.... except, there is NO $1M in reality.

I find it very hard for a person with integrity who cares about online poker to represent PokerStars at this point.

Stars as it is now is simply a rake grabbing monopoly that cares more about covering up scandals than doing the right things and the pros representing the site have become complicit in this by caring more about the value of their contracts than the people in the poker community.


This is obviously just my opinion, but the poker world is just a joke. Anywhere that money is involved there will be scummy people willing to exploit honest people for personal gain. "That's just the way the world works" as Brian would say.

Poker's a great game, but it doesn't really seem to be worth people's time anymore.

pretty much this. you know times are hard when nanonoko (according to a reputable russian tracking site) is breakeven for a couple of years and resorts to being a company man and livestremaing on snitch.


moral of the story is to make the money while you can before people like brian completely skull**** the games

Simple yes/no will do Ike Haxton (i know you're reading this). Did you know that BH played as NH on Pokerstars?

Im sure its always been like this and probably worse. Just nowadays with a better informed on average player, less money floating around, shrinking player pools and more Internet voices, things like this are gonna get uncovered more often and more widely publicised.

It 'could' eventually lead to something better, as long as people keep jumping on it and trying to hold sites and players to account, but who knows.

It's all irrelevant as there is zero chance.

He needs to say "Hastings is a cheat and should obviously be life banned, any Stars pro who knew and let it pass and still keeps silence is wrong and should be seriously reprimanded by Stars, Stars continued silence and lack of action is a disgrace." He needs to say something to that effect but there is zero chance because that would affect his bottom line and pile more heat on his dishonest friends. Of course his bottom line is important, as are his friends, and he needs to think of those, but don't shout from the roof tops every chance you get about how your life game plan and philosophy hinge on honesty & integrity and doing the right thing above everything else. Absolute gunk talk. Negs bottom line and air time mean zillions more to his ego than doing the right thing for the game or the community. Having 12 million instead of 10 (or whatever) and having tons of interviews & exposure etc is the goal and everything else is secondary. I think he is good for the game but not the self proclaimed angel he claims to be and he needs to stop with that crap. He would gain so much cred by doing the right thing but he won't as it's more important to protect the inner circle of the top.

Just imagine if Malacesia (or whatever the name) had won back a few million but it transpired that it was actually Isildur playing when he was winning and that all Swedish HS players & a small selection of other Scandinavians knew and no one else.

Pause and imagine such a scenario.

Every single one of the people who have condoned all this BH stuff/and or knew and kept silence would be out in anger about how wrong it was. There would be uproar.

But of course that would be justified uproar as it would be a different situation. Totally different. Not.

Sadly in the long run what Ike knew, what BH is doing/did, what pokerstars decides to comment on has no effect on the actual problems at hand. If you think Hastings is the only one out there who did this you're going to be let down. There's a reason this thread isn't in the high stakes forum and very few established players are voicing out. They're all doing it too or have friends that are. Truthfully I wouldn't be surprised if Hastings has been paid in some way to continue to be the fall guy. If not, judging by some of his delusional responses, Im sure he's tried to extort others with information he could release to get people off his back.

It might not have much effect but it will have even less if nothing is said at all.
Pressing these people can do no harm.

This thread is becoming a joke.

Guy admits to cheating.

Stars and pros couldn't give two fks.

What happens in 12 months when this thread is 400 pages long?

What do you expect, apparently the consensus is that online poker in 2015 is the "Wild West"

Let me preface this by saying that I have a bit more information than this thread and certainly way less information than Stars pros, Hastings, et all.

Pokerstars does not care about cheating. They do not care about catching VPNers. They do not care about catching people VPN'ing on accounts that they have purchased from other people. If Ike (or <insert Stars pro who knew about cheating>) were to bring proof of cheating to Pokerstars, the process would be a little different than what the expectation here in this thread would be. Ike would be e-mailing whatever security@pokerstars.com e-mail address is the one set up to field/investigate these types of allegations. They would give Ike the standard bull**** form-letter dismissive reply that they would give any of us. Then they would simply do nothing. They don't care.

