realized. Is that the casinos didn't have to cheat. They would make money either way. The mafia who still controls most casinos in this town, however under the guise of corporations realized this as well and cleaned up their businesses.

My point is, the poker rooms make money regardless, there really is no reason to skim, or put bots on tables or in tournaments. Sure they might make a few more million at the end of the year, but it's a very short sighted way of running business.

Right now, this very minute Pokerstars has 106K people playing on it's site across 16K tables. Why jeopardize the cash cow.

Lee Jones the former poker room manager for PokerStars wrote a very good article about the subject...
http://www.cardplayer.com/magazine/article/16993

I'm not trying to name drop, but as I have posted already in this thread my roommate was fairly deep in Party Poker, made millions off of her stock well before it went public, because her lawyer advised against being an owner of an online gaming company.

Her company, was the original Party Poker affiliate, they were the first, and one of the biggest.

She knows anyone and everyone in this biz, and I trust what she tells me. She of course unlike some young guns like Brian Townsend won't leave millions online, but she can play in some of the biggest games going.

My point is, if she feels safe from the sites, then so do I.

[polle54]

Originally Posted by eroswebmaster

RawAlex most colluders pretty much suck at collusion.

I know how simple it is for people to collude online, I know how to do it all by myself without needing any friends.

however, the sites have security software that looks for patterns, like accounts who sit down at tables fairly often, and if one account happens to dump chips to another, then that raises yet another warning flag.

They have caught a number of players who have used multi-accounts, and any accounts that are remotely tied to theirs get shut down as well.

Here recently JJProdigy he was only 15 the first time he got busted for multi-accounting, he got busted yet again.

Anyway, he paid people to use their accounts, or worked out a deal where they got the rake back or FPP's, he did this across quite a few accounts.

Well in the end, those people who only allowed him to use their accounts got popped right along with him, and any account that was associated with those accounts were either suspended or have been added to a watch list.

Let's use some common sense here. When Frank Rosenthal *the real life guy the movie Casino was based on," got here to Vegas, one thing he realized. Is that the casinos didn't have to cheat. They would make money either way. The mafia who still controls most casinos in this town, however under the guise of corporations realized this as well and cleaned up their businesses.

My point is, the poker rooms make money regardless, there really is no reason to skim, or put bots on tables or in tournaments. Sure they might make a few more million at the end of the year, but it's a very short sighted way of running business.

Right now, this very minute Pokerstars has 106K people playing on it's site across 16K tables. Why jeopardize the cash cow.

Lee Jones the former poker room manager for PokerStars wrote a very good article about the subject...
http://www.cardplayer.com/magazine/article/16993

I'm not trying to name drop, but as I have posted already in this thread my roommate was fairly deep in Party Poker, made millions off of her stock well before it went public, because her lawyer advised against being an owner of an online gaming company.

Her company, was the original Party Poker affiliate, they were the first, and one of the biggest.

She knows anyone and everyone in this biz, and I trust what she tells me. She of course unlike some young guns like Brian Townsend won't leave millions online, but she can play in some of the biggest games going.

My point is, if she feels safe from the sites, then so do I.

Very good post.

Raw Alex I understand where your concerns come from but please answer me the follwing:

How much poker have you played (how many hand in PT or the likes)?
Are you a programmer? Know C++ and Client - Server programming=
Do you know how the RNG are approved an such?

I think, and I really don't mean to offend you, that you need to study this a bit and you will see that it's not something you just do. Adding a 0.5% edge to bot players or the likes.

Other than that please consider what Eros just said about motivation.

[misterhhs]

So for some people it's not worrying enough that through a security leak (known by an ex-employee) u are able to see everyone's hands ?

A frustated employee who wanted to hit back Absolute Poker. Best genius hackers also know how to hack these poker networks. But they don't spread their hack on the internet. What would they win with it ? Right. That poker sites will disable that hack and no profits anymore for hackers. And we're talking about hue profits, not peanuts.

And yes, I believe that poker sites are not randomly dealing cards. If there are only a few winners, then nobody would play poker anymore, only those few winners. So they let win u sometimes and let u lose sometimes. No matter what ur skills are. Poker is one big show, just face it. Also the WSOP.
U see bad beats that are unbelievable. Well, that's what they are pro poker players for, right ? To do amazing things with cards ? Nah. Those unbelievable bad beats are just for the show. On the whole planet are millions of poker players, but mostly always the same players get in the final. Because their attractive for the show. Who would watch some stupid geeks ?

