New RICO Complaint Filed Against UltimateBet.com

Source: courthousenews.com

High-stakes poker players claim that UltimateBet stole $20 million from "crooked" online poker games by exploiting security flaws that allowed others - or the website and its operators themselves - to see players' hole cards.
In the federal RICO complaint, eight named plaintiffs claim they lost $2 million in the rigged games. Lead plaintiff Daniel Ashman says the cheating scandal has "been the subject of intense public interest and scrutiny."
Named as defendants are the online poker and gambling website operator, 6356095 Canada Inc. aka Excapsa Software, and 10 John Does.
The complaint states: "UltimateBet (aka Ultimatebet.com) is an online poker and gambling website that has and continues to serve players in the United States. 6356095 Canada, Inc. (formerly Excapsa Software, Inc. or 'Excapsa') and Does 1-10 are holding companies, licensing entities, marketing companies, software firms, and individuals organized in or residing in jurisdictions throughout the world that developed software for and/or operated UltimateBet by and through which owners of Excapsa sought to direct and shield its illegal and fraudulent activities from courts, police, and tax authorities. Individual Doe defendants are owners, operators, officers, employees, and/or agents of Excapsa. While UltimateBet is not itself a legal entity, it is the vehicle through which defendants operated various conspiracies to defraud plaintiffs and the broader public.
"Since at least June 2003 and until at least January 2008 Excapsa/UltimateBet did conspire to and did direct, effect, and permit the theft of over $2 million held in plaintiffs' online poker accounts at UltimateBet.com. Specifically, by creating and making use of an intentional a security flaw in the UltimateBet.com software, and with the assistance of owners, agents, and employees of Excapsa and its various subsidiaries that operated UltimateBet, defendants either allowed others to or did directly view plaintiffs 'hole cards' during high-stakes poker matches run at UltimateBet.com.
"With the assistance of owners, operators, officers, employees, and/or agents of Excapsa and its subsidiaries, the cheaters were further able to change their online identities to avoid detection and to improperly funnel their illicit proceeds through various UltimateBet accounts in a manner that would have been impossible without insider assistance. Through these activities, defendants stole or caused to be stolen at least 20 million dollars from plaintiffs and other high-stakes poker players at games run by UltimateBet."
The named plaintiffs come from five U.S. states, one Canadian province, and Peru. "At this time, plaintiffs suspect but do not know the identities of Does 1-10," the complaint states. "Evidence, some of which is discussed below, has arisen that some of the founders and management of UltimateBet and Excapsa, including Greg Pierson, Jon Karl, Jack Bates, Russ Hamilton, and others who formerly operated (and may continue to be involved in the operation of) UltimateBet were likely aware of or involved the conspiracy to cheat players. However, because the identities and activities of UltimateBet and those who have profited from its operations has been intentionally shielded though numerous agents, subsidiaries, and foreign corporations, it will be necessary to conduct significant discovery before a complete list of defendants can be identified. After such discovery, plaintiffs will seek to amend the complaint to add additional defendants."
In "the UltimateBet.com online poker cheating scandal," the complaint continues, "plaintiffs and other high-stakes online poker players were cheated out of millions of dollars in crooked online poker games where their opponents (employees, agents, owners, and/or officers of Excapsa/UltimateBet) had illicit access to players 'hole' cards. Plaintiffs unknowingly played games of high-stakes poker with their cards essentially face-up. The facts underlying the case have already been the subject of intense public interest and media scrutiny, including a feature story on 60 Minutes, an investigative series by the Washington Post, a feature article by MSNBC, and hundreds of articles and news reports across the Internet."
The plaintiffs say that UltimateBet has a "history, ownership, and business structure" that is "cloaked in layers of obscurity as a result of intentional efforts by the individuals profiting from the enterprise to avoid scrutiny. This is hardly surprising as the prospect of criminal prosecution under the Wire Act, 18 U.S.C. § 1084, the Illegal Gambling Business Act, 18 USC 1955, RICO, 18 U.S.C. § 1961, et seq., and similar statutes has haunted operators of Internet gambling sites from their inception. In 2011, a Grand Jury in the Southern District of New York returned an indictment against the current owners of UltimateBet (Scott Tom and Brent Backley) and owners of other online poker rooms for violation of these and other federal statutes.
"At the same time, Excapsa Services Inc. has suffered no harm, either due to the nature of its operations (often conducted through various and sundry foreign subsidiaries) or the cheating that took place while it owned and operated UltimateBet. Instead, since 2006, when it 'sold' UltimateBet (via the sale of various operating subsidiaries) to Tokwiro Enterprises in what appears to be a related-party transaction, Excapsa has been involved in liquidation proceedings in Toronto, Canada. As part of these proceedings, the assets (mainly cash from operations and from the sale) are being disbursed in an orderly manner to Excapsa's shareholders, which include individuals who knew of and participated in the high stakes poker cheating."
The complaint claims that "a related cheating scandal that took place at UltimateBet's sister site Absolute Poker. UltimateBet and Absolute Poker are now operated by the same holding company, Tokwiro Enterprises, allegedly a Mohawk sole proprietorship owned by the Joseph Norton, the former Grand Chief of the Kahnawake Tribe, which operates the KGC [Kahnawake Gaming Commission]."
The complaint cites a transcript from the "60 Minutes" report, broadcast in November 2008, which states: "The virtual poker games are actually run on computers servers from a Canadian Indian reservation outside of Montreal. It's all licensed by the sovereign tribe of the Mohawk nation, which has no experience in casino gambling and doesn't have to answer to Canadian authorities.
"The [current] grand chief is Mike Delisle.
"Chief Delisle says Internet gambling is illegal in Canada, but tells ['60 Minutes' reporter Steve] Kroft, 'We're not Canadians. We're a member of the Haudenosaunee Five Nation Confederacy. And we're Mohawk Kahnawake people. We're not
Canadian.'
"And that legal distinction has allowed the Kahnawakes to rake in millions of dollars a year by licensing Internet gaming sites and housing their computer servers on the reservation. They now register and service more than 60 percent of the world's Internet gaming activity from a highly protected and nondescript building that used to be a mattress factory."
The plaintiffs continues, in their 42-page complaint: "KGC, the regulatory body to which UltimateBet claims to answer, is part of a self-proclaimed sovereign entity located on a few square miles just across the St. Lawrence River from metropolitan Montreal. The Canadian government has had a history of tense, even violent, relations with the Kahnawake Tribe, who are notorious for cigarette and gun smuggling. The Canadian Government considers the licensing and regulatory activities of the KGC to be illegal." (Footnotes omitted.)
The plaintiffs say that they uncovered the cheating by sharing information at the online poker forum, twoplustwo.com.
In the complaint, they claim they identified a player who they suspected was a "superuser" who could see their cards, and other unknown players they suspected of cheating.
"Members of the twoplustwo.com forums discovered, among other things, that certain accounts with highly improbable win rates often logged on to UltimateBet right after a similarly suspicious account had logged off. Also, many of the suspicious players simply disappeared, never to return, after booking huge wins at high-stakes games, an extremely unusual pattern of activity. Finally, the high-stakes online poker community is relatively small and many high-stakes players know one another from their hundreds of hours of play together, from discussing poker strategy online, and from meeting at live events, such as the annual World Series of Poker in Las Vegas. However, no one had an information about the real world players behind the suspect UltimateBet accounts," the complaint states.
The players say that Tokwiro admitted, in a May 29, 2009 press release, that six player accounts had been cheating, listed 18 account names that "participated in this scheme," and offered refunds.
The complaint states: "UltimateBet has admitted that at least six accounts (presumably six separate individuals), some or all of which belonged to employees and/or owners of Excapsa Software, Inc., used a software vulnerability to steal millions of dollars from players on its site. However, UltimateBet did not then and to this day has not released the names of any individual other than Russ Hamilton, a former World Series of Poker Winner, early manager/employee of UltimateBet, and shareholder of Excapsa, on who UltimateBet has sought to pin the exclusive blame.
"However, given the nature of the security breach (which is essentially built in to the underlying software) and UltimateBet's willingness to protect the identities of the cheaters, it is likely that the cheaters were high-level members of UltimateBet's management and/or software engineering team, and/or its founders and original programmers, as only such individuals could create and exploit the software loophole, frequently change the names of cheating accounts to avoid suspicion, and bypass security measures designed to prevent the cash out of illegitimate winnings. Statements from insiders at UltimateBet have corroborated these suspicions."
The plaintiffs add that the refunds UltimateBet offered also have been shrouded in secrecy: "While UltimateBet has provided 'refunds' to certain players, it has largely kept its methodology for doing so secret. Moreover, it has refused to publicly release or even send affected players hand histories from the compromised games, so that they might determine the accuracy of the refunds; it has refused to provide a full account of its investigation, so that players can examine whether the list of fraudulent accounts is complete; it has not addressed the role of cheating accounts in other poker games, such as high-stakes tournaments or high-stakes limit (as opposed to no-limit) games; and it has refused to compensate players for lost interest, lost profits, emotional distress, or any other form of damages. In short, UltimateBet has acted as its own investigator, judge, and jury in this matter and has stifled any public scrutiny of its 'investigation.' ... Cheated players are bringing this action because they believe that only a public and impartial tribunal can accurately determine the full scope of the cheating and the identities of the individuals behind it."
Finally, the plaintiffs say: "Under federal and state law, the affected players have a right to learn the truth of who cheated them, how they were cheated, and to receive appropriate redress for their injuries. UltimateBet should not be allowed to control the investigation into its fraudulent activities and to set the terms of any penalty unilaterally."
The players seek an injunction and damages for RICO conspiracy, conversion, interference with prospective economic advantage, intentional infliction of emotional distress, unfair business practices, fraud and negligence.
They are represented by Alan Engle with Meador & Engle, of Anaheim Hills.