This presents a problem. Now, Ike is in a spot where he cannot defend himself publicly because Pokerstars has told him not to. Even if Ike had previously gone to Pokerstars with the information that Brian was cheating, declaring this publicly would require that he publicly admit that Pokerstars doesn't care about cheating and doesn't even bother to investigate/monitor cheating. Pokerstars can't have that. Thus, Ike cannot defend himself unless he also accepts that he will be losing a 6-fig/yr salary that he takes in from representing Pokerstars.

The resulting situation is that Stars pros are choosing money over integrity. They are choosing their continued salary over disclosing publicly that Pokerstars has no interest in catching, investigating, or enforcing cheating.

What is shocking to me is how universally accepted and condoned this is. The default stance from milquetoast, cowardly 2+2 mods seems to be: We are ok with Pokerstars allowing cheating, pretending it doesn't exist, and silencing anyone who may bring forth this fact publicly. We are also ok with 2+2 mods who are also Pokerstars pros going along with this.

Thats bull****.

everyone is frustrated & you personally have good reason to be. Actually
quite a bit could happen in 12 months, but it will require that we all take some actions.

#1 in < 12 months mr noel hayes might be permanently out of online gaming due to his apparent involvement with account selling or sharing with brian hastings. he most certainly could be removed from betbright.com as director of the sportsbook for starters & that would be a good result? do we want someone involved in cheating as director of a sportsbook? that takes a moment of effort that we should all take. support@betbright.com is the email, ask them if there is any expectation of a fair game when their director is involved in cheating. i did. hit up their live support at betbright.com & watch them stonewall you on the issue & then post the screen captures in the relevent thread. contact the UK Gambling Commission & ask them about cheating at Amaya & about Noel Hayes. promise you they will reply & investigate. KEEP LINKING GAMBLING COMMISSION & BETBRIGHT TO THE APPROPRIATE THREAD.
email is: info@gamblingcommission.gov.uk. if you live in the UK, call their
Confidential intelligence line - +44 121 230 6655 and ask them if the amaya games are fair, regulated, investigated etc..etc.. tell them your concerns, direct them to the apporpriate thread here.

#2 somebody could write a cohesive explanation of the hastings ma'ing issue & post it here in the thread.

#3 another person could post contact emails for all the regulatory agencies where ftp & stars operate. i promise to send that well composed email to every agency we get listed. the canadian agency that licenses stars should get hundred of requests. i'm pretty sure they will look into it.

i'm sure others here have even better ideas. let us hear them.

and if it all goes for nothing i'm not going to have any problem vocally opposing Amaya be allowed to operate in the US market. not with their bs we can't tell you who the cheaters are etc..etc.. when someone gets arrested for cheating in a casino, we find out who the cheaters are. i will oppose online poker in the US market if i have to keep them out & i will spend some of my own time & money to do it. even if just to never see their stupid smiling faces on my tv or billboard or anywhere in America.


now somebody compose the letter & somebody make a simple list of the agency contact emails. and jfc if you can write in portugese, or spanish, or french, italian, russian, polish, swedish, etc.. translate that letter for us and we will send them as well.

your assuming he reported it? what country has laws which allow for contract language that precludes you from reporting illegal activity? poker is a licensed business with Amaya & the gambling commissions are government agencies that operate based upon the rule of law. if ike did report it (and i don't buy that, yet) he could have gone to the gambling commission and reported it as well.

otherwise, i strongly agree with all of this post & your other posts as well. ( i am hotwarmcold, but i messed up the email on my account so have this one untill i get it corrected)

+1 of the year.

I have no idea if the cheating was reported. The point I was making was that Ike has no real avenue to even publicly say:

-"Yeah, Brian told me. I told him to stop. I told Stars."
-"Yeah, Brian told me. I told him to stop. Telling Stars would have been pointless because ____"
-"Yeah, Brian told me. I told him to stop. I didn't tell Stars, but I should have. But even if I did, it would have been pointless because _____"

because if he says any of these things the implication is that he loses his sponsorship.

I understand why he doesn't want to lose his sponsorship. The problem is that you can't have your cake and eat it too.

How do you know this?

