VERY Interesting Article About online poker cheating, scams and scandals!

As most of my readers know, I try to keep them as accurately informed about the latest developments in online poker and casino cheating as possible. I do this in many ways, such as compiling online poker cheat statistics for my online poker cheating and safety rankings page, researched articles and articles written by other well-informed authors in tune with the online poker cheating world. This article that I came across today on americanchronicle.com is one of the best I have seen online concerning online poker cheats. It is a thorough examination of what happened at UltimateBet, the biggest online cheat scam ever, and what could happen at Ultimate Bet and other online poker sites in the future. It really indicts the entire online poker industry!

It is well worth the read:

Article:

"According to Wikipedia, "In US Criminal law, means, motive, and opportunity is a popular cultural summation of the three aspects of a crime needed to convince a jury of guilt in a criminal proceeding. Respectively, they refer to: the ability of the defendant to commit the crime (means), the reason the defendant had to commit the crime (motive), and whether or not the defendant had the opportunity to commit the crime (opportunity). Ironically, motive is not an element of many crimes, but proving motive can often make it easier to convince a jury of the elements that must be proved for a conviction. "

So, as we take a look at online poker lets assess these three variables. Do online poker sites have the means to rig their games. Well, of course they do. They control the computers, software and platform that all the games run on. They can see all the cards that are being played at any time, all the time. They have the capability to adjust the software at any time as to how it effects any person, any game and any tournament taking place at their site. They have the means to provide keys to this software to outside users. Basically, online poker sites have the means to do anything they want with any hand of cards at anytime. Also as far as "means" are concerned let us not forget the endless poker updates and downloads sent into our computer every time we log on. I mean really, I get more software updates from these poker sites then any other program. Windows, Microsoft, Computer and Driver updates aren't even a close second, even if you add them all together.

In regards to motive that hardly requires in depth analysis. As in most financial crimes the motive is greed. In the micro games from 1 and 2 cent blinds to 10 and 25 cent blinds.; thousands of dollars change hands every hour. Log on to any of the most popular poker sights at any time and you will see tens of thousands of players online.

Like any good judge would do lets us look at the criminal record, if any, of the suspects at hand. The most egregious being Absolute Poker and Ultimate Bet. Both of these companies have been caught blatantly cheating. According to this 60 Minutes Story, over 20 million was stolen online at Absolute Poker and Ultimate Bet which are sister sights under the Cereus Network located in the Isle of Man. Part of the reason this was able to happen is that online poker is unregulated in the US and the headquarters are located offshore. This reminds me of the shady Wall Street deals that are based offshore so as to avoid US laws, regulation and prosecution. Furthermore and perhaps most importantly, the $20 million cheaters at Ultimate Bet would have never been caught unless it was by other players due diligence and research. So much for the idea of a self regulating industry.

Then, to add fuel to the fire, Ultimate Bet cut a deal with the cheater and agreed not to prosecute him. Where else in the world do these type of shenanigans go on? Then again, Phil Helmuth, a Ultimate Bet representative regarded by some as the best poker player ever, was erroneously awarded a near $6000 pot when he had the losing hand. So, not only does Ultimate Bet have the means motive and opportunity to cheat but; they have a history of cheating and or making mistakes that work in their favor. It is somewhat like wondering if a documented pedophile that lives by a grade school, drives an ice cream truck, is unmonitored and protected against prosecution will commit his crimes again.

So what else led to these questions about the Ultimate Bet online poker site. Well, besides getting the feeling that; if there was any possible hand that could beat my hand then it would or having trouble withdrawing funds or getting my Full Houses, Flushes and Four of a Kinds beaten by higher Full Houses, Flushes and Four of a Kinds or seeing the same river card make my set that also made another players straight an inordinate amount of times; it comes down to a player named "S U F F E R".

While involved in a significant hand against him; I researched S U F F E R on a site called www.poker-edge. The great thing about Poker Edge is that they provide information on any player that plays at Ultimate Bet. Just plug in a players user name and they spit out the information for free. This information includes the number of hands tracked, how long they have been tracked, winnings, aggression, etc. Well, I had looked up several players many times while I was at the table with them although; I never bought the Poker Edge software that was available. Consistently, I found that most of the players had been traced for about 2 years and none of them was extremely profitable. At best many of the players were a few hundred dollars up. S U F F E R was a different story all together. S U F F E R had winnings of nearly $200,000 in less then a year and a half. This was a bit disconcerting to me so I sent the following letter to Ultimate Bet.

FW: President and COO UB (CHEAT CAUGHT)‏
From:
jonas holmes III (jonasholmesiii@hotmail.com)
Sent: Fri 4/09/10 1:46 AM
To: support@ub.com

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From: jonasholmesiii@hotmail.com
To: (support@ub.com)
Subject: FWD: President and COO UB (CHEAT CAUGHT)
Date: Fri, 9 Apr 2010 01:15:03 -1000

Dear UB (Ultimate Bet),

Hello, my player name is POCKETAMMO. My real name is Jonas Holmes III. You can look it up on Google, "Jonas Holmes III". I am a writer as well as a poker player.

