The four largest shareholders in UB is speculative as they all used blind trusts, but as Pierson, Hellmuth, Dehaan and Karl are notably missing from the exposed shareholder list, it would seem logical they are the four.

My guess is you are being told about the threatened legal action surrounding the Excapsa shareholder pool. This was described by "journalists" as a lawsuit but was really a bogus strategy for the culpable to spread the repayment out over the entire shareholder base instead of going into pocket.

Phil Hellmuth and his dear friend Russ Hamilton became very rich and thousands of poker players became very poor.

Well, I'll break down what I was told.

In November of 2008 I just started playing online poker again on Absolute Poker after UIGEA went through in 2006 and kicked me off of Pokerroom.net. One day, my friend comes over, sees me playing on AP, and says, "Hey. My uncle owns that site." I of course reply, "WTF? That's badass." He says ,"Yea. He is the largest shareholder." So, that gives you the general timeframe of when this guy was the largest shareholder and it was that year that he bought into the company. After you guys had already uncovered the cheating here on 2 + 2.

I think the 60 Minutes special detailing the cheating scandal aired in December of 2008..at least, that's when I heard about it. So, obviously I stopped playing on AP and switched over to Pokerstars.

At some point over the next year (2009-2010) I talk about it with my friend and he says," My uncle has a lot of problems because of this cheating BS. He has been in and out of court every month over this suing the guy. By the time my uncle is done with him he won't have a penny left. That guy will be paying my uncle 6 figures a month for the rest of his life." He was never able to clarify who the guy was specifically. That's just what I was told.

My friend's mom is the guy's sister. I grew up down the street from them and have known them my entire life. My mom spoke with her about it about a year ago and that's when she told my mom that her brother, "lost everything and had to sell his $2 million house." She said, "All of his partners stole millions and are in Panama and he can't do anything about it." She said, "He gave up his dental practice to own this site and all its done is caused him to lose everything." She said, "He has since gone back to being a dentist."

Which, I'm sure you know the original founders were all dentist. And, I'm sure that's how my friend's uncle became acquainted with them and eventually bought into the company, but wasn't a part of the original group of owners that were involved in the cheating. It seems like he bought into the company in 2008 (maybe sooner, but I don't know)...long after you guys had already started finding out about the cheating on 2 + 2 (wasn't it 2007 when you guys were uncovering it on the forum?). My friend knew I was big into poker for years prior to this and never said anything about his uncle owning the company prior to 2008. That's why I assume his uncle didn't purchase his shares before then. As I'm sure my friend would've mentioned it before that time.

I'll try to find out more when I can, though. I don't really see my friend anymore and I've never asked his mom about it. Even though, she's my insurance agent now. It really does sound like the guy bought into the company without knowing what was going on, though. At least, that's the impression I get. It sounds like he got screwed worse than any of us.

I don't know if you meant this as a serious question, but if you simple use Google, you should be able to find them pretty easily.

For example, a few random jurisdictions that I found in 120 seconds of looking:

Alaska, USA: http://www.courtrecords.alaska.gov/e...es/home.page.2

Isle of Man, British Isles: http://www.judgments.im/content/home.mth

Bombay, India: http://bombayhighcourt.nic.in/

Now, it's probably true that not every court in the world publishes court judgements online (I assume that places like North Korea, Iran, etc.) but it would seem to be an "unusual" place that does not.

Well, I went and looked in the county my case was in and found nothing.

And, I was in court once a month for 17 months straight on felony drug charges. I even typed in my case number and found nothing. So...

todd whittles harrassed him about UB at a ft and he called security like the alpha he is and the TD threatend a 1 round penalty,,, the best time to probably troll him is during a interview, feel bad for you that got F'd by the new UB I couldnt imagine having that kind of money just taken.

also in the 5 fig club
is the PPA still working on this case? It's been said a couple of times to say the $ good bye. On the other side there is a tiny % of the money seized by the DOJ (rumored like 10-15% irrc)
can someone PM me Sharon Levin's email adress? i doubt i can make my point clear enough talking to her on the phone since english is not my native language.

I wrote an email to the PPA with the same question(if they are still on it) over a month ago. Unfortunately I haven't got an answer.

I've set the book aside for a while as it became too negative of an experience. Along with the failing health and subsequent passing of both of my parents in the past two-plus years all the stuff was just a little too much to handle. I'm not apologizing for taking the hiatus, it just is what it is, and other stuff had priority.

