I dont think the tangent of the ethics of VPN'ing should take over this thread. Far and away the biggest issue here is the deliberate use of another account to play some of the biggest games online with people whom Stinger had history with. He gains a lot of EV by not playing under his name and that comes directly at the expense of his opponents, some of whom wouldn't have played if they knew who they were really playing. The irony of Brian saying "Talking about this and promoting this story would be so bad for online poker and create more backlash for regulation etc..." without realizing that maybe he shouldn't be doing it is too much.

The VPN debate will consist of people who moved out of the country feeling resentful to those who don't currently follow the rules and still get to the play the same games from the comfort of their own homes. Those who are VPNing (under their own screen names) will argue that they are circumventing an unjust law passed to cater to certain business interests that was attached to a port security bill. And truthfully I can sympathize with both sides of that argument and it gets sticky, black friday created some complicated situations for people.

What everyone should see eye to eye on is that multiaccounting and cheating other people through deception needs to be treated seriously. This isn't 2009 and the community has a pretty clear stance on it. It screws the people who don't cheat and play on their on accounts and it creates a bad image for the game. It's a shame that someone as talented as him chose to do it, and I hope people close to him see how unethical this was and call him out on it and not making excuses for this kind of unethical behavior.

winner

I really hope you're not a lawyer. Once again the dumbest argument I've ever heard. Both are illegal. It doesn't matter the extent of the illegality. Multiaccounting is illegal and scummy in poker. Insider trading is illegal and scummy in finance. Hence the word ANALOGY

Well playing on someone else's account is against the rules of poker sites; the difference with illegal seems rather arbitrary - especially when we're talking about poker bets.

I mean I get the argument that betting is a game of imperfect information and often both people think they have an edge based on info the other party doesn't have. But in this case a person could have done his due diligence - seen that $tinger 88 hasn't played on stars in ages, seen that hastings was in the US making it even more unlikely that he was practising vs top competition, etc - and still gotten hustled.

At least we know now what the 'c' in his name stands for

Isn't it possible that the primary reason Stinger used a different name is because he was VPN'ing, and knew that if he used his own account that he could get caught/reported because people knew he was in Florida, saw him playing in live games, etc.

I just think it's ridiculous to equate breaking a poker site rule with committing a felony that lands you in jail.

We can agree to disagree.

"Unlikely" but not impossible. That is where your "diligence" falls short.

I think there is some merit to people having bracelet bets being annoyed.

Its a pretty big gap between like: a) could have been doing some work on his game, beating a bit of 5/10 on some soft site or live and b) feeling confident enough in his game to risk million dollar swings playing nosebleeds on the toughest site vs the best in the world.

Just the fact that stinger was playing in them games shows how much confidence/work hes got/put into his game. That could defo be enough to swing the line or stop people betting at all.

Obv both the bettors are going to want the 'best of it' but i kind of think the line has already taken into account the unknown factor of how much work he has done/how hard he might be crushing live or random soft sites BUT assumes hes NOT a sick nosebleed killer on stars currently.

Having said that i do feel empathy for Stinger because i don't think hes an inherently bad person and decided to angleshoot all his friends/peers. The fact he was trying to tell people he was playing against shows this.

What a mess :/

There are only two choices here.

Play on your own account or don't.

Obviously there are risks or issues for both, as an American. To do it legally you have to move. To do it illegally you risk discovery and account seizure.

He picked option 3, the least ethical of all - stay in the US and play illegally, but do it from a completely different account while playing against people who would not have knowingly played against him.

Plus it appears he let some opponents know but not others, increasing at least the appearance that he was deliberately trying to gain an edge on certain opponents by concealing his identity.

Scummiest possible decision to a bad situation and it's not even close.

Obvious lack of ethics is obvious.

Yes of course that's possible. That doesn't make it any less of a big deal that he was willing to gain an edge against people vpn'ing on account that was his, against people he had history with no less. Where does the line stop? So it's ok to vpn because even though it's clearly against the rules, the rules are stupid and American got a raw deal? Oh and because I can't risk getting caught breaking this unfair rule it's also ok for me directly steal EV from opponents by playing on another name because stinger doesn't want to assume more risk himself for the rules he is breaking? That is basically the argument he is making.

I've followed this all along, caught up with a lot while listening to the CA state assembly hearing about the state being prepared to regulate igaming. VPN's and account security was a major talking point, with the experts saying the situation in the thread is pretty much impossible in a regulated market and they could prove it.
Something that keeps occurring to me that I've not seen mentioned, is that I'm not sure Amaya/Stars would even be able to enforce a ban on BH based on what happened here in a regulated environment. As in fine, they ban BH now but when they come to the US(or other providers) he's back in the game. I'm thinking that if/when anybody gets licensed in the US it's a fresh slate for players and BH and others could contact gaming commission/lawyers to get accounts instated etc, could be messy. I'm assuming he has gotten legal advice on the matter. AmayaStars can ban him now and he can do the same thing next week, probably wouldn't fly under the radar for so long. Im a ss STT/MTT player and I was offered foreign accounts, have played using a VPN on several euro sites on my own accounts or new ones created for me over 2 years ago, it's not very hard. Never on PS though but just because I was scared etc.