My Take: I don't think this huge online poker cheating cheat scam will ever go away...and it shouldn't, just to serve as a reminder of what can happen in the nefarious world of online poker and online gambling in general.

More Trouble For Giant Online-Cheat-Plagued Full Tilt Poker--This Time It's a $900 Million Lawsuit!

Source: paidcontent.org

In a lawsuit filed on Monday in federal court, two Los Angeles men are demanding that Full Tilt give back money— $10 for one of the men and $120,000 in the case of the other—they say is owed to them after they were unable to cash out their accounts. They also seek punitive damages and $900 million for other Americans who are out of pocket after Full Tilt allegedly cheated them in games and after owners began helping themselves to customer money.

The class action, which names famous poker stars Howard Lederer and Christopher Ferguson, appears to be based on many of the dramatic allegations set out in an FBI indictment unsealed last April. The owners of Full Tilt are accused of using flower stores and pet shops as front companies to trick U.S. banks into processing customers credit card and check transactions. The owners used the front companies because payment requests from them did not carry a transaction code used to flag online gambling, which is illegal in the United States.

The class action also demands that the site owners and celebrity players repay customers for cheating in the online poker games. Full Tilt’s nastiest tactic allegedly involved the use of robots—computer players hatched by Full Tilt that would appear at sparsely populated games and use their card-counting skills to fleece the real players. According to the complaint, Full Tilt assured players that they had “zero tolerance” for robot players—but went ahead and deployed robots created by two company owners with degrees from MIT and UCLA. Even worse, Full Tilt used customer hatred of robots as a pretext to rob successful players:

Certain players who repeatedly lost to a skilled player would start on-line jihads against the successful player, accusing that player of being a robot. The Defendants discovered over time that cancellation of real player accounts accused of being a “robot” was another profit center, as the player account money of the wrongly-accused player was confiscated.

Online gambling is a vast and lucrative enterprise as evidenced by reports that the US government was able to seize $115 million from Full Tilt simply by intercepting a percentage of the payments made to the front companies. Full Tilt and two other major poker sites began struggling in the last two years, however, as increasing pressure from US authorities made it increasingly difficult for the companies to circumvent rules that forbid businesses from processing online gambling transactions. During this time, the Full Tilt owners allegedly began raiding customer accounts, leading US prosecutors last months to describe the company as a “Ponzi Scheme.”

