The ULTIMATE SCANDAL

Ultimate (losing) Bet. Thanks to Cornell Fiji of 2+2 for this wrap-up. It's long but it's thorough. Follow the link below for the rest. Cliffnotes, UB a cousin of Absolute Poker, who had their scandal last year, at around the same time had some guys KILLING it in high stakes poker. Like never missing a bet, only folding losers and value betting the thinnest of margins. It was like they could see the cards. Well they could.

Some highlights...

1. This Rorsach test spot (I see a guy a in a robe being attacked by bees)... Here's a graphical representation of the abusdity of the Absolute Poker cheater's success, which the shared parent company of UB, said was not suspicious.



Left side is money voluntarily put into the pot (doesn't count blinds). Bottom axis is Big Blinds won or lost over 100 hands. Running up through the middle of that blue ink spot is zero, to the left is losers, to the right is winners. Two things of note, the more you trend upward in VoluntaryPutInPot the more you tend to lose (see how it leans left). There is a cap on aggression (ie pissing your chips away you maniac), unless you are the red dot in the upper right corner. I believe they said to achieve these results would be comparable to winning the powerball... three days in a row. Statistically impossible. He put money into the pot almost 100% of the time. Only sitting out when his opponents had high pairs. Of course he did... because he could see their cards, and why not play every flop.

It should bes no surprise because as smart as they were to KILL THE GOLDEN GOOSE and cheat when they are essentially printing money by owning an online casino, they were also bad cheaters. They'd call a flop with K2 o/s, when up against AK, and A2. Though who needs patience when you can see all the hole cards. I guess their hope was they could all miss the flop and they could crush the other hands with bluffs.

2. Cheating was profitable. Look at these stats...

"NioNio had won over 600k in a mere 64 hours of play, a hourly rate of $9,687.96/hr. One of the ‘wow’ figures from this investigation is that the average American works 2088 hours a year, not counting overtime. If NioNio worked for those same 2088 hours he would have an annual salary of $20,209,668.48."

If we are to call Poker a sport, and don't give me the arguments you can't call anything you can play in just your underwear a sport (Sumo wrestling, swimming, original greek Olympics (like George Costanze in a porno--buck naked)) nor if you can drink beer while playing (baseball, golf, marathon), this guy would be one of the leading earners in all of sports last year. Somebody needs to call SI.

3. "To this date the perpetrators of the Absolute Poker scandal have not been charged with any crimes. It is unknown if Ultimate Bet has filed charges against the people responsible for this multi million dollar theft or crimes related to the cover-up of these crimes."

So, nothing's being done about it. Well, we can do two things. Step one stop playing at Absolute and UB. Step two, write your congressmen and ask them to allow internet poker and to regulate it. Hell, tax it and subsidize our gas prices.

Anyway, for those of you with more time... Read the full recap here.

http://forumserver.twoplustwo.com/showthread.php?t=99247

and more goodness here...

www.gulfcoastpoker.net

Comments

Reid said…
Good job posting this. Unfortunately, the cheating is not surprising. What is equally appaling is that UltimateBet has essentially attempted to sweep this under the rug without compensating the cheated parties or prosecute the criminals involved. Hmmm. I wonder why?
5/27/2008 1:53 PM
CaptainStacks "King of Cash" said…
Poker is definitely not a sport Bill. That offends the former athlete in me that the obese, elderly hooked to oxygen tanks, the blind, and Vanessa Selbst can compete. Poker is a game of skill like Scrabble. I wouldnt call scrabble a sport. Golf is barely a sport. It is very hard but the best ahtlete dosent always win. Sometimes its a guy with bitch tits like Mikelson.
6/03/2008 1:41 AM
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