Facebook Poker Cheats and Zynga Chips Ghost Cheating

You know, sometimes it bothers me to cover this stuff, but I guess it's my duty if I'm going to be a leader in the online poker news industry. True online poker cheating is a big enough problem in online poker, but all this crap about Facebook Poker cheats is starting to become a real nuisance. For all those Facebook Poker cheat nerds doing their cheat thing on Facebook, there's not much need for you to read this blog article. For those of you who play...or cheat...real online poker and don't bother playing or cheating Facebook Poker but are curious, the article below will give you the lowdown about the poker cheating craze on Facebook. The only value to note for serious online poker cheats and players is that there are carryover online poker cheating methods that are done in both cheat worlds. One of these is "ghosting."

Article from mahalo.com

Do you want to one up your friends at Poker on Facebook? This page will show you various Poker Cheats on Facebook as they are available. There are a number of cheats available for poker on Facebook from time to time. Sometimes, these cheats are simple methods to use while other times a hack can be used to add money to your poker account or make certain cards available more often.

A common cheat used is the "ghost" cheat, whereby a player uses an alternate Facebook account to create a ghost player on his or her table. This way, the player has a higher chance of winning by playing as two or more players at the same time on the same table.

Facebook's popularity has generated many customers for its many poker applications, the most popular of which being Texas Hold 'em. It is important to note that the free Facebook applications are nowhere near the quality found in most of the independent online poker sites such as Pokerstars.Com and are not intended for high caliber poker players.

The absence of cash prizes, however, makes it a great place for beginners to learn the basics of the game and hone their poker skills. While Facebook's poker applications do not consist of any cash-based poker play, it is necessary to earn chips to participate in gameplay.

Recently, Facebook games have gained popularity. Games such as Poker on Facebook that rely on a community of players have been particularly popular because they extend the multi-user environment that Facebook is founded in.

As an important note for parents, game creator Zynga advises that while they have removed inappropriate content from the game, the online, interactive nature of the game can change the spirit of gameplay.http://www.facebook.com/apps/application.php?id=23898012282

Several cheats and hacks have been developed to help players acquire poker chips more quickly than they are earned through normal gameplay. Be advised that these cheats are against the terms of service of each game, and using them puts your gaming account at risk. This page contains links to available cheats however because the community and game developer monitor illicit activity, the cheats available may be limited.

Doyle Brunson Speaks Out on Cereus Online Poker Cheat Crisis!

Doyle Brunson added his three cents to the pie on the controversy surrounding the security breach at Absolute Poker and UltimateBet when he said in his blog, "I know some of the former owners are still in the office at UB, so they have to go the extra mile with their security. But how on earth could they allow something like this breach of security? It is a mystery to me how poker players keep going there."

Brunson did not mention any names but there's no doubt he is talking about the recent encryption security problems that have been plaguing the Cereus Poker Network and its two main sites, UltimateBet.com and Absolute Poker.
He is obviously trying to capitalize on the seemingly lack of disclosure on the main people involved in the hole-card scams that riveted the online poker world for several years now since their worldwide and netwide exposure.

What is Brunson's real motive in all this? You know as well as I...he just wants to get more people playing online poker at Doyle's Room.

My Take: Well, I consider Doyle Brunson a poker cheat whether it be online or off, and I don't trust him as far as I can throw 'em...and even that ain't real far!!

Poker Cheating at 2010 WSOP...What and How Much of it Will We See?

Now that the 2010 World Series of Poker Championships have kicked off in Las Vegas--accompanied by the sudden breaking news of a tournament chip thief caught in the act in the 2009 WSOP championships and banned for life from the WSOP--people are asking me about what kind of poker cheat tactics we will see this year and whether or not cheating overall will increase during these world-famous poker tournaments.

Well, first thing off the bat I´ll say is that the probability of us seeing any more chip thievery is slight if not nill. I think that tournament directors, supervisors, and especially dealers will be watching out for this during the player breaks. In fact, we may see a few innocent hands getting slapped if they don't draw a perfect direct line from the pots in the middle of the table back to their own player areas in front of them where there own stacks of chips sit on the table. The cheating poker player chip-thief made his cheat move while scooping the chips in a pot he'd just won.

