People in the US have had their livelihoods swept from underneath them, if I was a US citizen unable to move out of the country to continue my work then I would consider doing exactly what the majority of poker players from America have done at some point and play through a VPN. If you play any poker from small stakes upto the largest stakes on any European network on every table you will probably be playin against a guy from the US, now is this ethical? is this cheating if they have played on the same sites under different screen names before Black Friday?

What's the chances the regulars from Europe who are "legally" able to play the games are going to receive compensation for this very same thing happening? It's a grey area in the poker world especially when it comes down to what is ethical and what isn't. It's a dog eat dog world and sometimes being the most stand up of people doesn't always work out for the best. Hastings tried to do the most stand up thing in his situation which was the reason he's now unable to continue to make money through online poker.

If Hastings starts giving out money for compensation then he's just setting himself up to get burnt in the future when others multiaccount vs him and doesn't receive any type of refund or return for getting "cheated" (is it cheating if he plays HU on the NoelHayes account vs someone who knows who's behind the account?)

Every time one of these type of threads pop up, people always discuss the issue of ethics, morals, integrity, etc.

Then people will point out what's legal or illegal, against the TOS or not, and equate that with their own ethics, morality, integrity, etc.

Just because something is legal or within the rules does not mean it is morally/ethically correct.

(Analogy, that is sure to get flamed, coming)

For most of human history, slavery was legal and considered 'property'. As with any 'property', the owner could do whatever he wished- beat, rape, kill his 'property', legally.

There are several posters ITT that use script seating bum hunting methods and all kinds of different software to aid them because it is 'legal' to do so. Then when someone does something that is illegal they tend to get on their 'moral high ground'.

It's extremely hard to have any sympathy for the bumhunters because you are nothing but hustlers.

Hustlers getting hustled. Then feeling like they were "cheated" and want their money back. Lol, bull****.

If they don't ban both of stingers accounts then....... gg stars

Well, it's sunday evening in Europe and Sunday Million is about to start and I will not play it first time in years.
I've been a stars customer since late 2002 but I had just about enough of this BS.
**** stars.

would be funny if they signed him after all this.

All of this.

There is certainly dripping irony to Brian's claims to not out him because it would hurt online poker. Yes, it will hurt online poker... but because your actions, Brian, caused it, not because the light of day is being shown on them.

This. Only kids who never worked a day in their life and had way to much money blown up their posteriors could make such ridiculous claims. Get out of your bubble world.
Not judging anyone for VPNing and it depends for MA (deception -> bad, not jeopardizing main account -> okay I guess), but you know the risk and once you do it you have to live with the consequences. You gut busted, tough luck. And now,welcome to real life, you have to face the consequences like everyone else does.

I've been an avid reader in these threads for quite a while never bothered with an account till I saw this... lolz for life thank you. Obviously BH is a complete douche, he's as big of a douche as the above quote is inaccurate.

While they are banning Hastings they should ban the IP address of guy lib... Why not kill 2 birds with 1 stone

+1

Brian's likely conclusions:

1: Brian is not a cheat.
2: Covered up cheating is good for the game as confirmed by all cheats & friends of cheats.
3: Brian's gf does love him.
4: Brian probably does not need a gym membership because obesity is totally standard and talking about it will only make more people obese.
5: Canada is hell on Earth but Brian is now healthy again in mind & body after 4 months of burger munching with Mommy & Daddy in well adjusted America.
6: The World is full of haters who should just eat more burgers and cheat more.

My conclusion:

1: Even in 2015 one can be a deluded out of their mind psycho and still bink two bracelets.

1. Let players who think they been cheated handle it. If a player was cheated live would u do anything to the cheater if u weren't cheated?? Let the effected parties hash it out.
2. Let the site make their own ruling on what they will do.
3. Bum hunting is such a dumb term. Poker continues cuz some players are not good but enjoy playing. If everyone was an A+ player there would be no game. It's not bum hunting, it's more experienced players sitting in with less experienced players and with out it there is no poker.
4. This whole post is an obv reason as to why u should not let anyone know your screen name. If the tables were anon then no multi accounting is needed. Not that I am sayin it's a solution to go anon. Since the beginning of time people have gotten hustled, and they will till the end if time. When money is involved people want an edge. In the old days u just got hustled, today they want to vilify you.
5. I understand u may have sat at a game where u figured player was bad and u assume that player was playing at those times. This is where I think if u confront the man behind that screen name u work it out. Not sure it need to be a public thing and such a big deal made of it.

