The news this week in the online poker world has been dominated by Ultimate Bet. The company has come into the forefront of the media for the past few days, starting on Wednesday when the Kahnawake Gaming Commission, the regulatory body that oversees UB’s gaming practices, announced that its findings on the cheating scandal at the online poker room would be announced shortly. On Thursday, the parent company of Ultimate Bet and Absolute Poker announced that the player bases of both sites would be merged to form CEREUS, which will become the third largest online poker network. Today, UB’s ownership announced that it had concluded its investigation into the super user scandal. Let’s check out the findings, which impact thousands of players.
On Friday, Tokwiro Enterprises ENRG released a statement stating that its examination of what went wrong at Ultimate Bet had been wrapped up. The cheating, which was brought to the company’s attention in January, had plagued UB since 2005, long before Tokwiro purchased UB in 2006. Friday marked the culmination of six months of data collection, transaction review, and ultimately alerting the media and the site’s players of the results. As part of its investigation, UB has compiled the IP addresses, transfer histories, withdrawal histories, and basic account information of the 19 accounts and 88 user names associated with the scandal. Previous reports stated that just six accounts and multiple user names were part of the plot.
Paul Leggett, Chief Operating Officer of Ultimate Bet and Absolute Poker stated, “Make no mistake: our management team is outraged that this cheating occurred on our site through illicit software placed on the UB servers prior to our purchasing UltimateBet. Tokwiro is aggressively pursuing legal avenues of redress in order to protect and compensate our players and the business.” The statement also reveals that UB is currently determining the amount of compensation owed to affected players. Another round of refunds is expected to be distributed shortly.
Much of the information from the Ultimate Bet and Absolute Poker scandals has been revealed in the major online poker forums. Leggett acknowledges the vital role that these sites have played in his investigation: “We thank the poker community for its invaluable contributions to this investigation and assure it that we remain committed to fully investigating any claims of fraud on our site.”
It was also revealed that the user account which had access to the hole cards of other players was never actually used for playing purposes. Rather, the conspirators viewed the software running on that user name’s screen while playing on other accounts at the same time. Money won was then transferred around the site by what UB calls a “complex web of player-to-player transfers and withdrawals.” Many of these transactions have been posted on the online poker community as well.
Leggert added that the cheating scandal at UB was facilitated by independent parties: “We cannot over-emphasize the fact that Tokwiro and its entire management team had no knowledge of the illicit software until it was revealed by our investigation; and no one associated with Tokwiro was involved in the cheating scheme at any point.”
We’ll keep you up to date on the latest news from the Tokwiro investigation into the actions of its former owners as they unfold.
