This is an attempt to list in sequence the key events in the still-unfolding Double-or-nothing collusion scandal at PokerStars. The massive size of the original thread has made it next to impossible to track events in an orderly manner. Suggestions and corrections from DoN regs and from PokerStars representatives are welcomed.
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PokerStars Double or Nothing Collusion Scandal Timeline
http://forumserver.twoplustwo.com/28...-stars-791760/
May 24, 2010 – “Jane0123” joins the poker discussion forum at twoplustwo.com to post a thread complaining that he/she has been unfairly banned from PokerStars. Jane0123 claims to have been Stars top-rated Double or Nothing (DoN) player on the Sharkscope leader board as of January 2010, at which time his/her account was frozen for 4 months, then finally closed with $10,000 in it. Jane0123 posted an email exchange with Stars. In one email, Stars asked about Jane0123’s relationship with 46 other players. Twoplustwo posters find that the players are all from China, many from the city of Hangzhou.
The Stars email informing Jane0123 that his/her account has been closed includes the following: “In reviewing hands it is clear that you routinely made team plays to create situations where you were supposed to benefit. You and your friends routinely played four and five players deep, and squeezed the blinds between two or more cooperating players. After reviewing several hands, for several players, it became obvious that this was part of some kind of agreed-upon strategy.”
The existence of a large-scale Chinese collusion ring at PokerStars does not come as a surprise to some regulars. “reload4me” comments: “Ya finally got busted huh? Well it's about time. I sent about 25 emails in complaining about you ****ing clowns. There is no question you would soft play and that's at the very least of what you guys did.” Jane0123 tries a few more times to argue that no cheating was involved, and then stops posting.
Jane0123’s Sharkscope Sit-n-Go (SNG) stats show 11,766 games, a profit of 56,300, a 5% return on investment (ROI), and an average stake of $87. Twoplustwo posters discover that players on the suspected colluder list dominate the Stars DoN leader boards. “wudiyg,” for example was the top Stars DoN player for 2009 with $96,000 in profit.
May 25, 2010 – Twoplustwo posters on the thread begin asking for PokerStars to provide some information about the collusion scandal.
“flopp_deuces” writes: “Also 'Sishun' and 'Superxia' also both from this town were kicked off in july of last year for cheating. They also played 52, 54, and 104 don. They had won over 30k combined and started playing at the same time and only in don's together. I just wonder how big this scandal was....and how much it affected us regs... I'm just saying that Pokerstars had every opportunity to catch this almost a year ago.”
“MicroBob” writes: “consider as well all the chinese new accounts that jumped into the stud games as well in the similar type scandal and it seems like Stars should have been able to at least keep a closer eye on the group.”
“flopp_deuces” posts an updated suspect list plus “Sishun” and “Superxia” that shows a total profit of $555,000. Everyone on the list made a profit or broke even. Most played their last game in February 2010, though two were still active as late as May 2010. Amboy20 shows that most players on the list started playing in mid-to-late 2009.
DoN regulars start to weigh in on the impact of the fraud.
Simplicity8: “I've played about 7000 $52-$108 dons in the first 6 weeks of 2010. I kind of felt like something was up, but I assumed I was a losing player and just gave up. If true, this makes me pretty sick as they have not only just stolen money from me, but they have taken away future earning power from me. I was on a pretty nice pace to hit SNE.”
Daleroxxu reported two of these colluders in January 2010, and received a $516 credit.
Bumpking, “the 2nd largest rake-paid player on Stars - over 5M VPPs,” posts that he “had my worst months ever in Jan/Feb and started playing on more sites… I've lost a ridiculous amount of money filtering HH's, changing game types, increasing/lowering stakes, anything and everything to figure out why my winrate has dropped off a cliff.”
Posters who write to PokerStars asking for more information receive a form letter:
“
Due to the complexity of the situation to which you refer and the number of
accounts involved, we have not yet begun to pay out compensation for this case.
We expect that we will begin to process compensation within the next week,
and players who receive a payout will get an email in due course.”
SuperNova Elite (SNE) MegaFossil suggests: “At the very least, I think Stars should give back all rake received in any games where known cheaters participated.”
May 26, 2010 – More Stars regulars, including “ynd!” and “Eppy125880”, post that they were consistently profitable at the high-stakes DoNs until the Chinese players appeared.
TeamTrousers: there were “almost 300,000 total buy-ins by this ring, at an overall average buy-in of just under 50.” Total rake to Stars (before rakeback) around $600,000.
