Full Tilt Poker Bans Cheats Using Bots!...Should We Laugh?

Well, what are they supposed to do...invite them to play? Come on, man, gimme a break. I guess in their emails to suspected or alleged poker bot cheats, they said something like "We are sorry but we are banning you for using a bot to cheat our online poker games..."

In any event, you can read a full article on this at Poker News Daily.

"Full Tilt Poker, the world’s second largest online poker room, sent an e-mail to an unknown number of recipients last week regarding the measures being taken to improve its security, according to PokerTableRatings and other outlets. The e-mail informed players that the site had completed an investigation that found several users in violations of Full Tilt‘s Terms of Service, some of whom were discovered cheating through the use of bots.

Each cheater had their account shut down and all of their funds were confiscated. Additional details of the incidents remain minimal, as Full Tilt didn’t disclose the number of accounts that were shut down or how much was seized, but the site promised that any players affected by the cheaters would be reimbursed for their losses.

“For a number of reasons, we are unable to provide additional information regarding this case, including the players involved and the game type where it occurred,” Full Tilt Poker said in the e-mail. The online poker site’s investigation exposed a software release by Shanky Technologies, who owns and operates a website that sells bots for a variety of different games, including No Limit Hold’em, Omaha, and even blackjack. Shanky Technologies apologized to its customers and said that Full Tilt had “quite suddenly and without warning froze all the accounts… although it tolerated the presence of bots all this time.”

A poker bot, for those unaware, is a form of software that registers for games and multi-tables without the assistance of a user. They’re mostly used in cash games, but have also been found in sit and gos, where the software uses Nash Equilibrium and an ICM calculator to make optimal moves against opponents. Most of the major online poker rooms have made concentrated attempts to prevent the use of such software. In July, PokerStars cracked down on a bot ring based in China that had played at least eight million hands and earned $57,000 at Double or Nothing sit and gos.

Full Tilt has also been in the news involving bot use in the past. In October 2009, two customers who had their accounts frozen because Full Tilt believed they were using bots sued the site. Lary “pokergirl z” Kennedy and Greg Omotoy filed their complaint on October 1st and levied accusations of fraud, libel, slander, false advertising, and racketeering against the online poker room after having more than $80,000 confiscated.

The suit accused Full Tilt pros Chris Ferguson and Andy Bloch of creating bots to populate slow cash game tables on the site and increase the profits of the company. Full Tilt responded to Kennedy’s lawsuit by claiming the suit was baseless and stated that it “has never knowingly allowed ‘bots’ to play on its site.” The case went to the United States District Court for the Central District of California in April, but it was dismissed by Judge Margaret Morrow, who stated that Kennedy had failed to “detail many portions of her case regarding state violations and, in particular, there could be no claim under the RICO Act.'"

Online Poker Cheat Collusion Victim Brings Lawsuit Against Six Well-Known Online Poker Players in Bizarre Case!

Source: onlinepoker.net

A Florida resident by the name of Scott Crespo has made the headlines recently, after filing a complaint on the 12th October against six well-known online pros at the US Northern District Court of Illinois.

In his lawsuit he is attempting to recover “illegal poker gambling losses” while accusing the players, amongst other things, of colluding with each other and cheating opponents on the internet.

Scott Crespo is seeking to recover triple the amount lost to the group incurred over approximately 700 tournaments on major US sites, and the names of the players cited in his filing have raised a few eye-brows as it includes a talented group of pros.

The six players named in the lawsuit include;

1; Faraz “The-Toilet” Jaka with over $2 million in online winnings and $2.3 million from live events

2; Andy “BKice” Seth with $2.182 million in online winnings and $1.14 million from live events

3; Benjamin “Chong94” LeFew with $895,000 in online winnings and $82,000 from live events

4; Mohsin “chicagocards1” Charania with $3.3 million in online winnings and $273,000 from live events

5; Ravi “govshark2” Raghavan with $2.73 million in online winnings and $290,000 from live events

6; Tyler “puffinmypurp” Reiman with $2.9 million in online winnings and $1.9 million from live events.

At the heart of Scott Crespo’s complaint is the players formation of a group called PokerHaus, which has its own website and is located at 1103 S. Busey Ave, Urbana on the campus of the University of Illinois. Scott Crespo’s complaint alleges that the six defendants used “real estate or property for the purposes of gambling” in the form of Pokerhaus. He also accuses them of having “actively recruited other individuals to participate in illegal gambling activity” and “committed acts of collusion and cheating while playing online poker.”

As this bizarre case gets going, apparently the Poker Players Alliance (PPA) are already considering throwing their weight behind the accused players. I will continue to bring you updates to this story as they occur.

My take: Well, in spite of the Poker Players' Alliance support for the accused, I think this guy Crespo has got a case. God for their jugulars, Scotty!

UltimateBet Victim Tom Dwan Compensated $300k After Online Poker Cheating Scandal

Source: onlinepoker.net

Tom Dwan has received $300,000 in compensation related to the superuser cheating scandal which took place at Ultimate Bet between January 2005 and December 2007.