Which skills do u must have against clowns that call everything and get rewarded on the river ? Or to go all in with 2 7 preflop?

[eroswebmaster]

Originally Posted by misterhhs

Which skills do u must have against clowns that call everything and get rewarded on the river ? Or to go all in with 2 7 preflop?

I'm not here to educate, but just because pre-flop Jacks are a 4:1 dog against aces, does not mean they will always lose..there is still that 20% chance to win.

[misterhhs]

How random is random if we need to give it a seed to be random ?

A seed that can we retrieve back. Use 3 times the same seed and u get 3 times the same result. If u know the formula for the seed u can predict the result.

[Shoehorn!]

I liked the quote from the end that said "The real lesson of this all, however, is probably the following: guys who aren?t that smart will figure out ways to cheat. And, with a little luck and the right data, folks who are a lot smarter will catch them doing it." So true.

[dig420]

Originally Posted by eroswebmaster

I have played close to 250K hands on line at various levels...my roomate plays $100-$200 + online every day and we don't seem to be having any problems.

She is also pretty tight with many of the online companies, in fact was tied very closely to Party Poker and helped them get started.

now, don't get me wrong, I'm not saying there has never been any collusion or multi-accounting, I know for a fact there has.

However, the whole thing about rigging poker so fish suck out on better players because they will more than likely put the money back into the rake machine vs better players taking it off line is bullshit.

Or the whole set up weird turn and river cards to create more rake etc., these "theories" have mostly been perpetuated by those who can't beat the game, and instead of looking themselves, look outwardly for an excuse.

The level of programming needed to create such programs to deliver suckouts...LOL

The simple fact is only a relatively small % of people are good enough to beat the game, a slightly larger % break even, and the rest, are for lack of a better word, losers.

I win live. I've won several small tournaments including a 30k 1st place at Bellagio, but I can't win online. Every time I get in with the second nuts for all my chips somebody hits a runner runner straight draw. I've seen it happen too damn many times and I just don't trust it.

Also, every time I decide to give it another chance, I put money in and instantly jump up a few thousand, then steadily give it back over the next week. Every single time. How is it I win live and lose online? I do believe they're rigged, no matter how much the mods on poker boards and the columnists say otherwise.

Why is it so hard to find out who's auditing who these days?

[dig420]

Originally Posted by eroswebmaster

RawAlex most colluders pretty much suck at collusion.

I know how simple it is for people to collude online, I know how to do it all by myself without needing any friends.

however, the sites have security software that looks for patterns, like accounts who sit down at tables fairly often, and if one account happens to dump chips to another, then that raises yet another warning flag.

They have caught a number of players who have used multi-accounts, and any accounts that are remotely tied to theirs get shut down as well.

Here recently JJProdigy he was only 15 the first time he got busted for multi-accounting, he got busted yet again.

Anyway, he paid people to use their accounts, or worked out a deal where they got the rake back or FPP's, he did this across quite a few accounts.

Well in the end, those people who only allowed him to use their accounts got popped right along with him, and any account that was associated with those accounts were either suspended or have been added to a watch list.

Let's use some common sense here. When Frank Rosenthal *the real life guy the movie Casino was based on," got here to Vegas, one thing he realized. Is that the casinos didn't have to cheat. They would make money either way. The mafia who still controls most casinos in this town, however under the guise of corporations realized this as well and cleaned up their businesses.

My point is, the poker rooms make money regardless, there really is no reason to skim, or put bots on tables or in tournaments. Sure they might make a few more million at the end of the year, but it's a very short sighted way of running business.

Right now, this very minute Pokerstars has 106K people playing on it's site across 16K tables. Why jeopardize the cash cow.

Lee Jones the former poker room manager for PokerStars wrote a very good article about the subject...
http://www.cardplayer.com/magazine/article/16993

I'm not trying to name drop, but as I have posted already in this thread my roommate was fairly deep in Party Poker, made millions off of her stock well before it went public, because her lawyer advised against being an owner of an online gaming company.

Her company, was the original Party Poker affiliate, they were the first, and one of the biggest.

She knows anyone and everyone in this biz, and I trust what she tells me. She of course unlike some young guns like Brian Townsend won't leave millions online, but she can play in some of the biggest games going.

My point is, if she feels safe from the sites, then so do I.

Then why is AbsolutePoker cheating? It absolutely makes no sense, they dont have to do it to make money, only losers complain right?

but AbsolutePoker CHEATS all the same. And I believe they all do.