Daleroxxu posts an article on the scandal at his blog:
http://daleroxxu.blogspot.com/2010/0...candal-on.html
Daleroxxu: “Instant hits from Isle of Man to my blog. Hai thar PokerStars, glad you're following this thread so closely.”
May 27, 2010 – Posters observe that the DoN format is an easy target for colluders, and that such collusion can be very difficult to detect. However, others note that the scale and duration of this scandal suggests a massive security failure on the part of PokerStars.
A long and detailed discussion begins on possible methods of compensating the victims.
Hondizls: “I accused wudiyg/jessica318/yutian/xxwpk168 and a hand full of others of colluding a year ago before i quit the 52-104 DONS.”
$20 DoN reg jordyun posts an explanation for how the Chinese colluder ring came about, based on reading a Chinese poker forum in that language.
May 28, 2010 – Posters report that new Chinese players have appeared suddenly at the $104 DoNs, playing high volumes of games with success.
Poster “52poker” states that he is “wenpk15888” – one of the players on Jane0123’s original list. He provides two hands purportedly sent to him by PokerStars security, asking for an explanation of his play. The consensus among posters on the thread is that the play is completely routine and not suspicious. Questions are raised about whether PokerStars security can distinguish routine play from suspicious play on the DoNs. Other posters suggest that 52poker cherry-picked the least damning hands from a larger list.
Bumpking provides evidence that several suspected colluders, have much higher win rates when they are playing with other suspected colluders. He questions whether PokerStars routinely runs this sort of ROI comparison against their own database.
Posters note that there is no enforcement of the player-defined “city” names at Stars.
June 1, 2010 – Poster ccfc87 provides a response from “MichaelJ” of the PokerStars security team to an email about the scandal. It says in part:
In this specific case, players emailed us with an allegation of collusion. We investigated, and froze the accounts involved in January of this year. We regret the delay it has taken to process the compensation and finalise the case since then. We are also keen to learn from this situation, to see whether it would have been possible to catch these players at an earlier stage. As part of this, we have already made substantial improvements to the response time between players reporting cases and applying account freezes as needed.
In the more general case, players in the TwoPlusTwo thread have strongly suggested that we need to improve our proactive collusion detection, and we agree.
June 6, 2010 – PokerStars’ form letter on the scandal now reads in part:
I can confirm that PokerStars identified a number of accounts earlier this
year operating as part of a large collusion ring. Those accounts were
closed, and the funds therein seized recently.
PokerStars is currently determining how to distribute compensation, and we
expect to provide an update on this in the next week or two.
Posters note that Stars said this would be concluded in a week two weeks ago.
June 7, 2010 - Mtndewrules: “yzhpoker is a new reg at $100 dons. started last month- 1354 games at 100's with 5% roi. $7700 in profit so far. He's from wenzhou.”
June 8, 2010 – oktaym reports that Stars security replied to him that “yzhpoker” is "not cheating" or "colluding."
June 9, 2010 – nicegame reports the following reply from Stars security:
…we require all players to display their correct location. The only exception is that for privacy reasons if someone lives in a small town we will allow them to display the nearest major metropolitan area instead. If you see someone displaying an incorrect or obviously fake location please report it to support and we will correct the problem.
Posters begin flooding PokerStars with names of players using obviously fake locations.
June 12, 2010 – “Lazzzzzzy” (from the Jane0123 list) appears on the thread to say that 1) he is Russian and 2) he never cheated on the DoNs. Investigation shows that Lazzzzzzy’s Stars account is still active.
June 13, 2010 – PokerStars posts for the first time on the thread, in a message from “Michael J” of the PokerStars Game Security Team. It reads in part:
1) PokerStars is taking longer than normal to process compensation due to the unusual nature of this case. This collusion case has involved a much larger ring of colluders than other cases. Further, we are looking at providing hundreds of thousands of dollars in compensation, and want to ensure that we distribute these funds fairly.
2) The total compensation fund will include:
- the total rake paid by the colluders in the affected tournaments; plus
- the amount confiscated from the colluders (including FPPs)
- additional contributions by PokerStars to bring the total amount to be distributed to a total of the colluders net profit
3) We are continuing to consult - both within PokerStars and also with players - on how best to distribute compensation for a situation of this magnitude. If you have feedback on a compensation methodology, please feel free to post and discuss it here, or you can email us directly at gamesecurity@pokerstars.com
4) To remove all doubt, compensation is paid to victims of collusion even if the player has not reported a particular instance of collusion to PokerStars. That has been our practice in the past, and it continues to be our policy.