It is unclear whether there will be anything left to collect if the class action suit is successful. The U.S. Department of Justice is already demanding a $1 billion civil penalty from many of those listed in the California suit. There may be good news for customers based on a report that a French investment firm is promising to make losses whole if it can take over the business. The bad news is that the new prospective owner served prison time for stealing from a soccer club he owned.

Latest Online Poker Cheat Sensation is Well-Respected (was) Portuguese Poker Pro

Try This Card Trick On Your Valentine!

Of all the card tricks I've ever seen or heard of, this one is the best of all-time. And it has a special twist. You see, I, Richard Marcus, probably the best poker-casino-cheating con man of all-time, was the victim! And it happened to me on Valentine's Day!

It went down like this:

One Valentine's night twenty years ago while getting drunk in a New York Irish pub, the conversation turned to gambling and card playing. I was there with a girl I had met hours before in another pub that might also have been an Irish one; I can’t remember. There were twenty or so people engaged in this conversation and it was quite lively. Two Irish guys—I mean real Irish guys from Ireland with red hair, white skin and freckles— had everyone cracking up with their little gambling anecdotes leading to one catastrophe or another. Then a woman who was plainly Italian pulled a deck of cards and slapped them on the bar.
“Anyone want to see a great card trick?” she beamed, probably at least as sauced as I was.
Everyone pitched in with encouraging laughter to say how thrilled everyone else would be to see her card trick. She then proceeded to do that classic dopey poker-hand trick everyone has seen performed by at least four generations of his family: the one with the four hands of seven-stud ending up four jacks, four queens, four kings and, of course, four aces for the dealer.
Everybody applauded her, anyway, and then another schmuck took the cards and began shuffling. When he’d finished, he dealt three columns of seven cards face up. He said to the girl who’d just finished her crummy trick, “Pick a card, but don’t tell me what it is. Keep it in your head.”
The girl was either stupid enough or drunk enough to blurt, “Does it have to be one of the cards you dealt on the bar?” The rest of the deck was lying off to the side.
The guy indulged her with a smiling nod. She was kind of hot and had big tits, so obviously he didn’t care how dumb she was.
The girl’s drunken eyes passed over the twenty-one cards. “Okay, I chose a card.”
I recognized the trick as soon as the guy started dealing out the columns. It was one of those mathematical numbers that could never go wrong if you didn’t fuck up the procedure. The version he was doing was the one with the petals and the flowers, goading the victim to pick this petal then that one after she’d already picked the two columns that didn’t contain the card. I think the first time I saw the trick done was in kindergarten.
The woman, ever so drunk as she was, managed to play along and finished by affirming that the card the guy flicked over at the end was indeed hers.
I’d just about had my share of card tricks when one of the two redheaded Irish guys clamored, “Those tricks are for bloody boobheads!” Anyone here want to see a real good one?”
For some reason I volunteered, surely hoping it would be better than the previous two and the last of the night.
He picked up the deck off the bar and fanned them face up in front of me. “Pick any card,” he said.
I looked at him. “Just like that, face up?”
The other Irish guy piped in behind him. “Yeah, mate, just like that.”
I slid out the 9♠ without hesitation. I looked up waiting for one of them to do something.
The one next to me spoke. “What would you say if I told you I know someone back in Ireland whom I could call right now, hand him the phone without saying a word, and he’ll tell you that the card you picked was the nine of spades?”
I looked at my watch. It was eleven o’clock at night in New York, which meant it was four o’clock the next morning in Ireland.
“I’d say the guy either goes to bed late or gets up early.”
They laughed heartily, then the one behind suggested slyly, “Care to make a little wager on that, mate?”
I looked at the girl I was with. I could see she knew as much about cards as I did about the theory of relativity, which was zero.
“Come on, mate,” the one who’d spread the cards said. “Why not put a little fun in the evening. Soon it’ll be the top of the mornin’.”
“Okay,” I said pulling out my wallet. “I’ll go twenty bucks saying you’re friend in Ireland can’t tell me my card if you don’t tip him off.”
“Twenty bucks!” they exclaimed in unison. Then they took turns telling me I insulted their chivalrous play. The one behind finished off with, “The phone call over there will hardly be covered for twenty bucks, mate.”
Well, whatever their gig was, it was clear they knew I’d lose the bet. And this in spite of the fact they didn’t know whom they were trying to hustle. But I was curious about their trick, plus I was in a good mood knowing I was going to get laid once I got out of there.
“So how much do I have to do this for?” I asked them.
“You got fifty.”
“Sure.” I laid the fifty on the bar. They did not hesitate to lay theirs alongside it. “Now let’s make that call.”
You have to remember that twenty years ago there were no cell phones. There was just a cranky old pay phone near the entrance. The front guy asked the bartender, “Pat, gimme ten bucks in quarters, would ya?”
“It’s okay,” Pat chimed, you can use the bar phone.” He reached underneath the bar, pulled it out and slapped it on the surface next to the nine of spades. “Who you calling, anyway?”
“Some bloke in Ireland.”
The phone slid off the bar and disappeared faster than you could say “Dublin.”
I followed the two Irishmen to the pay phone. At least ten people followed me, everyone with either a drink or cigarette in his hand. As the one dropped a load of quarters into the phone’s slot, he piped at me, “Are you ready, mate?”
I nodded.
“I’m not going to say a word to my buddy on the phone about your card. I’ll just see if he’s home and pass you the phone when he comes on. Okay?”
“Okay.”
He dialed a number, then after a few seconds said into the receiver, “Is Mr. O’Leary there?” Then he said, “Hold on,” and passed me the phone.
I put the receiver to my ear. “Mr. O’Leary?”
The cheery voice on the other end was indeed Irish. “That’s me, mate. Your card is the nine of spades.”
At first I thought it no big deal that he knew my card, but when it finally hit me that he knew my card I was flabbergasted. For some reason I thanked him before hanging up.
When I turned back to the two Irishman, they were already at the bar scooping up my fifty-dollar bill. Everyone else was asking if the guy on the phone guessed my card.
“He didn’t guess it,” I informed the crowd with a bit of thespian delight. “He knew it.”
The two Irish guys were laughing as I came over. “You want to do it again, mate?” one of them asked.
“Yeah,” I answered immediately, “but how ‘bout for less money.” I knew that I was outhustled but I wanted to see this again, figure out how they did it. I knew they wouldn’t give it up for nothing.
“Okay,” the second one said as he picked up the cards and gave them a quick shuffle with a fancy bridge. He spread them and told me to pick a card. I fingered the width of the fanned cards and slipped out the 4♣. Then the first Irishman put a twenty-dollar bill on the bar and told me to match it.
I laid the bill on the bar and followed them back to the phone. Evidently enough quarters remained in the Irishman’s pocket to make the second call. He dialed and again asked for Mr. O’Leary. When O’Leary came on the line, he told him to hold on and passed me the receiver. I bid the familiar voice hello and he answered with “Your card is the four of clubs.”
“Wanna go again, mate?” The Irish guys were having a ball with me.
“How the fuck did you guys do that?” I demanded.
The first one gave me a peppered shrug and said, “You know magicians don’t give away their secrets.”
“It’s not magic,” I protested. “It’s a goddamn card trick.”
The second one had a great retort for that. “It’s not a trick. O’Leary just read your mind. He knows you’re thinking of your card when you get on the phone. So he just hones in on your brain and finds the part of it thinking of the card.”
