UltimateBet - Absolute Poker Scam

[jetset]

Yes - it's unfortunate that the KGC did not add this to its other conditions for UB hanging on to its licence - it sounds as if this guy really needs to be prosecuted in a criminal sense.

Instead, the conditions merely require that any employee or contractor found to have been involved in the scam be removed.

(And refund all prejudiced players and be subject to various monitoring requirements, of course.)

[c_note]

You have to wonder.. This went on for years. Only 1 person has been named so far, someone with pretty good poker skills, but the technical skills of a peanut, so how did he do it?

I see the info released so far as a "Lets burn Russ and save the real guilty parties". If Russ was arrested/charged/sued, the really guilty people would have a huge problem if Russ spilled all the beans..

KGC is due to release their next statement regarding UB, which might name more names.

And before the flaming starts, I am not saying Russ was not involved, only that it is strange that a non-technical person was the only person to be named. Even AJ Green (of AP fame) had technical skills he could use to pull this off..

[jetset]

KGC has released a statement saying it will entertain the UB request for a little more time to refund players based on the settlement agreed with Excapsa this week.

Then Tokwiro issued a statement yesterday (see Casinomeister News):

TOKWIRO CONFIRMS EXCAPSA DEAL (Update)

$15 million will help refund players

Players waiting for refunds following the cheating scandals at UltimateBet and Absolute Poker should see a renewed surge of payments following the settlement this week which saw the Excapsa liquidators agree to pay $15 million to Blast Off Limited, to which it sold the sites and the flawed poker software behind them.

Towards the end of the week Tokwiro Enterprises, the owner of the two sites caught up in the cheating debacle, issued a statement confirming the settlement...and interestingly reserved the right to pursue any individual or individuals implicated in the fraud. Industry observers see that as a possible reference to former WSOP champion Russ Hamilton, a former affiliate marketing executive of the company who was named in an independent enquiry into the issue.

The deal requires that Blast Off Limited, a company closely associated with Tokwiro, will resume paying purchase price instalments on the websites to the Excapsa liquidators in return for $15 million. This is to be used principally to refund players caught up in the long-running fraud and pay the hefty $1.5 million fine levied on UltimateBet by the Kahnawake Gaming Commission. The settlement was approved and made an order of the Ontario Superior Court by Justice Sarah Pepall earlier this week.

Since refunds began on the orders of the KGC, some $6.1 million has been paid out by UltimateBet.

Tokwiro's Chief Operating Officer, Paul Leggett comments in the statement from the company: "We are pleased that we have finally agreed to a settlement with the previous owners of UltimateBet, and we are happy to announce the completion of the final refunds to players."

"Together with our regulatory body, the Kahnawake Gaming Commission, we have fought long and hard to hold those responsible accountable for the fraud, to refund players, and to ensure this can never happen again," the Tokwiro executive said, adding that the settlement finalised the company's claims against Excapsa and "....brings us significantly forward in our search for justice in the aftermath of the cheating scandal."

Leggett was part of a new Tokwiro management team brought in earlier this year, and is believed to be one of the principal architects behind its plan to create an online poker mega-company branded Cereus and comprised of UltimateBet and Absolute Poker.

[jetset]

Judging by the "60 Minutes" program publicity for the next edition on November 9, the AB/UB scandal expose will not be appearing just yet.

There were earlier predictions from various sources that the expose would be screened Nov 9 - looks like we'll have to be patient a little longer!

[jetset]

ONLINE POKER EXPOSE TO BE SCREENED THIS WEEKEND (Update)

Washington Post and US television's Sixty Minutes combine in four month Tokwiro investigation

Four months of collaborative journalistic investigation by the Washington Post and CBS television's famed "60 Minutes" television producers culminate this weekend in the much anticipated screening of an expose on the multi-million dollar online poker cheating scandals at UltimateBet and Absolute Poker.

The program will be screened in the United States on November 30th at 7pm ET, and according to CBS pre-publicity material reveals how online poker players who suspected that cheating was going on were forced to successfully ferret out the cheaters themselves.

"That's because managers of the mostly-unregulated $18 billion Internet gambling industry failed to respond to their complaints," claims the blurb.

60 Minutes correspondent Steve Kroft, producer Ira Rosen and The Washington Post’s two-time Pulitzer Prize-winning reporter Gilbert Gaul will appear in the program, along with a host of players and experts involved in the scandal.