Tom “durrrr” Dwan started playing at Full Tilt in early 2007, eventually becoming a sponsored pro at the site in November 2007. However, before then one of the other poker rooms the online prodigy had played at included Ultimate Bet while it was in the midst of its infamous superuser scandal.

Just to recap, following his 1994 WSOP Main Event win Russ Hamilton worked as a consultant for Ultimate Bet. He then went on to organise a scam which allowed himself and a team to view their opponents’ hole cards, eventually cheating customers out of around $22 million.

It would now appear that Tom Dwan was one of those unfortunate players to have been scammed and so received the $300,000 refund from Ultimate Bet by means of compensation. Recalling the exact session which led to him dropping around 20 buy-ins at $50/$100 PLO, Dwan said; “I guessed there was a 2% or 3% of some cheating going on.” However, his good friend and fellow pro David Benefield said he believed during that session the cheating percentage was probably nearer to 10%.

Tom Dwan then went on to recall losing the 20 buy-ins to a player who seemed to be playing an absolutely crazy game at the time. However, Dwan has since been unable to recollect the player’s onscreen name and is convinced it didn’t appear on the list of superusers later produced by Ultimate Bet. Dwan said that particular session created the biggest impression on him while playing at the site, but conceded that “nothing else the whole time peeked my interest about UB at all.”

Tom Dwan’s $300,000 compensation represented just a small fraction of the $22,100,000 eventually refunded to the defrauded players. But I believe it is the largest to date.

Poker Bot Use Catching Up To Collusion Play With Online Poker Cheats

AS we move deeper and deeper into the online poker era, the online poker cheats are continuing to adjust their cheating ways and develop new methods of trying to cheat you at the online poker tables. During the first few years of online poker, the cheating was dominated by simple collusion play, sometimes by two online cheats and others by groups, some of which consisted of eight or nine players taking down one single cheat victim. As the technological advances enabled the development of more sophisticated poker bots with artificial intelligence, their use naturally progressed with the progress (pardon the pun). And just as naturally, the colluders and the botters in many cases joined forces to form monster online poker cheat teams that used their bots in collusion to get your money. For purposes of this report, I am going to break down the current online poker cheating methods into both individual and combined methods to give you an idea of just how much of which form of cheating you're either up against...or participating in.

As of October 15, 2010

Percentage of online poker cheats playing collusion only: 42%
Percentage of online poker cheats using bots only: 29%
Percentage of online poker cheats playing collusion with bots: 21%
Percentage of online poker cheats hacking and stealing info: 8%
(this includes hole-card compromising operations)

Note that this study reflects all online poker games including tournaments.

Singapore Casino Cheating Beat Goes On. Pair Face Nearly 100 Casino Cheating Felonies!

Hold on! Don't get too excited reading this. It all boils down to two guys ripping off Resorts World Sentosa Casino for thirty grand by stealing chips off tables and cheating at roulette. One of the accused cheats, a twenty-three year-old Malaysian dealer named Ng Wuey Kiang, supposedly controlled the roulette wheel by making soft spins that would make the spinning ball land on his cohort's numbers more often than fair probability would dictate. That cohort has been identified as thirty-nine year-old Chinese national Leong Teck Leong. Leong is accused of corrupting Kiang into cheating his casino from the inside, by both stealing chips and manipulating the spins on roulette wheels. I can't say how efficient Kiang was at controlling the roulette ball. This is very hard to do unless the dealer makes obvious weak spins with few revolutions of the ball.

The total of the thefts of casino chips was roughly $1,500 and was carried out on seven or eight occasions, according to Resorts World Sentosa personnel. The roulette cheat moves garnered from $175 to $1,750 a pop. All this has added up to nearly one hundred charges, and the bails on both cheats are steep. Leong is being held on $70,000 bail, Ng $100,000. Pre-trial is set for December 2. Both men face several years in prison.

My take: The sheer audacity of these casino cheats working Singapore really strikes me. None of these cheats appear to be even close to good or professional...So, what does that say about the surveillance and securtiy forces of both Singapore casinos?...Not much.

Singapore Casino Big Money Wheel Cheat Team Face More Charges

The two casino cheats who got busted last week for an inside scam on the Big Money Wheel at the Marina Bay Sands Casino got hit with 3 more charges yesterday. Keith Yong Kee-Hwei, 24, the pit supervisor and dealer (photo), and Tan Tiong Loon, 32, the player/agent, were charged with cheating at gambling in the amouont of $13,500, which happened on October 7th, and attempted cheating at gambling for a cheat move that didn't get paid.

Yong used his hand to stop the spinning wheel on the Big Money Wheel game on the 45 to 1 bet made by Tan. The casino paid $18,000. Then an hour later the pair made the same move for $13,500 and got paid again.

But then they got greedy and repeated the move just a few minutes later. This time the casino got suspicious and ran back the surveillance video which showed Yong blatantly stopping the wheel with his hand.

Yong is being held on $30,000 bail, but Tan, obviously an unprofessional casino cheat, is being held without bail because he committed these alleged offenses while out on bail for another casino-cheating charge.

My take: I think this casino-cheating team oughta hang up their chips for a long time.