As far as the other typical WSOP forms of cheating go, we will see (or not see) the collusion and softplaying revolving around the professional WSOP tournament syndicates. My point here is that collusion and softplaying always goes on at the WSOP, whether or not it is suspected, seen, sensed or whatever. I doubt anyone will try more graphic forms of cheating such as card-switching or card-marking. However, the most important form of World Series of Poker cheating will not take place during the play of the tournaments or during the play of the championship event but rather during the long break between the determination of the final nine players of the main event and the beginning of play at that final table. During those approximate 100 days, the dirty-dealing of arranging what will happen at that final table will be decided. In other words, that huge pie of prize money will be cut up before it is even baked!

Oh how I wish the main event would go back to its old format without the 3 and half month delay!

WSOP Poker Tournament Chip Thief/Cheat Banned for Life From WSOP!...Why Did WSOP Officials Keep This Quiet?...And Do I Know Who the Cheat Is?

Obviously because they don't want the truth about all the cheating that goes on at the WSOP getting out, which of course would tarnish its image. I have been blogging and writing magazine articles for the past 5 years about massive collusion and other forms of cheating at the WSOP, and one of the forms of poker tournament cheating I have covered is chip-stealing during or near breaks in play.

Now it appears that a fiftyish man has been permanently barred from all future World Series of Poker tournaments and events after he was caught by cameras stealing another player’s chips during Event Number 4, the $1,000 No-Limit Hold’em Event, which took place on Day 1A of the 2010 WSOP.

The chip-thievery was first reported in Michael Craig’s Full Tilt Poker blog and now has been confirmed by WSOP tournament director Jack Effel, who replied to a question about what the guy banned from the WSOP had done with “You don’t take someone else’s chips.”

The chip-cheat/thief has not been publicy identified beyond being around fifty years-old and wearing a ball cap above gray hair. He had been seen being removed from the tournament area by Harrah's security personnel on the day in question. According to reports the chip cheat poker move went down after the twenty-minute break had been announced at the end of Level Two. The eight players at the table not involved in the last hand had left the two remaining players to play out that hand. The accused chip-thief won the hand, and as he leaned over to scoop the chips in the pot with his right hand, he put his left hand on the layout to give him support and cover, then he snatched a stack of chips from the player who'd been sitting next to him. That player had quite a few stacks of chips at the time. The dealer obviously saw nothing.

It is not known how the cheat move was discovered or exactly when, but it is clear that Effel and other WSOP officials didn't want the bad news getting out. But now that it did, Effel was forced to admit the truth about another WSOP cheat scam. I am sure there were others that have been successfully covered up. The evidence on the video is conclusive. Effel added that the chip cheat will be "banned from the World Series forever."

So, do I know who the cheat is? Believe it or not, I have a good idea. I can't say who because until it is made public, I would be opening myself up to a libel suit. But I will tell you this: his initials are MN.

Tokwiro COO Paul Leggett Claims Tokwiro Has Paid Out $23 Million in Absolute Poker and UltimateBet Online Poker Cheat Scandals!...Not Enough For Some Critics!

Source: recentpoker.com

The online poker cheating scandal that weighed so heavily on the reputation of poker sites Absolute Poker and UltimateBet, along with parent company Tokwiro Enterprises, still fascinates the industry despite the passage of years. This week Tokwiro chief operating officer Paul Leggett blogged on the latest controversy – the extent of refunds and the methodology deployed.

His comments come in an atmosphere where a former poker magazine editor continues to investigate the hole card cheating scandal and publish all the detail about those involved; experts on the top poker message board 2plus2 analyse every move by the company and one group carries out final verifying checks before releasing more real identities, long demanded by poker fans.

Leggett blogs that Tokwiro initially refunded a staggering $22 054 351.91, followed by an additional $227 956.66 after an error was discovered regarding split pots.

“Later on we refunded an additional $494 932.20 to several accounts that had their refunds on hold because they were still under investigation at the time we did the refunds but were eventually cleared and processed.

“So the total amount that was refunded to players was $22 777 240.77 USD,” Leggett revealed.

With the costs of sorting out the problems, paying fines imposed by the Kahnawake Gaming Commission and launching publicity initiatives to recover credibility, the final cost to Tokwiro has clearly been considerable.

Leggett goes on to justify the ‘Net Loss’ methodology used to determine how much to refund players, revealing that his company ran into many issues.

“We were limited by the information available to us and we had legacy data sources and applications from the previous owners that we learned we could not trust,” Leggett blogged. “We also were initially relying on the old UB software developers to help us with the analysis, which proved very problematic.