As a side note, if he is seriously offering help with depression and mental health, I could sure use some. Anybody who is familiar with me will tell ya that my brain injury 7 years ago messed me all up, but im still profitable on the tables. I just live in fear of jail and homelessness constantly because I've got no support system and have a really hard time dealing with my mental health issues and anger problems. I'm serious, search the other forum for same user name here and key word "loony bin" to read about my 72hr 5150 hold last dec. I'm telling the truth and there are long term respected members here that will vouch for my issues.

You're missing the point. It's very simple. It's cheating to gain an unfair advantage. It doesn't matter if it's in finance or poker

I'd refine the options a bit.

If he simply played on a new account called "Rasva" but let the world know it was Brian Hastings - I'm not sure there is any harm.

If a new player "BigDonkey1" suddenly shows up and starts playing like Brian Hastings - that gives him a big and unfair first-mover advantage, as others have noted, but perhaps limited because his opponents should be wary by the mysterious appearance.

But he took it a level further and chose to take over an existing account held under someone's real name, and that account has a history and has opponents who know/have access to that history. That, to my mind, shows a clear intent to deceive and is worse than just showing up as some random new player or showing up as Stinger88 and claiming to be in Canada (or whatever) while using a VPN.

who are the two pokestars pro that knew everything?

It's a very poor analogy.

Insider trading is a vague and ill defined term, and many economists have argued that it should not be illegal as it's beneficial for other market participants.

The SEC has resisted strictly defining insider trading because they want to cast as wide a net as possible for anything they regard as malfeasance. For example, at one point they claimed if while on a trip you looked out the window of your plane as it was landing and saw a key factory for IBM explode, that you would be committing "insider trading" if you hopped on a phone right then and shorted IBM before this "material information" became "public".

Economists would argue that you shorting IBM helps all buyers of IBM who don't know about the explosion. They would be getting ripped off, your shorting of IBM saves them money by pushing it's price closer to it's real value. An economist would then ask, whats different between that and an employee doing the same, even the CEO? The only difference is that employees should have agreements with the company that restrict their ability to trade on inside information, and that is a contract matter for the company to enforce, not the SEC.

Multi-accounting is an entirely different activity. It's not beneficial for other participants in any way that I can see, only the multi-accounter.

But the reason multi-accounting is not allowed is to protect players who have collected huge databases on their opponents, so they can mass multi table with the biggest edge possible and gut fish as quickly as possible. This behavior makes the games on Stars suck, so I kind of find it ironic that it's viewed as "ethical" and needing protection from multi-accounters.

Multi-accounting would never be a problem if Stars would allow players to play anonymously, or at least change their screen-names regularly. Then players would be forced to actually build reads in real time on their opponents, and there would be no incentive to use another players account.

The only problem with entirely anonymous tables means you are totally dependent upon site security to detect cheating such as collusion, which is clearly an issue on Bovada. But if the site just released full hand histories with account names after the player has left the table it would probably solve the problem.

Also, i think NoelHayes first days were extremely fishy and then make a huge improvement.
Probably players with bigger database on him can check what Im saying, but I think theres a chance someone bad played at first before him.
Anyway **** cheaters.

I'm not even going to bother reading all of this. Like I said it's simple. Is insider trading illegal? Yes. Does it give the party an unfair advantage over the competition? Yes. Is multiaccounting illegal? Yes. Does it give the party and unfair advantage over the competition? Yes

Decided to read that nonsense. Your knowledge of insider trading is really lacking. A building exploding is immediately public information. It is not insider trading to trade on that. The market will correct itself shortly. Insider trading would be when a doctor involved in a trial decides to reveal phase 3 trial results to one firm when this information is not release to the public yet. Can't believe I had to explain that

Its absoluely independant on stakes. Even if they played nl50 HU that would be a big deal

It adds another level to the distaste of it all.

Eh, I think the player who lost EV$ would disagree

My guess would be mercier and danzer since they play in the big mixed games

Yeah I'm hearing mercier as well but hv nothing but rumour to back it up, mods should remove the dn lb post though. This is a serious issue and people who aren't involved shouldn't be mentioned as if it were fact.

I wonder how Amaya shareholders might feel about PokerStars tacitly accepting play from inside the USA in violation of the law.

I play as BERRI SWEET on stars. The biggest winner in the world against me this year is NoelHayes. I was always playing him under the assumption that he was someone other than Brian Hastings. Here are two hands, that sprung to mind, that I would have played very differently, had I known it was Brian I was playing.