“You guys got a good line of shit,” I said, and they got off laughing at me. The whole bar was getting in on it, including the bartender who seemed to have already borne witness to their little gag. I approached the bartender and asked him how they did it. He just chuckled and said in an Irish accent, “I haven’t the foggiest idea, mate?”
How the hell did they do it? That thought prevented me from both getting laid and sleeping that night. I lay awake for hours in the girl’s apartment, in her bed with her lovely body sprawled naked in the same spot where she’d finally given up on me and fallen asleep.
Not only am I a fairly intelligent person but I know how to navigate pretty well around logic. The first thing I was sure of was that somehow that Irish guy in the bar told Mr. O’Leary what my card was. The only way that certainty would not be true was if there had been another unseen phone extension inside the bar and somebody else told Mr. O’Leary the card. But after being led on a tour of the place by the bartender, during which I felt like an idiot, I had to accept the fact that there was no other phone there.
So then how did the Irish guy tell O’Leary which card I’d selected? I had been right by his side when they spoke. Twice. Each time, the Irish guy said nothing more than “Is Mr. O’Leary there?” and “hold on.” Neither utterance contained words that would indicate the nine of spades and the four of clubs. But somehow those words did indicate those cards. And it was killing me to find out.
I racked my brains. Somewhere in those lines was a hidden code that told Mr. O’Leary what my cards were. But how could the same exact lines give him the correct information for two different cards? I even asked myself if it were possible that the inflection in the caller’s voice tipped off O’Leary. But if that were the case then O’Leary would have to be sensitive to fifty-two different inflections. Impossible.
The unknown solution ate at me an entire week. Then finally, not being able to take it anymore, I returned to the pub on a busy Saturday night. The place was packed, and sure enough the two Irish guys were hustling another customer with their trick. Only this time the bills on the bar were hundreds and the guy getting taken was sweating and did not look happy.
I watched all this from a distance. The Irish guys either didn’t see me or didn’t recognize me. The victim followed them to the phone, probably for the second or third time, and upon hanging up came walking back toward the bar in disbelief, then did an about-face toward the exit. The second he was out the door, I saw one of the Irish guys pass a bill off to the bartender, who promptly stuck it in his pocket.
So the bartender was in on it as well. They were working a major scam with this trick, or whatever the hell it was.
I came back the next night determined to crack the case. Irish pubs in Manhattan usually drew crowds every night of the week. Sunday night at this one was no exception. The Irish guys were flirting with a couple of women by the bar. I decided to wait patiently until they went into the routine. I knew they would eventually because these guys were not there for just booze and women. The place was their livelihood.
At midnight, just before I was about to pack it in, two slick looking black dudes walked inside the bar. They had that instant air of loose cash, either pro athletes or musicians. The Irish pair adroitly got them into conversation and within a half hour the bartop was crawling with hundred-dollar bills. I was thinking to myself that the scammers had better be careful with these black guys. They looked like the kind you didn’t want to fuck with. But obviously the Irish duo was very well rounded and knew how to handle whatever situation arose during the working of the scam.
Well, we’ll see about that, I said to myself.
After it happened, I realized I’d been destined to do it. But at the crucial moment I still had to make sure not to blow it. Bad timing could have blown the whole thing, and I would’ve been in a lot of pain for nothing.
As soon as the Irish guy dropped the quarters into the phone’s slot, I made my way through the thinning crowd toward him. I watched him dial and waited until I knew instinctively that the moment had arrived to make my move. I charged the pay phone and grabbed the receiver from the guy’s hand. He protested but I quickly knocked him out of the way. I then put the receiver to my ear without uttering a sound. What I heard at first made no sense. It was indeed O’Leary’s voice and it was counting…“two, three four, five, six…” The Irish guy made a lunge at me but I knocked him out of the way again. His buddy was coming after me too, but one of the black dudes stuck out a big arm and held him at bay. By that time O’Leary had reached “king.” And then his voice rasped in my ear, “What’s the fucking card, mate! Did I miss it?”
“You sure did, scumbag!” and I hung up the phone.
There’s an old New York joke about asking a bartender what time his Irish pub closes. He doesn’t answer you with a time; rather he says, “As soon as the first fistfight breaks out.”
Well, that meant that this Irish pub would be closing real soon. In the ensuing brawl I got whacked with a few good shots that drew blood from my mouth. The poor Irish guys, whose names turned out to be Arnold and Donald Lorrigan and who were currently on their way to the hospital ward at the Rikers’ Island jail, got the shit kicked out of them. The arresting cops asked me what it was all about, and when I told them, one of the coppers, who was also Irish, quipped, “Musta been a pretty good card trick.”
It was simply the best card trick I had ever seen. The way it worked was in reversal. It was true that the caller was transmitting the information to O’Leary, but he was doing it in reverse. That’s why virtually no one can figure it out. The key to deciphering it is that you have to know it was O’Leary speaking first, not the Irish guy. The first words I had heard from the caller were “Is Mr. O’leary there?” Upon hearing those words you naturally assume that whoever answered on the other end had picked up with a “hello” or something to that effect. Then when the Irish guy says “Hold on” and passes the phone off to the victim, you naturally think that O’Leary had just come to the phone after having been summoned by the person who had picked it up.
But it is really O’Leary who answers the phone. And instead of saying hello, he goes right into a recital of counting the cards…“ace, two, three, four…” Then when he arrives at the card you had chosen, the caller says “Is Mr. O’Leary there?” That stops O’Leary’s counting dead in its tracks. For if the last card O’Leary said was “jack,” then he knows it’s a jack.
Next only the correct suit needs to be transmitted. Once O’Leary receives the signal that the card is a jack, he begins reciting the four suits…“spades, clubs, hearts, diamonds.” As soon as he hits the correct one, the caller says “Hold on,” which tells O’Leary he just said the right suit, and passes the phone to the victim who’s about to be stunned.
What makes this trick so unbelievable is how natural the talking sounds. The set-up guy just dials a number, asks to speak with someone and then asks that person to hold on while he passes the phone to the victim. I had never been so impressed by a card trick or phone trick, whatever you want to call it. Learning it was well worth the seventy bucks I lost and the busted lip.
Over the years I’ve done that trick dozens of times, though never for profit. The most fun performing it is at parties or anyplace with large gatherings of people. Listening to people trying to figure it out is as funny as any comedy routine you’ll ever see. The ridiculous theories people put forth to solve the puzzle are as unreal as they are hilarious. You hear everything from high-tech satellites eavesdropping on the room to infrared lenses spying on the deck of cards from another galaxy.
One time at a party while doing the trick, a cute girl made me come with her into the bathroom with the lights off. She said she wanted to be sure that no one else could see which card she chose. I wondered if it was a pretext to jump my bones, but when she struck a match to create a small light while she picked the card, I realized how nuts this trick drove everybody, as it had once done to me.

