The poker industry is valued at over $ 60,000,000,000 with revenues of well over $ 300,000,000 a month. All those figures look pretty right? Well maybe that’s why so many poker sites have been caught up in the scandals and cheating that has rocked the online poker community. Most famously The Scandal at Absolute Poker and also a similar occurrence with their sister site, Ultimate Bet.
If you haven’t heard of the absolute poker scandal that took place on September 12th 20007, then take a look at the starting hands and the final hand of a huge $ 1000 tournament on Absolute Poker by searching “Potripper” on YouTube. Of course this aroused suspicion by “Crazy Marco” who then posted the full history of the 2 + 2 forums and the AP to get hold of. It was a “super user” Situs Poker account that had been leaked to a player who could see all his opponents’ hands. Of course the greed got the better of him and his blatant cheating ended up getting him out. This story in The Villain, “Potripper” managed to bag $ 800,000 from cash tables and tournaments. Here is a statement produced by Absolute Poker shortly after. A few days before the tour, a private jet caught fire before taking off in Costa Rica. The two onboard were Absolute Poker President, Scott Tom and his pregnant wife who was taken to the hospital. It was rumored that the plane had a cargo of $ 2- $ 3 million in cash.
Thank you for your patience in this urgent issue.
Absolute Poker is the paramount importance of fair play and security in Letting Me Start Off. We have an extensive investigation of our attention while we have temporarily frozen accounts.
While we are continuing our investigation, we have yet to find any evidence of wrongdoing. Our game client only receives data about the individual hand and no other players’ hole cards, except in the event of a showdown.
The Player’s and their respective actions are in question, all from a small sample of Hands. We have researched their play exhaustively and have found no proof that they have any other player’s hole cards.
There were hands that played poorly – from a poker strategy perspective – and these players did get a fortunate result.
So far we have no evidence that substantiates any of the players involved in chip dumping, or any other improper activity.
Because of these allegations of seriousness, we have not closed the investigation and are continuing to look into this matter. These claims regarding any new information we will receive if we will notify you.
It took Absolute Poker well over a month of discovering this scandal to admit publicly, that there had been a breach of security.
What separates a scandal from being a massively damaging site is the integrity of a site. As you can see from the letter posted by an Absolute Poker executive, they failed to recognize the seriousness of the situation and the blatant cheating that occurred. Contrary to this is the PokerStars and Party Poker scandal that involved a player named JJProdigy. JJProdidy, AKA “ablackcar” used two accounts (strictly against the TOS of all poker sites) to win a $ 500,000 top prize for Party Poker on Guaranteed Tournament. After the win, it broke that he had two accounts and he was banned quickly. PokerStars soon got news of this and found that JJProdigy use only two accounts on their site, but he was also 16 years old. Again, the player was quickly banned and the scandal ended with prize money being refunded and no one left the pocket.
JJProdigy came out with a public apology last year on Poker News and both sites have upheld their preeminent reputation among the poker community.
Poker scandals are now an annual occurrence to be found. Is it really worth playing these sites? Sites like Absolute Poker and Ultimate Bet have lost all integrity and respect; Not only because of the scandal itself, but because of the fact that the problem was poorly handled and covered up.