5) … PokerStars employs several dozen poker specialists who review player collusion reports, plus a large number of additional collusion specialists who review the recommendations of our poker specialist, and are also tasked with working proactive collusion cases.
…Given the large amount of money to be distributed here, we are still debating the best way to provide compensation, but hope to process this as soon as possible…
We will post again when we have further substantial information to contribute.
The response to Michael J’s information is highly favorable. Many posters express appreciation that Stars is willing to provide information and updates on the thread.
Bumpking recalls that when their primary check processor became unavailable last summer, Stars made good on all the cashouts and also kicked in an extra 10%. He suggests that they should follow the same sort of procedure here. Bumpking adds:
“Also, it sounds like the aggregrate compensation amount will be all of the colluders' profits + all rake paid by colluders, right? So that's the original $555k at the beginning of the thread + all the other colluders we have caught thus far, plus let's say another 100k games with average rake of $3 for another $300k. So maybe about an even US$1M, right?”
The assumption that Stars will include all the colluders’ profits and rake in the reimbursement pool quickly becomes the general belief on the thread. A number of posters begin providing detailed suggestions for how the funds might best be allocated.
June 16, 2010 – Eppy12588 notes that the Chinese player “yzhpoker” who was reportedly given a clean bill of health by Stars suddenly stopped playing on June 12.
Frobosh points out that the compensation pool described in Michael J’s post doesn’t match what many posters are assuming.
2) The total compensation fund will include:
- the total rake paid by the colluders in the affected tournaments; plus
- the amount confiscated from the colluders (including FPPs)
- additional contributions by PokerStars to bring the total amount to be distributed to a total of the colluders net profit
“…the first two lines are meaningless. The total compensation fund… is simply the net profit of those colluders who have been identified and banned.”
June 17, 2010 – Michael J from PokerStars responds with a new description:
To clarify, we are intending to provide a compensation pool consisting of:
- The money confiscated (including FPPs)
- Rake that PokerStars earned from the colluders in the affected events
- An extra amount from PokerStars, so the total will equal the net win by the colluders plus the rake.
Frobosh asks: “One further question: does "in the affected events" mean all tournaments in which the colluding players participated, or is it some subset of that number?” In a follow-up he asks if this is Stars’ position: "The reimbursement funds will equal the total of all profits made by the colluders plus the total rake they paid in all their games."
A number of posters also ask specific questions of PokerStars.
PokerStars does not reply.
Eppy12588 posts: “I myself believe pokerstars should add the full $40 received in rake to the compensation pool for any game in which 2 or more colluders played.”
A number of posters add their support to Eppy12588’s suggestion.
June 18, 2010 – Bumpking points out that virtually no news of this scandal has been published outside the twoplustwo forum. Some posters suggest ways to publicize the information. Others urge caution, since it isn’t yet clear what Stars is going to do. Still others note that Stars has known about the problem for several months, and speculate that Stars may not have refunded anyone if not for the post by Jane0123 exposing the issue.
June 23, 2010 – flopp_deuces posts: “I pay [PokerStars] 100k a year to play in safe games.....but that certainly isn't enough to help them regulate the games or get a simple customer service response in this thread.”
Bumpking posts: “I sent Stars an email a few weeks ago with evidence of a new account that was tied to the Chinese Ring. They responded that after an investigation, the account was deemed clean. I sent another email with more evidence and they just responded that they now have closed the account… I know that this individual will make yet another account on another computer with another IP address and cheat me again, as will the rest of their ring. Why would I subject myself to this?”
June 24, 2010 – tigertrap provides links to a perl script allowing anyone who uses Hold’em Manager to calculate the number of games played with members of the fraud ring, and the total amount of rake the player paid to PokerStars in those games.
June 25, 2010 – tigertrap provides links to a modified version of his perl script that will work with hand histories from PokerStars.
June 27, 2010 – “Michael J” of PokerStars posts for the first time since June 17.
Here are the highlights:
PokerStars has finalized the amount of the compensation pool, the recipients and credit amounts. These will be paid within 24 hours.
PokerStars has agreed to contribute “
a substantial further amount to the compensation fund, in addition to the previously announced figures in this thread.”