Latest Online Poker Cheat, Natalie 'TheV0id' Teltscher, Confesses!

'TheV0id' Admits WCOOP Cheating

According to a press release by PokerStars, Natalie 'TheV0id' Teltscher confessed the cheating at the Main Event of the PokerStars World Championship of Online Poker (WCOOP) and withdrew her claim against her disqualification.

In 2007, 'TheV0id' won the WCOOP Main Event. In the aftermath, PokerStars noticed irregularities in her account and decided after an internal inspection to disqualify the account and 'TheV0id'. The prize money of about $1.2M was stripped from her and handed over to the hitherto runner-up 'ka$ino'. All the other players were upgraded by one rank as well.

The Briton Natalie Teltscher went to court against this decision. There she had to admit though that she didn't play herself under the account 'TheV0id'. A not further named "agent" had used the account and supposedly used several other accounts during the tournament. At first it was assumed that Mark Teltscher is this agent, or at least involved in the case as he is the brother of the plaintiff and a poker pro himself. A confirmation of this assumption failed to materialise though.

Below the press report:

"PokerStars™ are pleased to announce that Natalie Teltscher has recently withdrawn her claim in the Isle of Man Courts against PokerStars.

Furthermore, in discontinuing her claim, she has agreed to contribute a sum towards the legal costs incurred by PokerStars in this matter.

Ms Teltscher brought her claim against PokerStars because she was disqualified from first place of the 2007 WCOOP Main Event after PokerStars internal investigations demonstrated beyond doubt that she had not played on the account. On her disqualification all other players were moved one place higher in the prize table and the money confiscated from her account, TheV0id, was redistributed in full, according to the amended tournament placings.

Ms Teltscher initially claimed that she had played the account. However, when faced with the results from PokerStars' investigation she eventually admitted she hadn't played.

The decision of Ms Teltscher to withdraw her claim fully vindicates
PokerStars' decision to disqualify her from the tournament and subsequently defend the claim, actions which were taken in order to protect the integrity of the games on offer at PokerStars."

Let The WSOP Cheating, Scheming and Scamming Begin!

Well, there are 114 days left until play begins at the final table of the 2008 World Series of Poker Championship and already I’m getting dozens of e-mails not only asking for my opinion on the prospects for cheating and colluding but also detailed cheating scenarios that people out there are concocting for those nine players lucky enough to be part of this long delay, which will eventually lead down the yellow brick road to a pot of poker millions. In previous blog posts I have spoken about cheat possibilities as well as ESPN’s and WSOP organizers’ and sponsors’ obvious motives to milk out as much publicity and exposure as they can, which is the sole reason for the drastic change in WSOP format. All this is reminiscent of Fox Sports Net’s attempt to run with the giant ball that was supposed to be a six-player winner-take-all freeze-out for a $100 million in 2006 that never came off, mainly because the whole thing was going to be a fraud in the first place, which I exposed in my book “Dirty Poker.”

Getting back to this year’s WSOP Championship, I must say that the way the final table stands right now is very conducive to collusion. This is because there is no dominant chip-leader the way there was back in 2006 when Jamie Gold, the eventual winner and accused “deal renegger,” had a commanding chip lead going into the final table that he turned into a championship and $12 million in his pocket (minus whatever amount he finally gave his backer that he tried to stiff). With nearly all the nine players very much in the hunt and only one short stack, the collusion cheating opportunities are endless. In fact, one e-mailer pointed out to me that if you take all the possibilities and combinations of any or all of the nine players entering into prearranged prize-money-sharing, there are more than a million different ways to cut up the giant cake! In other words, there could be cheating twosomes, threesomes, foursomes, fivesomes, sixsomes, sevensomes, eightsomes…and even ninesomes, although I doubt the first eight players would bother to involve the ninth player in many deals with such a short stack, but who knows?

