UltimateBet talks about NioNio online poker cheating scam / Bodog is Top-10 Safe Online Poker Room!

It's no secret that UltimateBet is controlled by the same corporate entity as Absolute Poker, so, as expected, they are quick to mend any damage caused on their site by the alleged cheater using the handle "NioNio." The last thing this company needs is another major scandal, as the Absolute Poker scandal was the biggest in the history of online poker cheating. An article by PokerKingBlog.com gave the latest details about UB's public statement:

UltimateBet Makes Public Statement Regarding "NioNio" Allegations:

UltimateBet released a public statement today regarding the allegations that UB player "NioNio", and possibly others on the site, may have had some sort of an unfair advantage while playing on UltimateBet.

In a statement that was released on 2+2, UltimateBet says that they were alerted on January 12th, 2008 that a player with the handle of "NioNio" was "exhibiting abnormally high winning statistics" and was "accused of having an unfair advantage during play". According to their statement, several players complained to both UltimateBet directly and the KGC.

Obviously, in light of the Absolute Poker scandal, people are taking these kinds of allegations very seriously now, especially given the fact that UltimateBet and Absolute Poker are controlled by the same corporate entity. There was some fairly compelling evidence posted on 2+2 that certainly warranted some investigation, especially considering the company that was involved.

UltimateBet goes on to say that they "immediately launched an extensive inquiry" involving "an independent third-party expert" to review hundreds of thousands of suspect hand histories.

Apparently the "third-party expert" found that the hand histories were suspicious enough to warrant an "expansion of the investigation".

"NioNio" seemed to operate in mid to high level No Limit Hold'em cash games on the site, and completely destroyed his competition to the tune of hundreds of thousands of dollars before disappearing from the site.

People want to know:

1) Did "NioNio" have some sort of an unfair advantage over the other players at the site?

2) If so, what was this advantage and how was it implemented?

3) Were there other accounts involved?

4) What happened to "NioNio", and who controlled this account?

Apparently the investigation will be finishing in another 2-3 weeks, so we will have to wait until then to receive some more information.

In the meantime, we are going to educate ourselves regarding this situation and hopefully post more on the matter in the near future.

Is this Superuser-Gate Part 2 in the making? If something shady did in fact occur, what will UltimateBet do about it? There are some players that lost a very significant amount of money to "NioNio". We'll have more on this story as information becomes available.

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