I'm assuming that you are aware of the "black market" software (I forget the name) that allegedly exploits the common use of a random number generator/clock to pseudo-randomize the deck to reveal not only the opponents' hole cards, but the turn & river cards as well. Although the evidence is overwhelming that a "super-user" account was involved in the scandalous activities reported on this site, I am wondering (a) if such software might have also played a role in the cheating, and (b) if UB and/or Absolute Poker are still vulnerable to said software. Does anyone know? - HiLoStud

Such software is just a money making scam. RNGs cannot be exploited.

Its been decided here that software like that doesn't exist or works.

Guess its makes more sense that poker sites have super user accounts than the software and RNGs being cracked.

Sounds a lot better for the sites too if it was just some high person in the company taking advantage of a super user than if it was just any ole person with no special access to the servers cheating and taking as much money as they want.

Nice to hear some of you getting money back. Looks like UB weighed it out and after a year it would save them more to pay out then have us all go crazy and ruin UBs name.

Grats to all who got their moneys back. i remember how i felt when i got my 5 figs back from neteller. must be a similar feeling aye?

edit: also gl to those of u bout to pwn the wsop.

If UB refunded me, did they also send me an email or do i need to login to see the refund?

Thanks!!!

They sent me an email.

Just like to say thanks for the efforts of trambo, dlp, jmx, omniheart, cornell and anyone else I may have missed.

is it that hard to log in and check lol

¨wow i love UB, also how the hell did you clowns get so much i got way less than you guys. tramb and magic - their email says¨, If a particular account ever used an unfair advantage, even for a single hand, we are crediting all net losses for all hands ever played with that account. do you feel that you were actually cheated out of 150k dollars or just that their awesome policy gave you a big gift?

Well, OP PT jpg shows trambo losing 60k net in just 3k hands, and that's just a sample of hands from 1 of the accounts. I'm sure the refunds are accurate, and if they aren't, than they'd be too low, not too high.

http://www.nationalpost.com/news/can...html?id=552913

National post article.

These blogs kinda tilt me:

Taylor Caby: "Woo, UB sent me money!" http://www.cardrunners.com/members/i...8795&Itemid=29
Brian Townsend: "UB handled it impressively well!" http://www.cardrunners.com/members/i...9014&Itemid=29

By the way, why aren't people more curious about the refunded amounts? For example, if UB called me to say I'm being refunded 155k and I actually got 234k, I'd be all over my database to find whoever I'm down 79k to. Or if I was up against the dudes (like CTS?) I'd wonder why they sent me any money at all. Isn't there a chance you missed some cheaters who didn't show up in the stat anomalies 'cos they were more discreet about it?

Brian,

This post is absolutely disgraceful.

As someone who is revered in the poker community you should absolutely be ashamed of yourself for posting that "I am very impressed with UB and the way they handled themselves in this situation."

The management of UltimateBet orchestrated a cheating scam and it went on for almost two years with them stealing millions of dollars from their customers. During those two years the scam was never once brought to light despite the fact that the cheaters were profiting at rates as high as 155bb/100.

Furthermore, the way they handled the revelation of their crimes was also unforgivable. Try to come up with a single company not regulated by the Kahnawake tribe who could get away with having their managers steal millions of dollars and having the crimes be publicly exposed only for that company to not make a single public statement for three entire months (and then when they did make a statement it was "yea, there is something fishy about NioNio but we aren't quite sure what it is" and then they followed that up with 2 more months of silence).

Can you think of a single company that could get away with behaving like this? More importantly (in regard to your blog post) how the **** can you say that UltimateBet handled this well?

Because they returned the money that they stole after 5 months of silence and mounting public pressure? Jesus Christ! If that is handling things well then I would hate to see them handle it poorly.

You should be ashamed of yourself Brian.

Steve

Possible, but imo the guys who were instrumental in bringing this to light are going to get more, for two reasons:

1) They have a lot of time invested, and have shown a willingness to do something about it. Since nobody including UB probably knows exactly how much was stolen, they are being sure to not make an error that shorts trambo, gaucho, et al.

2) UB is probably hoping to buy them off; hard to stay mad when you get back even more money than you lost. I hope you guys continue to behave the same way you would if you were not personally financially affected by this, but either way, you've already done a huge service to the playing community, so thank you and congratulations.

Seems that way to me too... Erring in the direction of generosity would seem to be a part of UBs clever damage control plan, especially for the high profile accounts. What a bunch of *******s.

Just fyi, you have to consider Taylor and Brian's positions as owners of a poker instructional website. Anything "bad" for online poker, they perceive as "bad" for them, and they benefit if online poker is going well. Any sort of scandal they view as bad for business.

Truth be told, I asked Taylor at the very very beginning of the investigation for help and support, and he refused, explaining essentially the above. It sucks, and I wouldn't do it if I were in their position, I would view it more as: I want online poker to be as clean as possible, and if sites need to be busted to get us to that point, so be it. However, I do understand and respect their position.