Do I really think there will be pre-final table deal-making or cheating? Well, since both are one in the same, you can bet your sweet ass there will be! No way are 114 days going to pass without conspiring, scheming, planning and everything else that leads to cheating. Just think of all that time that these nine players—okay, let’s even include the poor guy in ninth place with the tiny stack—are going to have to communicate. How will they communicate? Well, it might start with simple e-mails, then step up to instant messaging, then phone calls and then…well, why not a pre-final table final table? No, it’s not a typo! And it’s not some kind of actual poker play on a final table either. What I’m talking about is a meeting of all nine players around an oval table in a cozy restaurant or lounge, maybe like the Peppermill on the Las Vegas Strip, the same cozy lounge that I often used with my cheating buddies to map out our strategies for hitting the casinos on the Strip. There the “lucky nine” could sip champagne while relishing in thoughts of the money they KNOW they will be receiving on that glorious November day to come…okay, well…maybe the lucky nine won’t be brazen enough to meet in a public place like that but they could rent a suite at the Bellagio and sneak up to it unnoticed and have the champagne sent up by room service. However they choose to do so, 114 days is lots and lots of time to plan and scheme.

And if you think for one minute that this will not happen, then you probably spend half your life watching ESPN!

Annie Duke Speaks Out Again on Absolute Poker and Ultimate Bet Cheating Scandals

The cheating scandals surrounding online poker sites UltimateBet.com and its sister Absolute Poker.com continue to make waves in both the mainstream and industry media and in the player community, and the latest element in what seems to be a concerted damage control initiative by the owners is a Poker News video-streamed interview with the much respected poker pro Annie Duke.

This can be accessed at the Poker News Website,

Duke has a long association with UltimateBet and has been involved in both operational and branding endorsement for the website. Apparently last fall she was disenchanted with the way things were going and was thinking about distancing herself from the enterprise. In January this year, the 'hole card' scandal broke and apparently the change of management that occurred convinced Duke to revise her position in a move that was "a big 180 for me."

The cause of this epiphany was apparently the transparency of the new management, headed by CEO Paul Leggett; the way in which it handled the crisis (paying out an unspecified but claimed "seven figures" to affected players); getting rid of the "bad apples" responsible for the scandal and a bigger say for Duke in the conduct of the business.

Judging by her comments in the interview Duke is now firmly on board and confident that the historical problems have been fully addressed, although management is still considering the pursuit of those responsible. This is apparently problematical due to legal considerations around identifying the culprits and under which jurisdiction to pursue them.

Duke follows the company line in claiming that company revenues were not affected by the crisis, which is surprising when one considers the magnitude of the cheating and the editorial coverage it received. The company strategy of recruiting big poker names to endorse the website is also apparent in her comments.

Listening to the interview, there are confusing references to both 'change of management' and 'change of ownership'. This gives little clarity on who owned Absolute/Ultimate Bet prior to its acquisition by Tokwiro Enterprises, a Kahnawake registered company owned by former Mohawk grand chief Joe Norton, or what Tokwiro paid for the companies and when.

The UltimateBet story is not about to fade away. In her interview Duke confirmed information circulating for some months in the industry that the mainstream television investigative program "60 Minutes" is about to air the scandals. Producers for the program contacted Duke whilst she was at the ongoing World Series of Poker, although she does not amplify what was discussed.

Subjectively speaking, we had the impression that this was a continuation of the damage control initiative which the "new management" has been so vigorously pursuing, suggesting that the impact of the cheating scandal may have been bigger than UB would like to acknowledge. The role of the major poker forums in driving the resolution of these scandals also appeared to be underplayed, whilst the proposition that bashing UB was not good for the industry is arguable.

That said, the potential for harm to the industry's credibility that an adverse "60 Minutes" take on the affair is likely to have is a legitimate concern. What a pity that the systems at UB/AP failed in the first place, bringing about this crisis.

Is Soft Playing in Tournaments Cheating?

Almost everyone will say that soft-playing in poker is downright cheating, at least at first take. But upon further delving into the definition of what it means to cheat at poker, there are still those who believe that the practice of soft-playing one's friends or family is perfectly acceptable in poker, since it takes place because of personal beliefs and emotions that are just as legitimate as the ethical values of players who would refuse to soft-play anyone. Is this hogwash?

One argument that supports the allowance of soft playing in poker is that poker's uniqueness as a gambling game in itself deems soft play allowable. Their stance is that since poker is a game of multiple betting rounds, and the position of strength and weakness varies with each round and turn of a new card or cards, players should be allowed "varying" strategy tactics and that soft play is nothing but a combined tactic that ultimately becomes individual strategy at the end, when one or more soft players at the table no longer participate in soft playing. With blackjack, craps and other casino games, they argue, you make one bet on one decisive outcome, either win or lose, while second, third and fourth bets are optional and not intrinsic to the first. Only in poker does the amount of money at risk to each player accumulate with the deal of each round, therefore, those people who are not overly bothered by soft play feel that two or even more players involved in a pot have the right to "blanket the hostilities" at a certain point. Since any pair, set or group of players can do this, they claim, and that soft playing is not open or "active" cheating, they take the stance that soft playing should even be tolerated.

I, as certainly an "active" cheater (to say the least!) wholeheartedly disagree.

When soft-playing players have an ongoing agreement not to bet into each other once the action becomes heads up or reaches a certain point, they are tearing the innate competitive threads of the game. Whatever the reason, this arrangement amounts to a private deal that is more than just an ethical violation of the game. It not only gives those making it the chance to curb losses at several key junctures of play but also negatively impacts those not involved in it. In tournament play, soft playing can make or break the final table, leaving one player who might have been eliminated in honest, non-collusion play with just enough chips to survive and eventually go on to win the tournament. What soft play is, no matter how you cut the cake, is collusion, and, in my opinion, no less form of collusion than outright collusion players signalling the values of their hole cards and whipsawing opponents at the table. The fact is that these actions give those who are soft-playing in tournaments the edge over those who are not.

