To say that the last six months have been busy for the customer service department at Ultimate Bet would be quite an understatement. Rocked by a cheating scandal involving the former owners of the company, Ultimate Bet has struggled to maintain its customers trust as it moves forward. Recent threads on several of the major online poker discussion forums, including TwoPlusTwo and PocketFives.com, have implicated one of UB’s former owners, Russ Hamilton, in the cheating scandal. Although the information is currently nothing more than pure speculation, the online poker world is gradually beginning to learn more about just what caused the larceny to occur.
A post on TwoPlusTwo.com, which was re-posted on other poker forums, noted that the address tied to three of the accounts in question – Sleepless, NoPaddles, and nvtease – were tied to an address in Las Vegas. The home in question is located at 1725 Glenview Drive. Clever users of online poker forums then reverse-searched the address using the Clark County Assessor’s Office and came up with the owner of the property as none other than “Hamilton Russell & Carolyn.” If you’d like further proof, the Assessor’s website even has a scan of the document that transfers title of the property over to Hamilton. The seller was Travis Makar, who transferred the house to Hamilton on May 23, 2006. The home is identified as a Single Family Residence with a total value of $342,318.77.
Several individuals, who potentially include Hamilton, are accused of utilizing an auditing tool that displayed the hole cards of each individual at the poker table. In essence, the accounts would receive an enormous advantage over other players. However, UB was eventually notified of this abnormality in January, when the account NioNio was identified as being part of the scandal. In March, Ultimate Bet confirmed that six user accounts had changed their screen names multiple times to avoid detection. Screen names used included NioNio, Sleepless, NoPaddles, nvtease, flatbroke33, ilike2win, UtakeIt2, FlipFlop2, erick456, WhackMe44, RockStarLA, stoned2nite, monizzle, FireNTexas, HeadKase01, LetsPatttty, NYMobser, and WhoWhereWhen. The online poker site began issuing refunds to those who were wronged.
Recently, UB released even more screen names associated with the cheating. They included Crackcorn55, WhakMe, GrabBag123, gravitation, Bgroup, H_Curtis, Twenty 1, WacoManiac, Broke_In_L_A, ShaqTack, BlueBerry101, HolyMucker, 55WasHere, Xnomas, dannyboy55, Indy05, and SlimPikins2.
Hamilton and the original UB ownership sold the site to Tokwiro in October, 2006. Twelve years prior, he was the winner of a World Series of Poker bracelet, taking down the Main Event in 1994 for one million dollars. He cashed three times that year and each time had a top ten finish. He cashed for $145,875 and 59th place in the 2005 Main Event as well. Hamilton is well-known in the gambling world for creating the Ultimate Blackjack Tour in 2005. Its website, PlayUBT.com, describes him: “Russ Hamilton is one of the world’s foremost experts in the gaming industry, having gained an international reputation as both a player and a visionary. Russ has won World Championships in virtually all types of casino games, including the WSOP main event, and has been instrumental in building successful companies in the industry by anticipating where the market is headed.” Although sources have disputed whether Hamilton actually resides at the house in question, his name is tied to it.
According to Poker Pages, Hamilton lives in Las Vegas and has been married for 30 years. He has two dogs and started playing poker when he was just seven years old. If he could change one thing about the poker world, it would be to “Legalize and regulate online poker. People are going to play, so legalize it and get the tax dollars here in our country instead of making it all go outside the country. People WANT TO PLAY POKER online. You can’t stop them, so let them play and regulate it.” He has no logged cashes after the 2006 PokerStars Caribbean Adventure.
Freddy Deeb’s name has been mentioned as well after multiple posters on online poker forums have alleged that his account accepted money from one or more of the known super user accounts. However, funds transfers involving the accounts in question are quite common according to TwoPlusTwo poster and poker pro beanie: “If you looked at my transfer history (and or many high stakes players for that matter) you would have a similar “jaw dropping” effect. The fact is when someone transfers someone 100k on UB they often end up getting traded that money on FTP, Stars or in Bellagio Chips. It is not uncommon for someone to call me up and ask for 100k or more and as long as I know they are good for it, I ship it and make arrangements to get paid. This is just the way the poker economy works.” Deeb’s connection to the scandal is much more cloudy.
In response to the latest allegations, Eric “Rizen” Lynch, who had signed on to be a Star Player with Ultimate Bet, departed the site under intense pressure from the online poker community. However, Cliff “JohnnyBax” Josephy, one of the top tournament players in the world, has remained. UB also recently signed James “P0KERPR033” Campbell to its roster that includes Josephy, Annie Duke, and Phil Hellmuth.
Anonymous sources tell PND that Russ Hamilton, who has neither denied nor confirmed the rumors swirling around him, will be making a public statement either Thursday or Friday of this week. We’ll have the latest for you on PND.