You can't technically fault them, but you are certainly welcome to disagree, as I do.

dlpnyc21

I recieved an e-mail from UB saying my account has been under investigation and thats why I haven't been able to access the account, for the last two years? Pretty strange they are e-mailing me now asking for ID verification. Maybe I'll get a couple hundred grand back too!

ouch, just read this from the link to nationalpost article...

"The software glitch was in place for at least 15 months, UltimateBet said."

15 months? lol. Wasn't all of this based on what happened the last week or so? So who got cheated over the other 59 weeks? Or would it be easier to answer this; who did not get cheated over the other 59 weeks it was going on?

I get your point but I don't agree with it. As I don't have access to their statistics, I could be wrong, but it is my opinion that the success of CardRunners is primarily due to the pedestal Taylor, CTS, Brian, and others have been placed upon. Making more posts that obviously do not consider the situation from an unbiased point of view such as this could be the beginning of the end of their pedestal.

As i told dlp away from the msg board, i think UB handled this situation horribly. it was a total debacle from day one, and refunding the money was MAYBE a small step in the right direction, but that remains to be seen. in my blog i simply posted that i was happy that i got 25k, which is true. UB has invited me to some conference where their new security procedures will be exposed and criticized. frankly, i'm skeptical, and i'm not even sure i will go. i told them that if i go they should expect to get tough questions and i am not going to hold back from letting people that are customers of my company and friends in the community know what i think. the thing that complicates my involvement in this (and in the preceding investigation) is that i am affiliated with another online poker site and i don't want anything i do or say to be viewed as a possible conflict of interest.

i can't speak for brian, but i think UB has handled this situation horribly and refunding the players should be seen as obligatory, not a commendable action.

tc

lol @ everyone who seems to think brian and taylor are somehow sucking up to ub or not doing the right thing. They have a deal with ftp. Why would they care about ub? They just stated that they got their money and that is much much better than the alternative that was looking very likely of getting nothing. Not sure what everyone expects out of them? Brian even insinuated that it's still a bad idea to play there.

So I just got off the phone with the ceo and gave him a list of 9 other accounts that they seemed to have 'missed' in the investigation. Im quite sure that every account listed here is a cheating account and would be very surprised to hear otherwise. I was informed that there are still accounts being investigated and that I will be contacted within a week regarding the investigations of the given accounts. Here is a list of the accounts I gave him...

blueberry101 ( X - 5/9/06) ($373,919 over 8504 hands) *44.4 bb/100
dannyboy55 ( X - 6/17/07) ($119,195 over 2211 hands) *125.1bb/100
h_curtis ( X - 11/25/07) ($388,475 over 5229) *103.4bb/100
broke_in_L_A (~7/24/06 - 8/26/06) ($196,604 over 2553 hands) *87.4 bb/100 ---> possibly beachbumAA (8/30/06 - 9/04/06)
twenty 1 ( X - 12/12/07) ($183,194 over 6132 hands) *50.2 bb/100 )
wacomaniac (10/22/06 - 10/28/06) ($152,315 over 1831 hands) *42.4bb/100
slimpikins2 (10/21/06 - 10/30/06) ($82,010 over 946 hands) *65.2bb/100
tonyspilotro (12/28/06 - 1/28/07) ($99,403 over 2179 hands) *102.6bb/100

He said h_curtis and twenty 1 were already being investigated and its definitely a high possibility they were cheating at this point.

It appears I forgot to list 2 accounts: Crackcorn55, 55washere. I was told that crackcorn55, 55washere and dannyboy55 all appear to aliases of one cheating account. Thank God whoever decided to pull this off was honestly stupid enough to use the same '55' reference in every name of his. I would expect more refunds in the near future.

And as for erick456, one of the accounts confirmed cheating in the latest UB press release, well apparently they botched the name and its actually eric456. You'd think after 5 months they'd at least proofread their own statement...

If you have any more accounts that appear suspicious, let me know and Ill look at them and/or forward them to paul.

Does anybody know how these different screenname accounts were funded upon startup of each one? That would be a good question to ask the ceo. If they made money so easy, why would they bother to deposit in each one, when they could quickly build a BR by first winning a freeroll, then play in smaller stakes. They should have those records available for each account or screenname.
Those of us that use to play the smaller stakes would really like to know if we were cheated, too. We sure as hell can't trust UB to check, let alone tell us, can we? Small stakes players don't use PT, so we have no way of checking for ourselves. That is why I will never deposit at AP or UB again! If, however, we somehow find out that we were cheated and UB makes it right for us, we might give them a shot again. AP did not bother, so I, for one, will never deposit there again.

Hi I don't usually post in HSNL but I was on youtube and found a video of potripper cheating and seeing hole cards on absolute poker. I know this is about UB but i thought it could help shed some light on this I'd like to help in anyway I can. If anyone would like to PM me to get the video name and who the person who made video is feel free. I'm also wondering which admins i should contact. I pm'ed taylor caby but i'm not sure if there are more I should PM this about. Please let me know i'd like to help if I can. The evidence is all there on the video.