PokerStars acknowledges that its collusion investigation team has not performed up to its own standard of excellence in handling this case – specifically, the investigation has taken too long. PokerStars will “
strengthen and renew focus” on collusion investigation team efforts, especially with regard to the prompt resolution of cases.
The compensation pool will equal “
the sum of the colluders’ net profits, plus a bonus amount added by PokerStars” for a total compensation pool of $587k.
Amount confiscated including FPP cash equivalent = $84k
Amount added by PokerStars = $503k
Total distribution fund = $587k
Net profit by colluders when playing 2 or more deep = $337k
Amount added by PokerStars above net profit as above = $250k
To divide up the compensation pool PokerStars will remove the colluding players from each event where two or more took part. Of the remaining honest players, at least half of them will have either already cashed or will now receive a credit.
This will result in almost 4,000 player credits ranging from $5.20 to $8,424.13.
The lists of players mentioned in this thread are not entirely accurate or exhaustive and contain players that have been found not guilty of wrongdoing
PokerStars “
can not disclose user IDs in the context of collusion or fraud.” PokerStars cites as its authority the Data Protection Act (Isle of Man, 2002):
http://www.gov.im/lib/docs/odps//dpa2002.pdf
PokerStars will “
cooperate fully” with any law enforcement investigation.
Most of the regular DoN players posting on the thread express dissatisfaction with both the total compensation amount and the way it is being divided. Several posters also note that there is no evidence PokerStars has solved the collusion problem.
June 28, 2010 – The promised payments begin appearing. Outraged regulars report credits of a couple of hundred dollars after playing hundreds or thousands of $104 and $52 games against members of the fraud ring. Others receive nothing. A few extremely high volume players report amounts that exceed $1,000. Posters also note that the email from PokerStars announcing the credits falsely refers to “two players who were working together,” possibly to avoid making unsuspecting customers aware of the size of the scandal. Several Supernova level players announce their intention to quit PokerStars.
“Michael J” of PokerStars posts again, further describing the basis of the payments:
Item #1: Funds (including FPPs) confiscated from the colluding accounts ($84k).
Item #2: Rake paid by colluders in events where two or more colluders played ($159k).
Item #3: The net profit of colluders in events where two or more colluders played ($337k)
item #4: Total compensation pool ($587k]
He adds that PokerStars “
has no legal obligation to add any funds to compensation pools, beyond what is confiscated,” but that the company decided to go beyond that. Stars believes that this compensation is “
fair and reasonable.”
Michael J invites any player who “feels that their chances to reach SuperNova or SNE status were affected” or who “believes that they were under credited in the recent distribution” to contact
gamesecurity@pokerstars.com.
Nicegame points out that $84K + $159K + $337K equals $580K, not $587K. Nicegame and others suggest that PokerStars “is still benefiting from the games with cheaters.”
JechtSphere posts: “Slap in the face? I got $20.80. I played 16,148 DoNs in 2009, and 8,234 in January and Feb of this year, most of which were $104s…. I just feel so slighted by a company that I pumped over $42,000 in rake into over the past 18 months almost exclusively in games that are now so well known to have been cheated consistently.”
Frobosh posts: “PokerStars hosted games in which massive cheating took place for half a year, took several months more to deal with the situation, and is now repaying its defrauded customers only a small fraction of what they lost.”
FilthyRaven asks Michael J: “Please explain how we [provide evidence that we were under-credited] when you refuse to let us know exactly who WAS colluding?”
Handbaggio posts that the payments make no sense, given the very low amounts received by some of the highest volume $104 players.
kkghgf: “I played in 1200 $104 DoNs, 993 $52 DoNs, 823 $20.80 DoNs, and 109 $10.40 DoNs where at least one colluder was present. I have paid a total of $7.5k
in rake for these games. Today I was refunded with $364.01.”
sajeffe: “Everybody paid a 4% fee to PokerStars in order to play in secure games. There was no security.”
imcastleman: “What I can't figure out is why did the people who got less than say 4 buyins got an exact multiple of the buyin whereas people like myself, JasonKobe, fossilkid93, jasty2k, got oddball refunds....”
More regulars state that they are leaving PokerStars.
June 29, 2010 – Poster “Borgsex” asks Stars about the dates the collusion occurred, and receives this reply: “
The activity took place in December 2009 and January 2010.”
Other posters quickly note that a considerable amount of the games with two or more colluders took place outside this time range.
“Borgsex” posts a follow-up email in which Michael J states that “
the activity *largely* took place in December 2009 and January 2010.”
