Why Rehash "60 Minutes" Online Poker Cheating Scandal Story?

I reported yesterday that CBS and the Washington Post both re-released their stories on the huge UltimateBet online poker cheating scandal. But some people want to know, is there any good to this? Or is it just the media grabbing at poker straws to keep a good story going?

Well, my opinion is that it is a good thing to re-release this story of an insidious poker cheating scam. But for only one reason. That being that absolutely nothing has become of it in terms of the online poker sites doing something to prevent a scam of this nature from happening again. Sure, they may have beefed up their security protection for software source codes and things like that. But the only real effective measure in the aim of future deterrence that can be taken is to see some prosecution for the UltimateBet scam. By all accounts, Russ Hamilton, the alleged mastermind behind it, is guilty as sin. But to date there is no sign that he will ever be prosecuted, depsite the tens of millions of dollars players lost to the scam. I know it is difficult to prosecute online poker fraud in the murky jurisdictions of online poker and online gambling, but unless it is figured out how and where to prosecute people like Hamilton and others who have initiated huge online poker and gambling cheat frauds, more poker cheat masterminds will continue to develop online poker scams to cheat the online poker-playing public out of millions.

Perhaps regulation of online poker in the US is the only first step to the solution of curbing cheating in online gambling.

You can see the rerun of CBS' online poker cheating segment on "60 Minutes" this Sunday in the US and of course on YouTube shortly thereafter.