“We eventually hired independent database analysts and a poker mathematician to help us redo the analysis because of the frustrations we had dealing with the problems.

Leggett gives extensive detail on how the exercise involved, the difficulties that were faced and how the ‘Net Loss’ assessment worked.

In closing, he referred to the significance of another refund analysis carried out by Uri Kozai, an expert employed by the liquidators of Excapsa, the owners of the company which sold the poker operations to Tokwiro. The liquidators were motivated by a desire to confirm the amounts of money Tokwiro claimed were stolen from players was accurate.

“We eventually settled with [the previous owners] for $15 million in order to get players their money back,” Leggett claimed. “Excapsa is currently in liquidation and required court approval to settle with us.

“[Kozai’s] analysis was nowhere near as thorough as ours. He simply reviewed the work we did and was satisfied that our analysis was accurate. It is untrue that he developed the refund methodology that we used.”

It's Not All in the Hands, My Boy!

What makes a good roulette mechanic? Well, of course he (or she) has to have good hands that can smoothly handle the chips for a pastposting move, but that's only part of it. In addition to the hands, he (or she) has got to have balls! He, iron ones...she, well...you think of the adjective for them! Then of course, he or she has got to have brains. The roulette mechanic has to be able to read pit situations and see if someone on the casino staff, including the dealer, might be on to him or her at the last second before it's time to switch the chips. You know, like Kenny Rogers used to sing..."gotta know when to move 'em...gotta know when to not..." or something like that.

Now that you know just what it takes to be a good roulette mechanic, you're probably wondering why I went out of my way with the "or shes" in describing roulette mechanics. Are there many female roulette mechanics out there cheating casinos? Well, I never knew one...but since I don't want any backlash from women's groups who might say I am bigoted for insinuating that all roulette mechanics are men, I decided to write the possibility that female roulette mechanics do exist.

And let me mention, if you haven't read it in my book "American Roulette," some of the best overall casino cheats in history were women. Check some of them out on my Casino Cheats Hall of Fame page.

Here's a Bad-Beat Story For Ya!

An unidentifed man walks into the Presque Isle Downs & Casino in Erie, Pennsylvania, and hits a quarter slot jackpot for $2,000. Not a bad day's pay, right? Just what he was probably thinking until the casino notified him that he would be paid but wouldn't be allowed to keep the money...What the heck???

Turns out the man was victimized by his volition. Some states, including Pennsylvania, where this incident took place, allow people to ban themselves from casinos. Yes, you heard me right...I mean, you "read" me right...he banned himself from the casino. This law allows people who have gambling problems to protect themselves from entering casinos and losing their houses, life-savings and possibly familes. The man who won this slot jackpot had chosen to ban himself from Pennsylvania's casinos several months ago...and then either forgot about it or decided it didn't really matter.

But for the state of Pennsylvania it did. The man was forced to forfeit the two grand...and to boot, he was cited for criminal trespassing!

My take: In spite of this man's bad-beat story, the law allowing people to ban themselves from casinos is fundamentally good. It will do a lot more good than harm in the long-run, and even if that man had been allowed to keep the two grand, he would not doubt have ended up losing it back...and probably a lot more.

Does She Look Like a Casino Cheat?...Well, She's the Latest Slots Cheat Convicted in Singapore, as Casino Cheat Wave Continues in New Casinos

Back on February 15 at the Resorts World Sentosa in Singapore, Alice Lau Qian Xiu, a forty-six year old accounting assistant, decided that counting other people's money was not as good as counting her own...so she decided to become a slot-player thief. Her first known victim, and I stress "known" because no one knows how many there were before she got caught, was Soh Wee Chen, a thirty-two year-old salesman who was playing a Russian roulette machine and walked away from it leaving his credits. Evidently, Chen thought that his remaining credits would be automatically transferred to his casino player's card.

Lau Qian Xiu was on the lookout as she played the slot machine next to Chen, and when she spotted the credits on his machine immediately snatched the credits printout and cashed out $630 at the casino cage.
But then two things happened: the first was that Lau Qian Xiu, like many other degenerate low-level casino cheats, did not leave the casino after committing her crime. Instead she returned to the same slot machine she'd been playing on when she spotted her victim and began playing again; the second is that the victim realized his mistake and went back to the machine to claim his credits. When he got there he saw there were none left to claim. He reported the incident to security, then surveillance ran back the video and saw Lau Qian Xiu steal his credits, just as she unbelievably still sat at the same machine while surveillance watched the footage of her crime.