To illustrate the point, imagine that you're in a seven-card stud game, and you're the low-card bring-in on third street. Two soft-playing partners, A and B, enter the pot on either side of a fourth player who completes the bet. You call, player A raises, and you, Player B and the fourth player all call. Fourth street brings overcards for everyone, and gives you a split pair to go with your three-card flush. Player A bets and the fourth player folds, leaving just you and the soft-playing partners A and B. Now Player B raises. Your pair is smaller than their fourth-street cards, and since you don't like the odds you're getting for your draw, you fold. The moment you do, Players A and B proceed to check on fifth, sixth, and seventh streets. It's pretty obvious just how advantageous this arrangement is for them. By fourth street, they had locked up eight bets, half of it strange money, plus the antes. But the problem isn't only the pact to eliminate risk on betting rounds five, six and seven; it is the looming prospect of it that appears on round four, which offers incentive for two players who are soft-playing to bet a third player off his hand. By doing so, they are acting as a collusion team, converting the already invested chips of the uninvolved player into dead money. Clearly, this puts players who don't have soft-playing partners at the table at a distinct disadvantage against those who do.

Soft playing at poker is nothing short of cheating.

Tennis Betting Bust Over $7 Bets! / My Biggest Cheating Move Ever!

I've blogged a few times about the recent tennis scandals and as far as the Nikolay Davydenko scandal might be linked to professional Russian poker cheating teams, including the one that one-time Olympic gold-winning gymnast Vera Shimanskaya was hooked up and busted with in Spain. But this? This is a little too much. A couple of low-level Italian tennis players getting fined and suspended over friendly $7 bets they may have been making as a fraternal joke among their fellow players. Give me a break! No one is getting involved in throwing tennis matches over $7, at least not in this solar system. Anyway, here's a news article about it:

ROME (AP) -- The ATP suspended Italians Potito Starace and Daniele Bracciali on Saturday for making bets - some as little as $7 - on tennis matches involving other players.

The Italian tennis federation denounced the penalties by the governing body as an "injustice," and the players said they have been made scapegoats.

Starace, ranked 31st, was suspended for six weeks and fined $30,000, the Italian federation said. Bracciali, ranked 258th, was banned for three months and fined $20,000. Both suspensions take effect Jan. 1.

The federation said Starace made five bets for a total of $130 two years ago, and Bracciali made about 50 bets of $7 each from 2004-05.

"Injustice is done," the statement said. "These penalties are absolutely, excessively severe compared to the magnitude of the violations carried out by the two players."

The federation said the two were not aware of the ATP's betting regulations, and they stopped placing bets as soon as they learned it was against the rules.

"It's disgusting," Starace said. "The ATP doesn't know where to turn. It's all a joke."

Bracciali said the two had been "sacrificed."

"That's why they came after us," he said. "We are not champions and we don't count in the upper echelons."

Another Italian, Alessio Di Mauro, became the first player sanctioned under the ATP's new anti-corruption rules when he received a nine-month ban in November, also for betting on matches.

ATP officials could not be reached for comment Saturday.

Concerns about match-fixing have risen since August, when an online betting company reported unusual betting patterns during a match between fourth-ranked Nikolay Davydenko of Russia and Martin Vassallo Arguello of Argentina. The company, Betfair, voided all bets and the ATP has been investigating. Davydenko, who quit while trailing in the third set, denies wrongdoing.

Since then, several players have said they were approached with offers to fix matches for money.

MY BIGGEST CASINO CHEATING MOVE EVER!

Yesterday, I told you that the second biggest move my cheating team ever attempted was to pastpost (make the bet after the number already won) a $1,000 chip straight-up on a winning number at roulette. Today I will actually take you with me as my team attempted its biggest move ever. It was also a roulette move, and believe it or not, it was way back in 1986, in the summer casino on the 7th floor of the Carlton Hotel in Caanes, France. At the time I was working with Joe Classon, Duke and Jerry, my original teammates. So come on inside the casino with us and get involved!