“DQS” posts an email from Michael J admitting that PokerStars “
made a mistake in the email in referring to '2 players' - that was unintentional.” Michael J does not state what, if any action PokerStars plans to take to correct this error.
Vetiver identifies five players not on the original list who a) played in $52 SNGs in jan-feb of 2010, b) were from china, and c) appear to have been banned: pumaabc, LuckyLl028, wenlugao, pittrmao and yangkefu.
Mtgalex posts PostgreSQL instructions and SQL by which Hold’em Manager users can identify the DoN games they lost that included 2 or more of the fraud group.
JechtSphere reads the 2002 Data Protection Act cited earlier by Michael J as the reason PokerStars cannot provide the colluders’ screen names. He concludes that “as long as Stars informs the users of their forthcoming actions and the reasoning behind it, that they can, in fact, release such information,” as it does not disclose personal information.
Handbaggio seconds this opinion, and offers to check with a solicitor friend in the UK.
Sharkzilla1 posts additional information emailed from PokerStars:
2) PokerStars is providing compensation so that half of the legitimate players in an event will receive either a prize (cashing) or a credit. So, let us take the example of 3 legitimate players cashing, 2 colluders cashing, and 5 legitimate players missing out. PokerStars discards the 2 colluders from the process, and there are therefore 3 legitimate players who cashed, and 5 legitimate players who did not. Thus, we would provide a credit to one legitimate player, so that there are 4 legitimate players who received a credit or a cash, and 4 legitimate players who did not.
Many posters note that this arbitrarily reduces the number of winners in each event.
Otherside61 points out that this explanation directly contradicts PokerStars’ earlier statement that if two colluders cashed, they would move up the 6th and 7th place players.
Donnoobie posts information from the Isle of Man Gambling Supervision Commission, which regulates all online gambling activities:
[
http://www.gov.im/gambling/benefits/aboutgcc.xml]
The core principles the Commission upholds are :-
1. To keep the gambling industry crime free.
2. To protect the young and those at risk.
3. To ensure that the services offered by licence holders are fair and that players receive their true winnings. [emphasis added]
pharreal_87 posts another email from PokerStars, including this:
PokerStars is now contemplating providing compensation for a period prior
to November. PokerStars originally decided to focus on November through
January as that was the period where the colluders were most active and
caused the greatest amount of damage. In the months preceding this there
were less events played, at often lower stakes and less players involved.
This appears to confirm that the payments made did not include the entire period of activity of the fraud ring, which was in operation both before and after this range. The same email also confirmed that players who finished 6th in a game where one colluder cashed are receiving nothing.
June 30, 2010 – DQS posts a lengthy email exchange with Michael J, who states that the list of user-ids published on twoplustwo is inaccurate. However, he declines to provide any information to correct the errors, citing the Data Protection Act of 2002.
YngwieScruggs: the method Stars claims to be using to move up losing players seems to have nothing to do with the compensation pool at all, since most of the payment values are exact integer multiples of the buy-in – not the amount the player would have won.
This also appears to contradict Stars’ claim that a compensation pool made up of various elements was divided into slices and distributed.
MegaFossil reports that he tried to transfer .01 to all the accounts listed in the original post. Only ellena054, Xuanyu.L, golovorez777, and Lazzzzzzy are still active. This suggests that Stars “has been a little dishonest when they imply that the list of actual cheaters is a lot different than the list we have here in this thread.”
A new PokerStars representative, PS-StephenW appears on the thread with this post:
Hello all,
It is very apparent from the comments made in this thread that players are very unhappy with the progress and current resolution of this investigation.
PokerStars has worked tirelessly over the years to successfully gain players’ trust, so when things do go wrong, we always work hard in an attempt to make things right. Our intention in this case is to provide the fairest compensation pool and distribution method possible, so we are disappointed to hear players feel we have yet to achieve that.
We have listened to the comments made in this thread and we will be re-evaluating the case again as a whole. During this review, we hope to be in contact with some players who have been actively involved in this thread.
We appreciate that this matter has already taken far too long to resolve, but we would ask the community to be patient for a bit more time so that more people at PokerStars can take a fresh, in depth look at the situation.
We expect to be able to give you more information within one week.
Sincerely,
Stephen W
Director, PokerStars Game Security
Initial response on the thread is mixed, with skepticism predominating. Poster RainMan77 reports being contacted via private message asking if he is willing to talk on the phone with PokerStars about the compensation issue.
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