Lau Qian Xiu was prosecuted and faced two years in jail, but her lawyer convinced the judge that the friendly and harmless-looking woman was desperate and acted on impulse and was by no means a pro, and won her a lenient sentence: $1,500 fine.

My Take: She does look a little too nice and innocent to be a casino cheat/thief, but I'll tell you this: Had she gotten away cleanly this time, she would have been back out on the prowl as soon as she blew her first known victim's $630.

Two Roulette Cheats Try and Fail at Monster Pastposting Cheat Move in Singapore!

I haven´t heard of any professional casino or poker cheat-teams coming out of Africa, but apparently at least one of them is in business, and not surprisingly it is in Singapore, where the newly-opened Sands Marina Bay casino has quickly joined its brother Singaporean casino, Sentosa's Resorts World, as a prime target for professional casino cheats from all over the world.

As I might have suspected, a casino cheat team from Tanzania would be a bit less than prime, and they got caught trying one of the biggest roulette-cheating pastposting (bet-placing after winning outcome is known)moves since my professional cheat team broke up after our huge score on New Year's Eve, 1999. They had the balls to try pastposting a $1,000 casino chip straight-up on a number at the bottom of the wheel. Reports are that the move was done by a two-man operation, which is a little short for a cheat-move of that magnitude. They probably didn't have much check-betting (process of laying down bets to create move opportunites and chip-camouflage) going on, as that's usually done by people not involved in the mechanics of the move or in claiming the winning bet.

The one thirty-four year-old Tanzanian man identified, Kipuyo Lemburis, was arrested and taken to court on Friday, charged with trying to fraudulently convince the dealer on the roulette game to pay him $35,000, which is what the legitimate payout on a $1,000 straight-up-on-the-number bet would have paid.

My take: I think the attempt was a little too big for the casino. Maybe they should have tried the same move with a $100 chip straight-up for a $3,500 payoff. If they indeed had tried that and received a payoff or two, they should have continued with moves of the same value. They may have been able to get away with ten $100-chip moves instead of one $1,000-chip move.

Robert Andersson, One of Online Poker's Biggest Cheat Scam Artists, Gets 8 Years in Swedish Prison For Drug-Dealing!

Okay, as we learned from Frank W. Abagnale (Leonardo DiCaprio) in the scam-artist movie "Catch Me if You Can," Swedish prison cells are more like cozy college dormitory rooms, but nevertheless they are still prisons, and for the next eight years 22 year-old highly-detested online poker cheat scam-artist Robert Andersson will be making his home in one.

Andersson, a well-known poker player/cheater who is Swedish, is more notorious for outright stealing fellow online players' money than actually cheating in online poker games via bots, collusion or any of the other known online cheating methods. His MO is simply "borrowing" money from other players by chatting them up with fancy stories involving funding for online poker tournaments, and he has also been accused of actually breaking into players' online poker accounts and emptying them of funds. He is also known on the European Poker Tour, where he's had very limited success.

But now he's headed upriver (if you want to call a Swedish prison that) for smuggling methedrone, a drug much like ecstasy, into Sweden from England and other European countries. For those who have been scammed online by Andersson, this is at least some poetic justice even though his victims will never recover their money.

Andersson first became cheat/scam noteworthy online when an American online poker-player/cheat-victim posted his tale of getting scammed out of 30 grand by Andersson on 2+2 in 2008. I read the post and I believe it is the longest post in the history of online poker forums; it is several pages long and explains how Andersson wiped out his entire poker bankroll, both online and off, through a series of loans that Andersson never paid back. Of course there was some stupidity on this American poker player's part for repeatedly loaning Andersson money, but Andersson is quite good and suckered his victim into chasing lost money with more money in the hope of getting Andersson to pay back.

Evidently, this Andersson character is a real scumbag and he was actually convicted on the testimony of "friends." As no drugs were found on Andersson when he was arrested, this testimoney added to mountains of circumstantial evidence was very strong, as victim testimony always is.

Well, since Swedish prisons are almost like hotels, Andersson will surely not suffer and he probably will take advantage of prison poker games to cheat some more. And since he will no doubt have a computer with Internet access in his "cell", what's to stop him from continuing his online poker cheat scams?

Believe me...nothing!