What I saw inside the Carlton Casino was dazzling, perhaps the real La palme d'or prize-winning film in Cannes that year. Never before—and I mean never—had I seen action like that! If the roulette tables in London had been flooded with big action, the downpour of chips over the dozen layouts inside the Carlton's casino was a veritable deluge. Seated around one of the English-style tables (same as American without the 00) were three Arab sheiks in their customary white robes and headdress. They were spreading large diamond-studded ten-thousand-franc chips straight up on the numbers. I had never been in a casino that accepted that much money on a straight-up bet. At the same table was a threesome of identically dressed Japanese men matching the sheiks bet for bet, blanketing the layout with their version of diamond-studded ten-thousand-franc chips. They all wore dark blue suits, badly tailored by Western standards, and the contrast to the sheiks in pure white made you believe they really were filming a French comedy.
My mind raced a mile a minute watching that phenomenal action. 10,000 francs was at the time the equivalent of $2,000, which meant that each of the Arab and Japanese straight-up winning bets was being paid off at seventy grand! The largest straight-up move we had ever done to that point earned us $7,000. This French Riviera casino would pay ten times that! The move I envisioned was feasible but extremely difficult. Like in London, each roulette table had an inspector sitting high above the table. He would have to be taken out by distraction in order for Duke to move underneath the marker. I figured that the table with the sheiks and Japanese offered the best opportunity for a move because our ten-thousand-franc bet would blend right in on the layout. The casino wouldn't want to appear unclassy in front of their super-rich clientele by squabbling over one "measly" winning chip that nobody had seen.
But the problem was that these diamond-studded ten-thousand-franc chips were larger than roulette chips. We could not put the move-chip underneath the claimer’s roulette chips as we’d been accustomed to doing. It would stick out and raise questions even if the move went in cleanly. The only solution was having Duke lay in a naked capper, just like Mumbles and Wheels did in the old days. Simply lay our oversized ten-thousand-franc chip underneath the winning oversized ten-thousand-franc chip or chips already on the number. The problem with the naked capper was that the total number of chips on the winning number would be increased by one. A seasoned dealer might notice that difference even if there had originally been as many as six or seven winning chips. If there had been less, the one-chip increase would be that much more noticeable. At what minimum number of chips on the winning number would we deem sufficient to try it?
There was yet another worry. Since Duke and I (Joe and Jerry weren’t needed to check-bet) would be the only players at the table not belonging to either clan, the Arabs and/or the Japanese might feel uncomfortable with our presence there. Assuming we managed to get the move in, would one of them rat on us? You never knew who your rats could be, as I’d learned in Lake Tahoe with the Veronica experience. Asians tended to almost never rat as that was part of their culture, but I knew nothing about Muslims. The stonings and hand-choppings I’d heard about were punishments meted out for crimes committed against Arabs, usually by Arabs. But were their morals as supreme concerning French casinos ripped off by Americans?
There are certain times when even the most sophisticated casino-cheating teams cannot rely on intricate sign languages to communicate inside a casino. Normally, when we entered a casino we had a basic game plan—two or three different moves with which to attack. Then once inside we "called our play" based on prevailing conditions. If we decided to change the original plan, the new play was communicated by flashing each other signs, much like a football team calling its original play in the huddle then changing it with an audible at the line of scrimmage. But when the situation presenting itself was too complex—rendering our quarterback indecisive—a time out was called to discuss it.
The multitudinous possibilities and their inherent complexities inside the Carlton casino forced us to take a time out. Joe signalled me to leave the casino. I took the elevator down to the lobby and walked outside onto the Croisette. Ten minutes later Jerry appeared, then Duke and finally Joe.
We all had individual impressions and ideas about what we'd witnessed inside the casino. After exchanging them excitedly, Joe made the decision.
"We go with the naked capper." He turned his attention specifically on Duke. "Even if there's only one winning chip on the number, you pop in ours underneath."
Duke exhaled the smoke from his cigarette. "What do I do if there’re no winning chips straight up on the number?...Do you want me to go on a split?"
"Absolutely not," Joe said firmly. "We wait for the straight-up. As long as you're confident about getting in there under the piece, we go for the jugular."
"No problem," Duke said, stomping out the butt. "I need the guy on the chair taken out for a full second."
"You got it," Jerry said.
Now Joe turned his attention to me. "This is what it's all about," he said. "New challenges. How long have we been together now, ten years? You have a lot of experience; you're a monster claimer. You never chilled-up once on me. You never committed the cardinal sin of leaving a move on a layout unclaimed. I have enormous respect for you...as I do for both Duke and Jerry. You're a warrior, and your reward is the opportunity to claim the biggest move of all time." He paused a moment, then said triumphantly to us all, "Now let's go back in there and get these French motherfuckers!"
Jerry handed Duke the ten-thousand-franc chip he’d gotten off a blackjack table. Duke gave it an admiring glance, commented that it didn’t have the diamond studding like the Arabs’ and Japanese chips did, then shrugged and put it in his pocket. We filed one by one back to the lobby elevators.
I stood two roulette tables away from the target table and watched Duke on the bottom of the layout, wedged in between two Arab sheiks. That sheer sight was laughable. The fact that Duke was wearing an expensive Armani suit did not make him look any less ridiculous between the two sheiks. The presence of the Japanese only heightened the hilarity. I couldn't help but laugh softly to myself. Surprisingly, I was not the least bit nervous. In fact, I was perhaps the most relaxed I'd ever been when preparing myself to claim an important move. I was comfortable with the feeling that I had earned the right to claim this record-setting move. A lot of hard work, sweat and discipline had gone into my career as a pastposter—not to mention the sheer balls of stone. My feeling was that I didn't want anybody else claiming that move but me.
When number 30 came in on the third spin with four winning diamond-studded chips on the number, Jerry stepped right in front of the inspector on the high chair and said loudly, almost obnoxiously, "Monsieur...Monsieur...S'il vous plaît...Je ne parle pas le Français...Can you explain..."
That was all the greatest roulette mechanic in the history of the world needed. With nerves of steel and unshakable will that made me proud to be a part of this pastposting team, Duke shot out to the layout from between the two sheiks, lifted off and held the marker with his left hand while his right slid our big ten-thousand-franc chip underneath the four already there, replaced the marker, leaned back in his chair and took a deep breath, all before the two stunned sheiks witnessing the feat could praise Allah. The work Duke had done with his right hand—picking up four oversized chips and sliding a fifth underneath with his pinkie, then centering the marker, all in a single second—was truly incredible.
I appeared at the front of the layout between two of the Japanese, just as Jerry was leaving to follow Duke out the door. "Merci beaucoup," I said loudly but without hysterics. “It's about time I won a large bet in France!” There was no need to carry on too much with the claim; the value of my chip exceeded none of the others lying on the winning number.
What happened next was the biggest disappointment of my entire pastposting career. It was hard to believe, and when the French gaming inspector on the high chair told me almost nonchalantly in broken English that my bet couldn't be paid because I had violated a French gaming regulation by betting a blackjack chip on a roulette table, I thought he was either joking because I was an American, or that his English was incapable of expressing what he really wanted to say. When it hit me that he was serious, that in French casinos (where rules differed from Monte Carlo) you simply were not allowed to bet chips bought at blackjack tables straight up on roulette numbers, I went into a silent shock. I could not fathom this disappointment. The inspector explained that casino chips were permitted only on the outside even-money and 2 to 1 bets.
There was no steam, no stirring—nothing. The inspector didn't tell anyone else in the casino. The dealer went about his business of paying the Arab sheiks and the Japanese, each of whom had two winning chips on number 30. I watched numbly as the dealer pushed $140,000 in chips, first to the two sheiks at the bottom of the table where Duke had been, and then to two of the Japanese. Finally, I managed to raise my head and look across the pit behind the inspector to where Joe was standing. He was staring at me with a ghastly grimace. He had understood what happened, the minute reason why our giant move was not being paid. I held Joe's stunned gaze with my own frozen version for a full minute, before finally turning away and cashing out the useless ten-thousand-franc chip at the cashier.

Well, there it was. Only thing I didn't tell you yesterday is that this, the biggest move we ever attempted, didn't get paid.