Ultimatebet and Absolute Poker - why are they still around?

[Casinomeister]

I was just thinking about Ultimatebet and Absolute Poker's cheating scandal that has been covered in just about every nook and cranny on the Internet, not to forget just about every major publication to include 60 Minutes, and I'm wondering why are they still in business?

Was it because they had a such a huge player base which permitted them to weather the storm? Have they pushed their marketing efforts offline? Chipleader still seems to be hanging in there via affiliates. Any clue on why they seem to be so resilient?

[bb28]

I think that it's sad to say that a lot of people who it didn't personally touch (in the pocket, of course) just don't care that they were caught with their pants down. Greed, apathy and a lack of ethics most likely explains it. That's really sad isn't it?

[Casinomeister]

I think that it's sad to say that a lot of people who it didn't personally touch (in the pocket, of course) just don't care that they were caught with their pants down. Greed, apathy and a lack of ethics most likely explains it. That's really sad isn't it?

It's the players who keep them in business - so I don't think greed really plays a big part unless AP and UB are making offers that their competitors can't beat.

[Setsuna]

They are still running , and running well , not far from taking over Ongame (who lost a good chunk of their players due to their new software being a true pain for many players , servers crashing nearly every day , not reimbursing properly players) in number of average players per day http://www.pokerscout.com/


However , it's only Ultimatebet who gets exposure - mostly thanks to their two superstars Hellmuth and Annie Duke (being The Apprentice finalist helps) and new players added to their pro team during WSOP.

And they didn't forget how to make bad business - recently , rakeback players have been screwed of a good part of their earnings with bonuses deducted from their gross rake , and also by retroactively cancelling bonuses dollars thanks to a new term limiting their validity in time .

[bb28]

It's the players who keep them in business - so I don't think greed really plays a big part unless AP and UB are making offers that their competitors can't beat.

I see your point but I was speaking more of individual greed, it's comparable to folks who keep playing at the rogues, just as long as it doesn't effect them or they think they are the one's who are getting screwed, (that is the way they justify it.)

Maybe some people honestly think they cleaned up their act and it was a forgivable offense. I don't, but it's possible some feel that way.

[vinylweatherman]

Despite the negative exposure, time is a great healer. They are helped by having those "superstars" on the team, and it these high profile players that bear a lot of responsibility by endorsing these operators DESPITE knowing what went on. Their regulators assisted by allowing a "whitewash" to take place, making it even easier for the healing process of time to be effective.

It will be far harder to "heal" long standing board members though, who remember the scandals so well that the names immediately bring to mind the cheating before it even brings to mind anything else about them. I know very little about this pair, but I DO recall the cheating scandal every time their names are mentioned.

Their next step may be to change their names completely, even the software - this will be hard enough to track for casual forum members, and will remove any chance that casual checks on their new name will bring up threads from their past (until that is, experienced members post a few threads creating links between the old and the new for Google to collect).

I do not recall any coverage here in the UK about this scandal, so whatever coverage there was must have been confined to "special interest" programming, and the inside pages of newspapers. This means many new to online poker will have no idea about this, and are likely to judge the brands on the present.

The near destruction of the Prima network, with the attendant scandal of players losing EVERYTHING they had in their accounts probably eclipses the cheating that went on with the AP and UB skins, and they are probably now picking up the debris of poker players who lost everything with Prima, perhaps twice over (Tusk and then Eurolinx), who are looking for an alternative network with a big enough existing player base.

There may also be a bit of disillusionment, of the form "cheating is everywhere", so players will feel they are asking too much to find a "perfect" network, and accept the risks, and maybe overestimate their ability to spot if they themselves are being cheated.

The scandal of poker bots has NOT dented the wilingness of players to play, indeed many feel they have an advantage over the bots, and relish cleaning them out if they spot them. Poker operators are very concerned about bots, doing everything they can think of to detect and deter, but they do not seem to be losing the confidence of players, even though they are by no means catching all the bots and colluding players, who are engaged in an "arms race" to develop ever better bots and means of colluding to evade detection.

[secret2]

I used to play BJ mostly at UB but when they changed from Bet21 to UB it changed dramatically. The drealer had an amazing amount of aces and 10's ...I witnessed 6 dealer bj's in a row. Some newbies were betting $100 hands in a multi player table and I witnessed thousands of dollars lost so fast it was astonishing why they still came back for more losses.

The only thing I miss at UB are the people that I met there. We had a lot of laughs.

Sad that a place such as UB with great chat and the possibility of making it a great and fair place to have fun, has turned myself and other regulars away from there.

They suck so bad now.

[lnspin]

I think there still in business a very few people were affected by the scandle. It only affected the highest limit players.

Most of the players on ap and ub are lower limit players, so they think no one will cheat at that level.

To be honest, i still do promote ap and a little bit of UB. signups are on par as they were to before the scandle. But were starting to get hurt on processing fees that are charged 100% to us. So its getting to the point where pulling them both really wont affect us in any way. Probelm is its hard to find poker rooms that take usa players, unless you promote some crappy rooms with no player bases, so even when you get signups people cant play.

@secret2: - I agree with you 100% about ub blackjack. That dealer is amazing. ap blackjack is somewhat better and seeems like a much farer game

[secret2]

Inspin...I may give AP BJ a try. I am getting a little bored with slots right now,anyway.

I really would like to know where the best place for multi-player BJ is. I miss playing it without the dealer showing off his amazing BJ capabilities.

[pokeraddict]

Working for a large poker affiliate and being as active in the forums as I am I have the opinion that many/most of the high volume, great players left leaving behind quite a pool of bleeding fish. These players, mostly American with few choices, found the games unbeatable or much harder at Full Tilt and Poker Stars. Poker Stars does not have rakeback, Full Tilt will not retag most existing players to rakeback (Most players with existing accounts can't get moved to rakeback and if FTP does move them they go to Rakeback Pros, widely believed to be an in house rakeback program) and Cake Poker is not HUD/PokerTracker friendly. For those with existing Microgaming account many or most will not play there because of the lack of trust, especially after Eurolinx.

After U.S. players went full circle through all of the major U.S. rooms they seem to have forgiven AP/UB of the scandals and life goes on if for no other reason the games are better at AP/UB than any other major U.S. poker room because some of the sharks will not go back for any reason.

Perhaps things would be different if U.S. players could play anywhere but with so few options it seems very unlikely things will change if for no other reason than their rakeback + loose games which to some players is all that matters.