Cyber Poker Cheats Targeted 100 Online Poker Sites!

Source: OnlinePoker.net

This news broke about a month ago, but I missed it so I am reporting on it now.

A South Korean web hosting company that allegedly hosted an illegal gambling site is in trouble with authorities for organising a series of “cyber attacks” on competing illegal online casinos in order to grab gambling business from rival gangsters.

Between November 21st and December 15th, 2010, Lee, 32, head of the computer server company along with Park, 37, a hacker working for an Incheon based crime gang which owned the gambling site, organised distributed denial-of-service attacks (DDoS) against 109 rival casino websites every day.

Incheon gang member Yeom, 34, also purchased a list of 50,000 infected computers from Chinese criminals, which he then gave to Lee and Park in order to further distribute malicious software.

The ultimate aim of the gang was to disrupt the operations of rival casino sites in order to force gamblers to seek other sites to wager on, namely their own.

An additional aim of the cyber-attacks was to coerce websites into using Lee’s company’s server, with those not willing to register for hosting services laying themselves open to attack. This was the case with a job-seeking site that refused to do business with him and chose to use another provider instead.

Several members of the Korean crime gang were arrested on January 9th in connection with the high-tech crime, and commenting on the case the prosecutor in charge said:

“It is the first time that a crime ring has hired a professional hacker, provided necessary equipment and made systematic DDoS attack.”

In the West, DDoS extortion scams have become less popular partly due to a number of high-profile prosecutions. However, they have recently been in the spotlight once more after a network of “hacktivists,” including ‘Anonymous’ organised a mass DDoS attack against Amazon, PayPal and MasterCard who cooperated with the US government in order to suppress WikiLeaks.

Poker Tournament Chip-Cheats Get Jail Time in Florida!

Source: OnlinePoker.net

Two men received their just deserts after being discovered cheating during a poker tournament at the Gulfstream Park Casino in Hallandale Beach, Florida.

In April 2009, Lashone Dobard, 33, and Kelvin McClendon, 37, had apparently concocted a plan to steal chips from the casino during one tournament in order to utilise them in another tournament a few days later.

Having those extra stack of chips to boost their tournament chances just at the right time obviously initially worked out for the Broward County men.

McClendon tied in first place at the tournament to collect a $1,300 pay-out, as well as receiving 186 points towards entry to the World Series of Poker in Las Vegas. Dobard, too, managed to finish near the top of the field and walked away with $320 in cash and 116 WSOP points.

However, the Gulfstream Park Casino had already grown suspicious that something was awry after noting that chips were missing during the first tournament. Those extra chips then turned up after an audit of the second tournament was completed thus leading security staff to review security video of the poker events.

It didn’t take long for them to spot the two men slipping chips into their pockets, as well as apparently working in cahoots with one another. As a result the men were arrested and subsequently in a court of law pleaded no contest to the felony of cheating.

As punishment for their immoral behaviour, Lashone Dobard received a 142 day stretch in jail, of which he had already served 112 days, while McClendon received two years probation. The men have also been banned from returning to the Gulfstream Park Casino.

Despite poker acquiring a more respectable reputation over the past few years, there will always be criminal elements trying to gain an unfair advantage over their unfortunate opponents.

Only last year, Ali Tekintamgac reached the final table of the Partouche Poker Tour Cannes, which had a top prize of €1,300,000 ($1.824,190). However, he was found to have cheated and was subsequently removed from the competition. Incredibly, a suspected Turkish collaborator of his by the name of Kadir Karabuluta was also disqualified this month from the €1,500 Holland Casino Dom Classic on similar grounds.

Las Vegas Sportsbooks Soon to Accept Wagering on Events Such as Academy Awards...What About Cheating with Oscar Betting?

Okay, let's say the movie "True Grit," the remake of the John Wayne classic starring Jeff Bridges, is 2 to 1 to win the Oscar for Best Picture. And lets say Colin Firth is 3 to 1 to win Best Actor. Soon you will actually be able to bet on this in all legal sportsbooks in the State of Nevada, but probably not in time for this year's Academy Awards. More likely in a few months' time, which means you will be able to bet on a wide spectrum of events such as elections, outcomes of wars, weather patterns, etc.

How will cheating on this type of betting come to play in Nevada casino sportsbooks? Well, in some areas such as betting on weather patterns it would be pretty difficult to cheat--unless of course some pretty determined betters actually try to influence the weather to conform with their bets. I have heard of people trying to create manmade tidal waves. I think it happened off the coast of Hawaii. And the outcome of wars? That would be a bloody mess, pardon the pun.

But more to the point of cheating, a betting event such as the Academy Awards could become involved in a betting/cheating scandal. We all know that supposedly no one knows the results until the envelope containing them is opened during the ceremony, but this process can easily be corrupted. Los Angeles is full of amoral and dishonest people in the right places. Remember the infamous private investigator "to the stars" Anthony Pellicano? If not, he was the LA PI caught in a huge wiretapping blackmail scheme involving several actors and producers who were invovled in winning Oscars at several Academy Award presentations, most notably Sylvester Stallone.