[dig420]

and let me restate that so it's even more obvious: We're not discussing whether it's profitable for online poker companies to cheat. We're not discussing whether it's a good idea or if they do it.

We KNOW they do, thanks to AP getting busted.

so let's just drop all that bullshit. It's irrelevant now. The only question to be asked now is how many of them do it, and are any of them honest.

[RawAlex]

Originally Posted by polle54

Very good post.

Raw Alex I understand where your concerns come from but please answer me the follwing:

How much poker have you played (how many hand in PT or the likes)?
Are you a programmer? Know C++ and Client - Server programming=
Do you know how the RNG are approved an such?

I think, and I really don't mean to offend you, that you need to study this a bit and you will see that it's not something you just do. Adding a 0.5% edge to bot players or the likes.

Other than that please consider what Eros just said about motivation.

You guys are both missing the point. Collusion between players is the end user's version of cheating. It is easy to do, and can actually be profitable, just by moving the risk ever so slightly.

That is the small end of the stick.

the RNG has little or nothing to do with it. Let's say you are a poker site. You spike every big game with a half a dozen players for "the house". They might even be automated for all that matters. You feed those players all of the information about what is going on at the table, and because the deck is in theory pre-shuffled, you can even reveal all the cards that will come out. Those players can then choose to play winning hands when they will win, and be able to call out bluffers without an issue. They can also even lose hands when there isn't many chips in the pot, just to look good.

At the end of the day, you end up from, say 200 players in a $100 per seat tourney with 10 players at a final table and say 6 of them are house players. They all then lose out over the next little while, taking 10th, 9th, 7th, 5th, 4th, and 2nd. All that money goes directly to the company instead of back to players.

Instead of the $5 fee to enter the game ($1000 for the house) they also took in about 30-40% of the total prize pool, or $6,000 - $8,000. Suddenly, running a poker room is very profitable indeed. Do that 10 times per day, and there is an extra 30 millions dollars in it for you.

Doubly more important if the money isn't going to the company but the the main partner's personal off shore accounts.

you have to think big

[eroswebmaster]

Originally Posted by dig420

Then why is AbsolutePoker cheating? It absolutely makes no sense, they dont have to do it to make money, only losers complain right?

but AbsolutePoker CHEATS all the same. And I believe they all do.

There is no conclusive proof Absolute is cheating..there is evidence that maybe an employee, someone associated with the site was involved in cheating.

Big difference...but Absolute I don't really care about..in the grand scheme of things they are small potatoes.

[eroswebmaster]

Originally Posted by RawAlex

You guys are both missing the point. Collusion between players is the end user's version of cheating. It is easy to do, and can actually be profitable, just by moving the risk ever so slightly.

That is the small end of the stick.

the RNG has little or nothing to do with it. Let's say you are a poker site. You spike every big game with a half a dozen players for "the house". They might even be automated for all that matters. You feed those players all of the information about what is going on at the table, and because the deck is in theory pre-shuffled, you can even reveal all the cards that will come out. Those players can then choose to play winning hands when they will win, and be able to call out bluffers without an issue. They can also even lose hands when there isn't many chips in the pot, just to look good.

At the end of the day, you end up from, say 200 players in a $100 per seat tourney with 10 players at a final table and say 6 of them are house players. They all then lose out over the next little while, taking 10th, 9th, 7th, 5th, 4th, and 2nd. All that money goes directly to the company instead of back to players.

Instead of the $5 fee to enter the game ($1000 for the house) they also took in about 30-40% of the total prize pool, or $6,000 - $8,000. Suddenly, running a poker room is very profitable indeed. Do that 10 times per day, and there is an extra 30 millions dollars in it for you.

Doubly more important if the money isn't going to the company but the the main partner's personal off shore accounts.

you have to think big

one thing you're missing is that people who play online, are aware of others who play online. If all of a sudden even just 1 player wins multiple times, and the top MTTers online don't know who he/she/it is, they are going to start asking questions.

You're trying to think big, but I think you're missing some key numbers here.

Let me give you a quick example. A $200 buy-in tournament with $15 juice to the house on Pokerstars had 1,639 players involved.

Pokerstars made $24,585 off of that one tournament alone.
Tournaments are all top heavy when it comes to pay structures.
1st was $72K, 2nd was $42K, 3rd was $27K.

They make $24K without the same overhead as a live tournament has. They of course have servers / bw, but there are no dealers, or floor that a % of that goes to.