Feedback on My Recent Steve Forte Borgata Poker Cheats Article

Whenever I write articles like this, I always get a variety of comments. And like always, the two-dozen that have come in so far are a mixture of the good, the bad and the ugly. Here's a few of them:

THE GOOD

Hi Richard,

Thanks for that informative article. The way you accurately broke down the case and pointed out the facts that cannot be argued, I have to agree with you that Steve Forte is guilty of conspiracy and had to be a participant whether or not the scam ever got to its operational stage.

Mr. Marcus,

I have never met Steve Forte or you, but objectively speaking I think you are probably right. After reading your article I went to Forte's website and found the following paragraph written by Forte, which is curious, and certainly makes Jason England's article claiming Forte's innocence appear biased in Forte's favor.

"For those of you who have asked about the Gambling Protection Video Series, I have cut a deal with, and transferred the rights to, my friend: Jason England. Jason is one of many people over the years who have asked me to convert the series to DVD..."

THE BAD:

Mr. Marcus,

A judge dismissed the case against Forte. I don't know what planet you live on, but on Earth that means he is INNOCENT!

Richard,

I get the feeling reading your article that you are one of those know-it-alls who thinks he's always right. In this case, I don't think you are. I am sure that Mr. Forte had some viable reason for being in that hotel room...maybe it was a girlfriend or sex thing, but not setting up a person to be ripped off playing poker.

THE UGLY:

YOU ARE A FUCKING IDIOT AND JEALOUS OF STEVE FORTE!

Annie Duke's Comments on Blanca Games Acquisition of Cheat-Troubled CEREUS Poker Network

If you didn't know, the CEREUS Poker Network was bought by Blanca Games, now run by Stuart Gordon. Annie Duke was asked by Poker News Daily what she thought about this transaction. She responded, "It´s a very positive thing for the brand. The cheating was purportedly under the auspices of Excapsa in terms of software development and the person developing it was able to get into the group through his involvement with them. I´m happy that the brand is making a clean break from that, and that’s part of being able to move on. I´ve always felt like the full brunt of what happened was really put on the current UB.com management. I have tremendous faith in Paul Leggett (Tokwiro Enterprises COO). My understanding is that there won´t be any change in terms of his role. I think perhaps this will be an opportunity to do some house cleaning, but I don´t really know. Paul´s staying is a good thing because in every aspect of what´s happened. When you look around and see how he´s behaved, he’s been the most forthright and the most forthcoming. He´s had the most integrity and he´s taken a lot of blame. He´s gone above and beyond and I´ve been very impressed with how he´s handled everything that´ happened.

My take: Gimme a break, Annie! How much is Leggett paying you for this?

Inside Blackjack Card-Marking Scam Busted in California Casino!

This one really caught my eye! In a span of less than an hour, three people cheated the Turlock Poker Room and Casino out of more than twenty-five grand by marking the cards, apparently in quite an unprofessional way. Finally, when they got too greedy, surveillance caught on to their cheating scam.

Arrested were a floor supervisor and two players at the table, all charged with 11 felonies including conspiracy, burglary, grand theft, winning by fraudulent means and cheating at gambling. The supervisor was identified as forty-six year-old Robert Younan. The players were Gabriel Rodriguez, seventy-one, and In Cha Say, fifty-eight.

Casino surveillance got wise to Rodriguez and Say making blatant deviations from basic strategy blackjack, which seems like foolish play unless you keep winning, which is what they were doing--in huge amounts. It was then determined that the players had marked the cards with a grease-like substance, marking ten-value cards on the corners and sevens, eights and nines on the middle. The cards were not marked on the game, however. They were marked elsewhere beforehand, and Younan, the supervisor, was able to switch the marked cards into the game when his cohorts hit the table.

My take: Amazing that they got ahead $25,000 grand in such a small casino. This shows two things: One, that the blackjack cheats and supervisor were incredibly greedy and/or stupid; two, the casino floor personnel were incredibly inept not to catch on to them after the first few hands. Even though they could not have seen the marking taking place, the cards should have been removed from the game after a few winning hands for large bets that showed successive deviation from basic strategy.

Singapore Casino Busts Pit Supervisor in Money Wheel Inside Scam!

Seeing how easy it is to cheat Singapore's new casinos, some of their very own employees are getting into the cheat-free-for-all. Loads of dealers and pit personnel have been getting away with it so far, but finally one inside scam has been broken up. It occurred on the Money Wheel game, not a place where high rollers usually lay their wagers, which might have clued the casino into the fact it was being cheated by its very own.

Three Chinese nationals were charged last Thursday with cheating the Marina Bay Sands casino out of more than $18,000 by getting the dealer to control the spinning wheel of the game. The dealer who also served as a pit supervisor has been identified as twenty-four year-old Keith Yong Kee Hwei. One of the cohort players at the table has been identified as thirty-two year-old Tan Tiong Loon. Loon made a bet at 45 to 1 and Yong controlled the spinning wheel to make Loon's bet win, which looked like a huge, lucky longshot in the works. There were other unidentified players involved in the cheat scam.

This is the first incident of a casino employee being charged with involvement in an inside scam. I expect to see more of this as the cheating appears to continue to be extremely ripe in Singapore's two virgin casinos.