Sure, they're not saying anything. But they've never announced actions against cheaters in the past yet everyone has heard of cases where cheaters have been punished. (Sometimes they come to this forum to complain they're getting screwed).

What's changed? Did someone at Stars tell you they don't care or is it just a gut feeling or what?

lest you think gaming commissions don't prosecute cheaters....

Prison for online poker cheat ordered to pay back a million pounds
http://www.gamblingcommission.gov.uk...-back-1m-.aspx

http://www.grimsbytelegraph.co.uk/Ch...ail/story.html

here is how cheating is legally defined in the 2005 UK gambling act (source below)

(1)A person commits an offence if he—

(a)cheats at gambling, or

(b)does anything for the purpose of enabling or assisting another person to cheat at gambling.

(2)For the purposes of subsection (1) it is immaterial whether a person who cheats—

(a)improves his chances of winning anything, or

(b)wins anything.

(3)Without prejudice to the generality of subsection (1) cheating at gambling may, in particular, consist of actual or attempted deception or interference in connection with—

(a)the process by which gambling is conducted, or

(b)a real or virtual game, race or other event or process to which gambling relates.

(4)A person guilty of an offence under this section shall be liable—

(a)on conviction on indictment, to imprisonment for a term not exceeding two years, to a fine or to both, or

(b)on summary conviction, to imprisonment for a term not exceeding 51 weeks, to a fine not exceeding the statutory maximum or to both.

(5)In the application of subsection (4) to Scotland the reference to 51 weeks shall have effect as a reference to six months.

(6)Section 17 of the Gaming Act 1845 (c. 109) (winning by cheating) shall cease to have effect.

http://www.gamblingcommission.gov.uk...ence/sbiu.aspx

Well said

(WaffleCrush)

There are some great posts ITT.

A response from stars:

Regarding the Brian Hastings / NoelHayes situation. As you state, there are many details of this case already in the public domain. Our investigations into this matter are still ongoing. If it is proven that the registered owner of the 'NoelHayes' account was not the person operating it at our tables, then this is a clear violation of our Terms of Service and appropriate action will be taken against all parties involved. PokerStars does not comment publicly on actions taken against individual accounts, but I can assure you that the same rules apply to every player on PokerStars, whether that is a BronzeStar player, SuperNovaElite or sponsored professional.

thanks for posting that snoeman. this is amaya investigating themselves, send the same email to uk gambling commission (links posted above) so commission investigates amaya!
or consider posting some form of your orginal email so we can send it also

RE: RE: PokerStars Support - Privacy Policy
support@pokerstars.com Add to contacts 7/08/2015 Keep this message at the top of your inbox
To: xxx@hotmail.com
support@pokerstars.com
Hello xxx,

I was passed your email regarding your dissatisfaction with the responses you have been provided on this issue.

In checking our email correspondence, it appears that an email I sent to you on 30th July was never delivered. I have copied this email below and hopefully it answers your questions.

If you do have any further questions or comments, please do not hesitate to let us know.

Kind Regards,

Jim
Senior Manager, PokerStars Game Integrity Team

Email originally sent on 30th July:
Hello xxx

Thank you for your email.

"What would happen to a person MA'ing/VPN/Sharing accounts?"

For MAA (one person having control of more than one account) and account sharing (one account being controlled by more than one person), the punishments are pretty much the same and you can extend that to players who collude at the tables too.

The consequences for breaking the rules can range from a warning, to permanent closure of the account and full confiscation of funds and various options in between. We will take the most appropriate option depending on the severity of the offence, the experience of the players involved and the likely motivation for the action.

You would not expect us to bar two very new players who played a couple of $1 SnGs together and didn't want to knock each other out. You would expect us to bar two SuperNova players who collude in fifty $100 hyper turbo SnGs. Likewise for MAA and account sharing, if a very inexperienced player uses the account of their friend because they had hit their deposit limits, that would not warrant a bar from the site, whereas a $5/$10 HU cash player who couldn't get any action, who went on to use a friends account to play in the same games is a far more malicious act and would be barred from future play.

As long as the monies are coming in PS don't seem to worried.

Wow. Thats a sick find. I remember a thread about Darren Woods cheating on 888poker years ago. luls