UB Cheating pt.3

Ultimate Bet have finally responded to the online community.

Montreal, Canada (March 6, 2008) – UltimateBet (UB), one of the ten largest online poker cardrooms, today issued the following interim statement with respect to allegations of unfair play on its site.

“On January 12, 2008, UltimateBet was alerted to allegations that a player with the online handle “NioNio” exhibited abnormally high winning statistics and was accused of having an unfair advantage during play. These allegations were made both directly to UltimateBet by concerned players and the KGC, and indirectly through several web forums. The allegations also included reports of suspicious activity concerning the deletion of the NioNio account and other accounts that may have been related to this scheme.

“We immediately launched an extensive inquiry involving an independent third-party expert to review hundreds of thousands of hand histories, all of which were promptly locked down and made available to this expert. The initial findings of our third-party expert confirm that the NioNio account’s winning statistics were indeed abnormal, and we have expanded the investigation to look into whether an unfair advantage existed, how such a scheme might have been perpetrated, and whether additional accounts beyond those of NioNio were involved.“

UltimateBet is in regular communications and contact with its regulatory authority, The Kahnawake Gaming Commission (KGC), and will continue to cooperate fully with that body.“

UltimateBet is determined to complete a full and thorough investigation. We pride ourselves on providing a safe, secure playing environment for our customers. The investigation has proven to be extremely complex and, therefore, has been more extensive and taken much longer than initially expected. We continue to aggressively pursue the matter and will communicate the findings of our full investigation to our regulatory authority and to our customer base as soon as practicable.”


I would like to say that this is a predictable response. The bad thing about this is that it has taken 2 months of investigation to admit that there is something 'abnormal' in NioNio's stats. The forum posters at 2p2 worked this out in a week. I understand the need to make precise statements that contain true not speculation but 2 months response time has not helped their cause.

On the positive side I feel that they will not less this slip under carpet. By addressing this they have the whole poker community watching. The posts containing the allegations at 2p2 has finally been made a 'sticky' post for everyone to see when they browse the forums. There is no getting away from this issue now.

What I think will be the outcome -
-UB agrees there was cheating through this account
-They will not admit how NioNio cheated but that they will say they have done enough to ensure this will not happen again.
-They will pay back a large sum of money to players but will not get fined directly.
-Cheaters/Superusers will continue but they will become better at covering their tracks and dampening their stats to hide any abnormalities.

This business needs regulation so badly. This business needs serious punishement for both cheaters and the companys that allow this to happen. How the hell did UB not notice this in the first place ? They should have programs that continuously look out for abnormal statistics. NioNio's numbers were almost off the chart of abnormal. Security is not take as seriously as we think, and until that time we are playing in a minefield with our money.