PokerStars Hand #134777285081: Omaha Pot Limit ($200/$400 USD) - 2015/05/04 23:16:27 CET [2015/05/04 17:16:27 ET]
Table 'Juewa III' 6-max Seat #1 is the button
Seat 1: Sauce123 ($85689.68 in chips)
Seat 2: tr1cky7 ($45188.25 in chips)
Seat 3: JayP-AA ($73806.55 in chips)
Seat 4: BERRI SWEET ($96972.54 in chips)
Seat 5: NoelHayes ($60780.86 in chips)
tr1cky7: posts small blind $200
JayP-AA: posts big blind $400
Ben86: sits out
*** HOLE CARDS ***
Dealt to BERRI SWEET [Qc Kc 7h Jh]
BERRI SWEET: raises $1000 to $1400
NoelHayes: raises $3400 to $4800
Sauce123: folds
tr1cky7: folds
JayP-AA: folds
BERRI SWEET: calls $3400
*** FLOP *** [2s Ah Jd]
BERRI SWEET: checks
NoelHayes: bets $4078
BERRI SWEET: calls $4078
*** TURN *** [2s Ah Jd] [Qd]
BERRI SWEET: checks
NoelHayes: checks
*** RIVER *** [2s Ah Jd Qd] [Qs]
BERRI SWEET: checks
NoelHayes: checks
*** SHOW DOWN ***
BERRI SWEET: shows [Qc Kc 7h Jh] (a full house, Queens full of Jacks)
NoelHayes: mucks hand
BERRI SWEET collected $18351 from pot
*** SUMMARY ***
Total pot $18356 | Rake $5
Board [2s Ah Jd Qd Qs]
Seat 1: Sauce123 (button) folded before Flop (didn't bet)
Seat 2: tr1cky7 (small blind) folded before Flop
Seat 3: JayP-AA (big blind) folded before Flop
Seat 4: BERRI SWEET showed [Qc Kc 7h Jh] and won ($18351) with a full house, Queens full of Jacks
Seat 5: NoelHayes mucked [6c Qh Kh 9c]

Clear valuebet against Brian Hastings. Close, but I decided to check with my(very limited) reads on NoelHayes at the time. Brian would have called almost 100% of the time with his particular hand.

PokerStars Hand #134781723505: Omaha Pot Limit ($200/$400 USD) - 2015/05/05 0:41:36 CET [2015/05/04 18:41:36 ET]
Table 'Juewa III' 6-max Seat #4 is the button
Seat 1: Sauce123 ($62447.14 in chips)
Seat 3: JayP-AA ($129784.28 in chips)
Seat 4: BERRI SWEET ($120621.95 in chips)
Seat 5: NoelHayes ($44200.27 in chips)
Seat 6: Ben86 ($35182.02 in chips)
NoelHayes: posts small blind $200
Ben86: posts big blind $400
tr1cky7: sits out
*** HOLE CARDS ***
Dealt to BERRI SWEET [5c Jh 6s 6c]
Sauce123: folds
JayP-AA: folds
BERRI SWEET: raises $400 to $800
NoelHayes: raises $2000 to $2800
Ben86: folds
BERRI SWEET: calls $2000
*** FLOP *** [8s 2h Ad]
NoelHayes: bets $2398
BERRI SWEET: raises $5748.78 to $8146.78
NoelHayes: raises $8253.22 to $16400
BERRI SWEET: raises $8253.22 to $24653.22
NoelHayes: raises $16747.05 to $41400.27 and is all-in
BERRI SWEET: folds
Uncalled bet ($16747.05) returned to NoelHayes
NoelHayes collected $55301.44 from pot
NoelHayes: doesn't show hand
*** SUMMARY ***
Total pot $55306.44 | Rake $5
Board [8s 2h Ad]
Seat 1: Sauce123 folded before Flop (didn't bet)
Seat 3: JayP-AA folded before Flop (didn't bet)
Seat 4: BERRI SWEET (button) folded on the Flop
Seat 5: NoelHayes (small blind) collected ($55301.44)
Seat 6: Ben86 (big blind) folded before Flop

Maybe I would have still raised the flop had I known I was playing Brian Hastings. Maybe not. I would definitely not have 4bet the flop if I knew it was him.

In these two pots alone, I lost roughly 30k more than I would have done if I had known it was Brian. There are a lot more(albeit usually smaller) pots like this, where I made erroneus assumptions because of the presented misinformation, and lost a lot of equity and money as well.

I wanted to chime in and underline the massive effects that cheating in this manner can have on the other players in the game.

I do believe that Brian owes me(and others) a lot more than just an apology.

Also, if someone can tell Joe Ingram to respond to me on skype, that would be greatly appreciated.