"He was raising, just really, really bad hands against very good hands. He seemed to play crazy," says Todd Witteles, a computer scientist turned poker player who believed he was losing too much to the same person. "It seemed like he was giving his money away. Except the only thing was, he wasn't losing. He was playing in a style that was sure to lose, but he was killing the game day after day," Witteles, who played a key detective role in the scandal, remembers.

Michael Josem, a player and a computer security expert, plotted the odds of such consistent success. "We did the mathematical analysis to find that they were winning at about 15 standard deviations above the mean…approximately equivalent to winning a one-in-a-million jackpot six consecutive times."

It is known that Mike Sexton, Greg Raymer and Linda Johnson were also interviewed by the producers.

The cheating, which netted the cheaters more than $20 million, claims the Sixty Minutes publicity material, occurred on two of the Internet's most popular sites, Absolute Poker and Ultimate Bet.

"The two sites operate out of a shopping mall in Costa Rica and run their games on computer servers housed on an Indian reservation outside of Montreal," the material informs viewers. "They are licensed by a Mohawk tribe that has no background in casino gambling, a tribe that previously made the majority of its money selling tax-free tobacco. Though such gambling is illegal in both Canada and the U.S., the betting laws in those countries have no jurisdiction on the sovereign reservation."

Headlined "How Online Gamblers Unmasked Cheaters," the program is sure to attract a wide viewership among online gamblers, who have followed developments in the scandal on message boards and information websites over the past year or more.

[pokeraddict]

Interesting timing too as today the two sites finally merged to create Cereus. UB's popular software was basically abandoned for AP's although UB still has a skin that at least looks like the old software.

[jetset]

BATTENING DOWN THE HATCHES (Update)

Tokwiro briefs employees on Sixty Minutes program

Paul Leggett, the COO of Tokwiro Enterprises, was busy midweek briefing employees on the upcoming Sixty Minutes television expose of the Absolute Poker and UltimateBet scandals and the online poker industry in general (see previous InfoPowa report)

In a memo to employees, Leggett did not sound optimistic, writing that he had "every reason to believe that the 60 Minutes producers are intent on portraying the online poker industry and our companies in a negative light, and we do not expect that the program will be either fair or balanced."

Leggett is referring to the upcoming screening Sunday (November 30th) edition of the Sixty Minutes program, the result of a four month collaborative investigation by top producers and investigative reporters at the Washington Post and CBS's Sixty Minutes team. The program is expected to examine the scandals and how players were treated in detail, and apparently interviews a number of poker personalities involved in the affair.

Tokwiro representatives will not be among those appearing on camera, however. Leggett's memo says that although the company cooperated in responding to requests for information, a high level decision had been made not to be interviewed.

"Because of 60 Minutes’ apparent bias against Tokwiro and online poker, we have decided not to appear on camera," Leggett advises in his memo. "We have, however, had many conversations with the program’s producers. We provided them with extensive background materials and documents, and we answered questions on-the-record, but off-camera. Despite all this, it is not likely that our views will be properly represented.

"Therefore, it is important that all of our staff know the following facts about our company:

* Tokwiro Enterprises, ENRG, is the full and sole owner of both Absolute Poker and UltimateBet. Joseph Tokwiro Norton is the full and sole owner of Tokwiro Enterprises.

* Incidents of cheating at both Absolute Poker and UltimateBet were fully reported and investigated by Tokwiro, by the Kahnawake Gaming Commission, and by third parties engaged by Tokwiro and the KGC.

* As soon as Joe Norton realized that cheating had occurred, he took immediate and appropriate actions.

* The KGC’s investigators have acknowledged that Tokwiro, as a corporate entity, was not involved in and did not benefit from the cheating.

* The date range, financial extent, and methods used in the cheating are now known and understood.

* Tokwiro agreed not to prosecute the perpetrator in the Absolute Poker cheating, and to protect that individual’s identity, because this was the only way to ensure that the ability to cheat was fully discovered and disabled. Because of this decision, AP could continue operating and begin to reimburse affected players as quickly as possible.

* Tokwiro has no interest in protecting or shielding the cheater in the UltimateBet incident in any way. We vigorously pursued the Company’s legal options in this case, and won a $15 million settlement from the previous owners. The alleged cheater, who was named in the September 2008 KGC statement, has never been an employee of Tokwiro; nor has he been an employee of AP or UB since our purchase of these companies.

* The perpetrators in the Absolute Poker and UltimateBet incidents were different individuals who were not working in concert, and who used completely different methods to cheat.

* We have now completed all reimbursements to affected players. Everyone, who was a victim of these schemes, has now been made whole. We have paid out millions of dollars to customers who were cheated.