However, I'm still working on some things connected to the book and to the scandal. A couple of people have been more receptive to talking about what happened now that applicable statutes of limitations have expired, FWIW. When I do resume the book (it's over half written), it will be an indie effort so no one other than myself has to worry about -any- legal repercussions... and trust me, I've been threatened lots. I won't take anyone down with me if it comes to that.

Leaky, your dad must be one of the Florida dentists that Hilt's daddy (meaning Hilt II, not Hilt III) talked into investing into Absolute Poker. I have the entire AP investor database, and I don't recall that any of them were among the very largest investors in AP though several were in for healthy six-figure sums.

I wonder if it's the same investor that Scott Tom obliquely threatened to shoot when the investor went to Costa Rica to try to recoup his investment (I think it was $175,000) after the scandal. Funny that that tale never made it into Mezrich's garbage book.

i was curious, so I went and checked the file, referring to Maderia common stock, which was rendered worthless by the AP thieves. Shane Blackford (the trust fund frat brother of the original founders) was indeed the largest individual stock holder, at 3.88 million shares. Other Blackford family members owned another 1.6 milly or shares collectively.

Second largest holding in this group was a blind trust believed to belong to either Hilt Sr. or Phil Tom called Flush/Yellow point, at 3.761 million shares. It was registered through a Vancouver, British Columbia connection.

As for the dentists from Florida that daddy Hilt screwed over, there were three of them with very sizeable holdings, of over a million shares. These weren't the largest but were top ten. One was a husband-and-wife couple, initials "R" and "J", who owned just under 1.945 million shares. Based on how Hilt Sr. variably priced the stock, I'd guess they bought in for $2 to $3 million, and they probably got about 11% of that back in dividends, IIRC.

The other large dentist owners were a man with initials "M. C.," at 1.413 million shares, and another who had retired to the Las Vegas area, who owned about 1.529 million shares. I think this last one was from the dentist group, but I am not absolutely sure, as I am for the other two.

Thanks for the info, Haley.

Non of my "family members" were involved. It was a family member of my friend that I grew up down the street from...his uncle.

Sounds good, glad I could help.

The "R" man from those dentists I mentioned I believed served on the Madeira board at one time, which would have made it more difficult for him to sue Scott Tom or the others. So I'm guessing that friend's uncle might be the "M. C." dude. If you want to send me a DM I'll provide the city of residence or last name or something and we'll see if we can work out if it's the same person. I have no interest in exposing most of these dentist investors publicly, as they're as much victims as the defrauded players, maybe even more so in some cases.

Poll:

Who knows more about the scandal, EG or HH?

Josem, EG and Haley never fail to amaze me with their knowledge and the time and effort they put into this.

I know I/others have said it a million times bit props

Some poker players enjoyed it when Hellmuth was spewing the UB money on poker shows like HSP PAD so some of they money got back in the poker community.

any news in 2016?

u serious?

aside from the people who stole the money banging a new island hooker last night while doing cocaine, nothing new to report at the moment.

In 2008, the Kahnawake Gaming Commission found Hamilton largely responsible for cheating players on Ultimate Bet out of $6.1 million through software that allowed access to opponents' hole cards. In 2009, Kahnawake increased the $6.1 million estimate to $22,100,000.

Quite the jump there!

Then this Gem:

In May 2013, recorded audio of discussions with UltimateBet management was released by Travis Makar where Russ Hamilton and other management can be heard discussing the scandal and the plans to cover up known conspirators and participants as well as aiming to reduce the declared or refunded amount of the fraud. This recording included statements of admission from Hamilton such as "I did take this money and I'm not trying to make it right, so we've got to get that out of the way real quick."

never mind, carry on NVG

Has there ever been an investigation into the Prop program? Something was very fishy. I propped for them for 5 years under the name ugaistheteam. I had 12k on the site when it closed. i truly believe that the stress from all of it contributed to me having a massive Stroke.

I got 15k off on like April 3 2011...i feel for you guys...messed up situation!

$$ is sadly gone. I'd like to find out what happened to the "rouge" CS agent who helped uncover these shenanigans and sent the entire HHs of the tournament to a player; which helped uncover potripper as a superuser. Forget what name he posted here under. braindeadodo or something to that effect?

Haley,

Book project still alive?

On indefinite hiatus. I still accumulate info for it, but I have other priorities ATM. Once in a while a news story pops up that has a connection and I've been throwing out info inside of those. I'm also still waitingwaitingwaiting for Brad Booth and/or Travis Makar to release that -other- tape, but it doesn't look like they will. I do believe there was more relevant info in that recording and would've loved to have heard it.