So it would not be hard to imagine that someone with ties to the right LA people could somehow get his hands on what's in the envelope before that envelope gets in the hands of the presenters on stage.

What about elections? Well, elections that are tampered with, at least in the US, are usually tampered with for the purpose of winning the election, not betting on it, although that might change if the odds are long enough!

Pro Poker Player Scherer III's Murder Trial is Long Way From Cheating Allegations

Although at his murder trial, Ernest Scherer III and the jury of his peers who are charged with either convicting him or acquitting him of his parents' double murder heard a tape on which evidence of cheating played in the courtroom. But it was not about cheating in poker; it was about cheating on his ex-wife Robyn, who was on the witness stand testifying against her ex-hubby Scherer III, who is a professional poker player good enough to have won $300,000 in tournaments, including a World Series of Poker Final Table appearance in 2006.

But the 32-year-old Scherer III, who is accused of the brutal baseball-bat-Turkish-sword double murder of his parents, who had loaned him more than $600,000 to buy his dream house with his ex-wife, allegedly killed his parents because his father was pressuring him to pay back the debt at the same time that his son had hit a bad losing streak in live poker ring games in central California, where both the murders and trial are taking place.

The evidence does not look good for Scherer, which means he will probably be spending the the rest of his life in California state prison, where he's been held without bail for the last two years since his arrest for the 2008 killings. Since he has been charged with murder with special circumstances, the death penalty is also a possibility in the case.

My take: Well, about the best we can hope for for Mr. Scherer III is that he gets to play in the prison poker games and win a lot of cigarettes, and that he doesn't get sentenced to death...I am really not trying to be funny here.

Cheating Casino Dealers in Macau Might Be Risking More Than Their Jobs and Prison

Dealers Buried Under the Bridge?

With all the inside baccarat cheating scams going down in Macau the past five years, more or less since the giant Las Vegas-type casino resorts have sprung up across the Pearl River Delta from Hong Kong, you might wonder if the cheating dealers participating in them are brazen, brave or just plain stupid. Are they working with the Chinese criminal Triads to rip off their casinos? Are they ripping off other Triads who might have financial stakes in Macau Casino VIP rooms?

The answer to these questions are not at all as complex as you might think. To put it short, many Chinese Triads are behind the casino cheat teams that prey on Macau's baccarat tables. This is fine for the dealers who are protected from most harm when they get involved in these scams. BUT, and this is a big "BUT," sometimes these dealers are cheating Triads that are involved in the ownership of the VIP baccarat rooms, where the Triads bring in mega-gamblers to play. Here is where the dirty dealers get into serious trouble.

One casino dealer at the Sands Macau, the hotel owned by Sheldon Adelson of Las Vegas casino-fame (who has been in hot water for a number of possible illicit casino operations involving his casino), had his arms and legs broken for participating in a baccarat false-shuffle scam that ripped off the Triad operating the VIP room in the Sands. Supposedly, the Triad wanted this dealer murdered as a message to other dealers who might think of ripping off their baccarat rooms, but they settled for the beating.

My take: When I first performed a baccarat false-shuffle scam at the Las Vegas 4 Queens Casino in 1977, about the only thing I had to worry about was not fucking up the false shuffle! There were no cameras nor knowledgeable floor personnel to thwart me. But today, especially in Macau, cheating your casino can be very dangerous.

A lot more dangerous than the US Justice Department was to the Tran Organization!

PokerStars Eliminates Double-Or-Nothing Sit & Go Tournaments Because of Online Poker Cheating!

The PokerStars VIP Manager posted this stunning news on the 2+2 Poker Forum on Wednesday, saying that as of 15 February, 2011, the hugely popular Double-or-Nothing Sit & Go tournaments will no longer be available on the site. This is directly due to international online poker cheating collusion rings that have been infesting these Double or Nothing Sit and Go tournaments that offer buy-ins ranging from $1 to $1,000.

Why Have These Tournaments Been So Succeptible to Cheating?

Well, first, let's take a look at what a Double or Nothing Tournament is. In short, it is a tournament that awards winning players double their buy-in after half of the players at the table have been knocked out. So a full table of 10 players who each paid a $10 buy-in would award the last five players remaining by allowing them to split the $100 of total buy-ins at that table, their respective chip stacks at the time having no bearing.

During much of last year these Double-or-Nothing Sit & Go tournaments came under intense scrutiny because of highly sophisticated collusion rings operating out of Korea and China that took aim at them. It became evident to online poker security investigators that DoN SNGs were very vulnerable to collusion rings. They could not help but notice the tremendous change in strategies of players such as those not playing many hands during most of a tournament and then in key spots playing almost every hand where lots of raising and re-raising took place.