* We should also be mindful of the fact that we have taken a series of actions that are designed to ensure that this kind of cheating can never again happen on our sites. You are well aware, I am sure, of many of these, but 60 Minutes may very well ignore them in its program."

Leggett goes on to itemize the Tokwiro initiatives that have flowed from the scandals, writing:

"Joe Norton completely restructured the management team as soon he became aware that cheating had occurred on the AP site. The new team brought in a Compliance Officer and two Security Managers, and it established risk assessment procedures and ongoing internal audits."

Other moves included the development of a new Security Centre that incorporates gaming statistics, new security software, and human analysis and oversight to catch and prevent potential cheating. UB and AP have been moved to a common software platform, Cereus, which Leggett claims will facilitate monitoring of the system and tracking of any suspicious activities.

"We have also established a new, specialized Poker Security Department, in addition to the existing general security department, and hired outside gaming industry analysts to do a full audit of all software code and internal practices, and to make recommendations about best practices," he continues. "We instituted a Whistleblower Policy to formally protect Tokwiro employees and contractors who report any suspicion of cheating. We developed a Code of Ethics that formally prohibits any employee or contractor for any Tokwiro business from playing for money on any Tokwiro site.

"We discontinued the policy of “greenlighting” VIP Pro players at cashout, and we have forbidden account name changes except under very specific circumstances (such as abuse in a chat room).

"Because of the actions we have taken, Absolute Poker and UltimateBet are now two of the safest places to play poker online, and we are committed to keeping them that way. We believe that our loyal customer base will understand this, even if 60 Minutes does not.

"Regardless of how the 60 Minutes producers may choose to slant their show, we at Tokwiro are confident that we have acted with diligence and transparency in addressing these crises, and we will continue to do so," Leggett claims, directing employees to a YouTube corporate interview produced by Tokwiro in which he answered questions about the company and its operations, and to his personal UltimateBet blog.

Leggett concludes by acknowledging the tough time the company has endured and thanks employees for their support.

"This last year has been a difficult one for our Company," he writes. "We – both our customers and our employees – have been the victims of not one, but two, sophisticated fraud schemes that have cost us millions of dollars and have tarnished the hard-earned reputations of our stellar brands. Joe and I want to thank each and every one of you, our valued employees, for your commitment, trust and confidence. Because of you, I firmly believe that we have emerged from these trials as a stronger, more focused and more secure company than ever, ready to provide an unequaled poker experience to our thousands of loyal customers."

News of the Leggett memo broke at around the same time as the mainstream Canadian newspaper the Toronto Sun published yet another summary of the UB and AP debacles in advance of the Sixty Minutes program at http://www.torontosun.com:80/sports/...5/7535196.html.

[lots0]

About time these criminals were exposed to the harsh light of the mass media. It will be fun to watch them scatter like cockroaches when the light comes on.

I thought this might be worth pointing out.

Tokwiro agreed not to prosecute the perpetrator in the Absolute Poker cheating, and to protect that individual’s identity, because this was the only way to ensure that the ability to cheat was fully discovered and disabled.

A new and interesting piece of information...

Ahh... What a tangled web we weave when first we practice to deceive.

The problem is good old Crooked Poker Joe, has given a really really bad name to the entire industry and 60 minutes is going to use that to try to put the lights out on the entire US online poker business.

After the poker playing public has been informed by 60 minutes of how bad they have been ripped off by these criminals, all we can hope is that the public outcry is for regulation instead of more the same stupid policies of Prohibition (Prohibition has never worked for anything... ever).

Suggestion for the Meister or his minions.... You might want to add UB/Absolutes "NEW" business name "Cereus" to this thread title.

[jetset]

I personally believe there are many non-disclosures and not a little deliberate misinformation going on at this group.

I have difficulty believing that Joe Tokwiro Norton, an ex Grand Chief of the Mohawks , is the only "owner" here and there are other suspicious happenings that have not been adequately explained.

Hopefully the Sixty Minutes program will expose some of these - Tokwiro's management certainly sounds nervous about what may be about to come out in the wash.

[pokeraddict]

* We have now completed all reimbursements to affected players. Everyone, who was a victim of these schemes, has now been made whole. We have paid out millions of dollars to customers who were cheated.

They can't possibly have done both. Countless original props including myself have shady sessions with named players from years ago but AP has refused to even consider it went on years before this but w/e.

Although it looks like lots of props got screwed I know of people who got unexpected refunds or refunds that were bigger than expected. If they really are on the up and up, and I'm starting to believe they are trying, then I can't imagine how hard this was to figure out who was owed what.