After several months of collaborative research, word is 60 Minutes will be running a piece on the online poker cheating scandals linked back to Absolute Poker and its sister site Ultimate Bet this coming Sunday.



The investigation led back to a particular incident that occurred at Absolute Poker back in 2007. During the course of an online poker tournament at Absolute Poker, one of the players became particularly suspicious of the play of one of their opponents late in the tournament. Specifically, the player made a monstrous bluff that should have caused any player without a decent hand to fold. Instead he was called by this "mystery" player who also didn't have a hand however, it was enough to beat the bluff suspiciously enough. This information wasn't discovered until later.

Afterwards the hand history of that particular round was requested by the beaten player who had become tremendously suspicious of the play of this individual who seemed unbeatable. The request revealed the mystery player's entire tournament history. It ended up showing that this individual ended up playing virtually perfect poker on every hand played. He would fold every time he had weaker starting hands than everyone at the table and would raise out everyone when he was leading. He would even re raise with seemingly impossible hands that always seemed to take down monsters.

The players who went up against this mystery player called him crazy and his winnings were highly improbable. Yet, he would continue to win time and time again. An investigation revealed that a player had breached the site's security system in a way that allowed him to see opponents hole cards every hand he played. This continued for a six week period. Initially, Absolute Poker had denied that the breach had occurred by subsequent investigations proved it to be true.

The investigations were confirmed by the Kahnawake Gaming Commission who licenses the site and revealed that it was an employee who had committed the breach. They also determined that Absolute Poker did not sanction or benefit from the unfair play. However, for not reporting the breach to the KGC within 24 hours of discovering it, Absolute Poker was fined and will now be subject to random audits for the next two years.

What is unfortunate is that these types of breaches of security are plausible at all. It should be no surprise that it would happen. It is after all, a computer based program that runs the sites. As such, they are susceptible to corruption from somebody who is savvy with computer programming and language. Perhaps, it is even easier than that.

What will obviously be called for is stronger regulation and scrutiny on these sites. There are many people that I have played with over the years who swear they will never play online again. Not specifically because of these cheating scandals, simply because it is difficult to trust the format. There is just something more secure about being able to sit at a table and see the cards and your opponents and really know where everything is coming from. The report should be interesting and not be missed by anyone considering play online in the future.

Would be great to hear from anyone with an opinion on the matter.

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