PokerStars is now offering a form of the Sit & Go Tournament that is similar to Double-or-Nothing called Fifty50. For more on that go to their site.

My take: Well, in spite of the huge popularity of this kind of bankroll-building tournament, PokerStars did what it had to do: combat online poker cheating on every front whenever possible. The only problem is that whenever a new form of online poker tournament is created to ensure less cheating, some sophisticated online cheat team somewhere finds new ways to cheat it.

Should Journalists, Reporters and Bloggers Be Barred From Sitting Close to Poker Tournament Tables in Action Because of Cheating Scandals?

If you have been following this blog, you know that there have been a handful of major poker tournament cheating scandals involving players teaming up with journalists and bloggers, who used cameras and signals to peek at other players' hole cards and relay the information to their cohorts playing at the tournament tables. In Holland and elsewhere in Europe some well-known poker pros have been disqualified from tournaments for this type of poker cheating.

So, should journalists, bloggers and other types of reporters not be allowed too close to the poker tournament action? I think barring them would be going too far. As in all groups linked to poker tournament cheating, the percentage of those journalists and bloggers involved in cheating at the tables is very low. Now that this type of cheating has been uncovered several times, it is likely to decrease and even go away on its own.

So let's keep allowing journalists and reporters their intimate contact with poker--as it is very good for the game and does more good than harm.

Well-Known Poker Tournament Pro David Saab Facing Huge Drug-Dealing Charges!

David Saab, a successful poker pro of nearly 40 years who had lots of tournament success in the 2000s was busted at the end of January with two other men and charged with cocaine trafficking of more than 20 kilos of the drug ($5 million street value). He know faces 25 years in prison and this might put an end to his poker career, at least his brick and mortar poker career.

As far as hit future bars and cement poker career...we'll have to wait and see.

My take: Obviously Saab was not making enough playing poker to suit his tastes and needs. Or maybe he was blowing off to much money in live poker games.

Tran Casino Cheat Organization Lady Co-Founder Used Seductress Powers to Get Baccarat and Blackjack Dealers to Cheat

Seductress???

Van Thu Tran, the 44-year-old Vietnamese woman who co-founded the international casino-cheating organization bearing her last name, allegedly seduced the vast majority of participant blackjack and baccarat dealers to take part in the scam.

YOU GOTTA BE KIDDING! First of all, Tran is 44 years old! I am not saying women in their 40s can't possess the powers and looks of seduction (there are lots of 'em who do), but take a look at this picture of Tran. Hardly a knockout! To me, she looks like a cherubic borderline fatso who probably has rolls of fleshy hills around her stomach. Definitely not the type of woman horny young male casino dealers would be looking to pop, let alone risk their jobs and freedom to do so. I am not buying this seduction theory. I say the dealers simply liked the scam and thought they could get away with it.

Search this blog for all you need to know on the Tran Baccarat and Blackjack Scam.

Are Some Online Casinos Cheating Players On Payouts?

I received a handful of interesting emails from different people last week, and frankly it's hard to believe the contents of any of them. However, they were all complaints about the same thing: online casinos cheating each of them on payouts.

The first e-mailer wrote that on several online casino sites on which he played roulette the casino cheated him on the payout when he hit a winning number. He said that this was happening to him on at least four online casinos whenever he bet on the inside numbers (straight-ups, splits, corners, etc.) He said that when he bet straight up on a number, he received the correct payoff of thirty-five to one but the casinos locked up his original winning bet as if it were a loser.

What is supposed to happen when a player hits a winning bet in roulette is that the bet is paid and the winning wager is left on the number on the layout (up to the player whether to rake it off or let it ride). When I heard this I figured that somehow the writer was mistaken or simply just playing around with me, but then I received three more emails to the same effect. I am currently investigating this and will write more about it when I have evidence either confirming or disproving this alleged cheating by online sites.

I also received two emails from online baccarat players who said they were several times shortchanged while being paid for winning tie-hand wagers. The tie bet in baccarat generally pays 8 to 1 (in some casinos both online and off 9 to 1). These players complained that they were receiving only 7 to 1 on winning baccarat tie-bets.

CAUTION!

Baccarat tables sometimes use tricks to deceive players. Back in the 70s and 80s on some Las Vegas brick and mortar casino baccarat tables the text for the tie bet said "9 for 1," which is the same as 8 to 1. By using the word "for" instead of "to," casinos can make the same payoff seem more attractive by the way they word it. My first thought about these online baccarat complaints was maybe the tables the writers were playing on said "8 FOR 1" instead of "8 TO 1," which would be correct as a 7 to 1 payoff but still a ripoff because the tie bet should always pay at least 8 to 1. Of course there is the possibility that the online casinos in question are in fact cheating players on payouts, but I don't have any solid info on this yet and will also investigate it.

If anyone out there has similar online casino or online poker cheating complaints, please let me know at once!