So, why try to make an additional $27K by putting a bot into 3rd place, when all they have to do is run another tournament..which if you log onto any poker site they have them running all day long. This does not take into account the rake from cash games...how about the ungodly juice on a low limit SnG, which if you open up pokerstars you will see up to 100's of just $5.50's running per hour...that doesn't include the $10's, $20's etc.

Once again, there is no reason to blow $24K a day to make an additional $27K a day...and I'm telling you...if the sites tried, they would not get away with it for long.

There are far too many people who do this for a living, who follow the stats of other players...sites that track this shit too like SharkScope. Hendonmob, and many others...when 1 player wins one of these big events and no one knows who he is...the forums light up asking..."who the fuck is this?"

[eroswebmaster]

Another thing...polle has tried to point out. There are people out there with millions of hands in their poker tracker database and not one has come forward so far to say..."hey..the numbers are just not adding up."

What that means is they can look at their stats and see if they're getting Aces the right amount of times...and if those Aces are holding up the right amount of times...this is how potripper was found out...people looking at their poker tracker stats saw things and said...wtf this can't be right.

[RawAlex]

Eros, you are correct. But you miss it again: 24k to the company to run the show, and by placing a single player in 3rd place, they would take another 27k - worth a ton more if it isn't going to the company but rather to an employee's personal account, example. There is a limit to how many big money games will play in a day - so taking a major ass second skim is the most profitable way to do thing. Heck, add more big money tournaments, and just skim those too... who cares? Do it over every multi-table game running every day, and tell me how much money that would be going into someone's offshore account.

In a scheme like this, they would NEVER win. Winning is bad. Taking some of the money off the final table is good. 3rd place, 5th place, 6tth place. You have a player who finishes routinely in the top 20 but never really wins, and he would blend into the stats like a ton of other player would. Use hundreds of user names, build them up over time, let them all make money, and smile.

The best part? The game could be audited down to the last card and nobody would be the wiser. No playing with the shuffle, no playing with the dealing, no nothing. Just knowing what cards will be in play and calculating the which hand wins is enough. Debug info, basically.

[d-null]

the bottom line is that a live real life card game, blackjack or poker or whatever, is the way to go.... it is much preferable to be able to see and feel real cards that are shuffled right in front of your eyes

[dig420]

you know absolute was cheating, and it's proven as much as it can be without someone admitting to it. I don't have the time or inclination to go and read up about it again, but the cheating account was traced back directly to the Pres of the company.

[dig420]

yep the IP feeding the cheating account (potripper) was traced back to the residence of the President of AP.

Don't these same guys own ultimatebet?

still sticking by the 'only losers think online poker is rigged' storyline?

[Axeman]

Originally Posted by dig420

yep the IP feeding the cheating account (potripper) was traced back to the residence of the President of AP.

Don't these same guys own ultimatebet?

still sticking by the 'only losers think online poker is rigged' storyline?

Which the article claims was someone making it appear to be a former official with the company doing the damage. The MSNBC article points the finger at an employee.

There is no evidence that the company directly played a role in this other than being the employeer. Could they have ordered this to happen, sure. Just gotta prove that part.

[datatank]

Originally Posted by eroswebmaster

one thing you're missing is that people who play online, are aware of others who play online. If all of a sudden even just 1 player wins multiple times, and the top MTTers online don't know who he/she/it is, they are going to start asking questions.

You're trying to think big, but I think you're missing some key numbers here.

Let me give you a quick example. A $200 buy-in tournament with $15 juice to the house on Pokerstars had 1,639 players involved.

Pokerstars made $24,585 off of that one tournament alone.
Tournaments are all top heavy when it comes to pay structures.
1st was $72K, 2nd was $42K, 3rd was $27K.

They make $24K without the same overhead as a live tournament has. They of course have servers / bw, but there are no dealers, or floor that a % of that goes to.

So, why try to make an additional $27K by putting a bot into 3rd place, when all they have to do is run another tournament..which if you log onto any poker site they have them running all day long. This does not take into account the rake from cash games...how about the ungodly juice on a low limit SnG, which if you open up pokerstars you will see up to 100's of just $5.50's running per hour...that doesn't include the $10's, $20's etc.

Once again, there is no reason to blow $24K a day to make an additional $27K a day...and I'm telling you...if the sites tried, they would not get away with it for long.

There are far too many people who do this for a living, who follow the stats of other players...sites that track this shit too like SharkScope. Hendonmob, and many others...when 1 player wins one of these big events and no one knows who he is...the forums light up asking..."who the fuck is this?"

How do you know so much about online poker? Are you involved in the biz?