I am writing you because I was recently at a Poker table, Seatlle 20358152, with a player named S U F F E R. We played an extraordinary hand, 1993144728, where suffer bet $16 and called a $16 raise on the flop. Not only this, but he made these raise calls in the worse position possible with a pair of 8's right after the Big Blind. Not to mention, there was an open ended straight, 5-7-6, on the board.

On the flop I had a set of 7's. On the turn a 3 hit. Now, all that was needed was a 4 for a straight as well as a 3,4 ; 8,9 or a set on the 5-7 or 6. Now, there was also a possible Flush. I bet $36 dollars and S U F F E R called.

And believe it or not an 8 dropped. He rode all that risk to the river on a pair of 8's. I figured, maybe this guy is just a loose player. But the amazing thing is that when I looked him up on Poker Edge he has winnings of nearly $200,000, $189,400 to be exact, in a tracking period of just over 1 year and 3 months with out a single dip in his winnings.

During that time he has played 652,205 hands. That comes out to 43,480 hands a month. For a 30 day month that comes to roughly 1500, 1449 hands a day, EVERY SINGLE DAY. That means he would have to play 60 hands an hour every single hour for 15 months. Something is seriously wrong here.

The conclusion I have come to is that S U F F E R must have some type of software that is allowing him achieve these astronomical numbers. Of course it is impossible, for UB or the CEREUS network to defend against the multitude of attempted breaches against its system. New technologies and software are created everyday by hackers to try and bypass every system. I am sure that this is exactly what happened with S U F F E R.

Personally I am, of course, disappointed that someone has been able to do so at a table where I was playing costing me 100's of dollars. However, I understand that no network or system is bullet proof. My question is; is it possible to get a REFUND for the tables I have played with S U F F E R and/or a REWARD for uncovering his/her cheating?

Although, I could have likely gained fame or notoriety for writing an article about S U F F E R; writing this letter to you has been more effort then I ever wanted to exert. I am sure, through no fault of your own, considering the hackers out there that; my time at UB is done. Meanwhile, it would be gratifying to know that my money was not wasted and that UB is grateful for players that have been maintaining an eye out for the integrity of their system.

I look forward to hearing about the rectification of this challenging situation. It is definitely not something I want to write about again.

Sincerely,

Jonas Holmes III, POCKETAMMO

I also included screen shots of the hand and most importantly the information on S U F F E R from Poker Edge which I have included below if it shows up.

As is easily evidence by the above data, especially the chart of S U F F E R's winnings, his profitability is nothing but incredible. It becomes even more amazing when you compare S U F F E R's profitability of $189,000 in 1 year and 4 months to 2 Time World Poker Tour Champion and World Poker Tour Season VI Player of the Year, Jonathan Little.

Professional Jonathan Little has over $4 million in lifetime winnings in Poker. He illustrates, as a point of pride, on his website selling Kick Ass Poker Secrets that ; he has made $187,000 dollars in online poker. The difference is that it took this ICON of Poker over 3 and a half years to make less then S U F F E R did in 1 year and 4 months. To make it plain, 2X WPT CHAMPION, WPT PLAYER OF THE YEAR, +$4,000,000 NO LIMIT HOLD"EM WINNER, Jonathan Little, makes $187,000 online poker profits in 43 months. Invisible Ultimate Bet player, S U F F E R, makes $189,000 in 15 months. It looks like S U F F E R definitely has some poker secrets of his own. Surely, I thought Ultimate Bet would be very concerned about this potential breach of integrity on their website, especially after being caught in the previous scandals. So, they sent me a response. I have presented it below.

UMT-570567]: FW: President and COO UB (CHEAT CAUGHT)‏

From: UB (support@ub.com)
Sent: Fri 4/09/10 10:25 AM
To: jonasholmesiii@hotmail.com

Dear Mr. Holmes,

Thank you for contacting us.

The absolute integrity of our player's hands in any of our games is the paramount foundation of our relationship with our clients. So it's important to note, that regarding your previous message, we would like you to know that seeing other players' cards is impossible. It's important to realize that during the course of any given game, when our game server sends certain data packets (i.e. cards) to your game client (i.e. table), this data packet does not include any information about the cards other players are holding. For this reason, even if there is software capable of decrypting this data packet about other players' cards, there is no information they will be able to retrieve from it. This means that there is no software in the world that would possibly be able to give you the cards obtained by other players.

Best Regards,

Chuck
Customer Support Department
UB.com (www.ub.com) - Raise. Stack. Own

That was it, period. Apparently, based on Ultimate Bet's response their was nothing amiss either with their software or S U F F E R'S amazing profitability. In fact, believe it or not, for some reason; they didn't even mention S U F F E R. Just another day at Ultimate Bet.

So, I guess the question in the title of this piece, "Does Ultimate Bet Online Poker Support Cheating?", shall remain a mystery. I guess we will just have to S U F F E R until we get an answer.