Absolut Poker & Ultimate Bet Scandal

[swerb]

Anyone see the piece on 60 Minutes tonight about this?

Former Absolut Poker employee hacks into their system, able to see the cards of all players. Site refused to investigate it after numerous complaints and suspicions from players. Group of players decided to band together and do their own investigation ... exposed the whole scandal. Turns out at least 6 people were involved. Russ Hamilton, former WSOP champ in 1994, was said to be the mastermind. Bilked players out of at least 20 million, which is a conservative estimate.

Crazy shit. Players 60 Minutes taleked to, who helped expose it, said these cheats were blatant, greedy, and stupid. Feel its going on all over the place by smarter, more discreet cheats.

[peeker643]

Actually went down a year ago or so so the 60 Minutes may have been a repeat or an update.

It hit Freakanomics some time back: http://freakonomics.blogs.nytimes.com/2 ... wide-open/

[scott]

If anyone feels like going deeper into this - much deeper, is possible - here is the thread that summarizes the scandal on the poker forum where it was broken. Watching this unravel, and seeing the process taken by the guys who broke it - just regular online players who had some technical ability, or interest in research was pretty amazing. The case really broke open when with a little help from someone at UB, the investigators (just online players) were given the ability to attach player names to ID numbers in the data from $ transfers on the site. When Russ Hamilton was attached to it, the site when nuts.

Almost as amazing, watching players continue to play at Ultimate Bet in big numbers, justifying it by saying "The site if full of fish. I win there." even after the scandal had broken and it was clear it was an inside job.

http://forumserver.twoplustwo.com/29/ne ... ky-251207/

[Naxos]

I remember reading about this. Never saw the 60 minutes piece though. I still have money with Bodog but do not get to play much anymore.