The 3 regulated US markets use Geocomply geolocation technology, which works rather well, all things considered. There's never going to be a foolproof way to make sure that the person sitting in front of a computer is actually the account holder, but adopting Geocomply would be a major impediment to MA'ing. It geolocates the device you're playing on using visible WiFi networks, rendering a simple VPN to spoof your IP useless.

Doubt PS would employ it voluntarily in markets where they don't have to, because as reasonably effective as it is, it's still an impediment to gameplay (read: generating rake). And it still suffers from annoying false-positives. But hey: if you're serious about being an industry leader in game integrity, as PS claims to be, maybe this is one instance where you say "you know what: this is going to be a minor hit to our rake revenue and is going to introduce a frustrating experience for a small # of players, but this is what a grown-up, responsible, online poker entity does: they make decisions that cost them small amounts of money to protect the long-term integrity of the game."

Let's be clear: there's no magic bullet that's going to eliminate 100% of MA, collusion, bots, and all of the other ills that currently plague our game. And f**k Brian Hastings. But let's start to think more holistically about this, and stay open-minded to a process of incremental improvements that, slowly but surely, close loopholes and throw up obstacles to poker scumminess.

they dont announce bans publicly, so we will have to wait and see if they ban. maybe brian can make a statement and put this to an end

Im not judging anyone. I've never met Brian. In the media he's always come across as likeable and one of the better souls in poker.

but.... above comment was hilarious and perhaps even true

Two style points for you, Mr. 5=2+2

pretty interesting post. wasn't aware of this technology.

it's possible it's something stars could implement at 25/50+. on the one hand, you shouldn't discriminate between stakes, but on the other, multi accounting on a dollar per dollar basis is going to be a lesser offense the lower and lower you go.

BTW, it's almost certainly something that Stars & FTP could implement in a very short timeframe (days to weeks), because it's a required safeguard in NJ, and while they haven't been licensed there yet, they're (reportedly) in the final stages of the process, and I can guarantee they have a NJ-facing version of their clients with Geocomply fully integrated ready to go, should they be approved. Meaning that it would be trivial to outfit other versions of the PS / FTP clients with it, as their dev team has already done it once.

there is a lot of win in your post.

also I agree strongly with bolded. very complex problem. millions of transactions per day. game of whack a mole with the cheats. but steady progress should be made by industry leaders.

+1 for geocomply shock collars at 25/50

if you break the rules you get zapped

****ing MAing cheaters

Actually there is a pretty foolproof way to verify the person playing poker is the account holder, maybe IMO anyway. I heard a couple/few years ago in the wee ages of US/CA regulation talk, most likely at some CA hearing with lawmakers who were unable to grasp the difference between bots and HUD's at the time(they've come a LONG way) some politician suggested "retina scanners" hooked to the cpu running the poker client for account verification. It was laughed at and shut down for obvious cost and overall difficulty. Race between bots and cheap and user friendly retina scanner tech to save poker haha? Unless people start trading, stealing eyeballs or making fake ones sheesh..

There is a huge difference between multi accounting and multi accounting with a known businessman account at nosebleed stakes.

There's also a huge difference between multi-accounting to blatantly defraud and scam people out of money by playing under an identity to directly gain an edge, and then what Hastings done.

All 3 are on different levels of "cheating" 2 of which fall into a ethically grey area.

FYP

I suppose BH coulda gotten super lucky to have wound up with the account owned by the wealthy gambler/businessman like he did, sure is convenient and coincidental though. I would also think if he had known of the previous account history/owner it would be implied that that would work very well to his advantage in game play, goes hand in hand? That's all I have to say about that, I don't want to get involved in that sort of thing I've got my own issues and will watch from the sidelines and hope and pray for the best outcome for everybody involved and the poker community in general.

Who was the PStars Pro who knew about Stingers MA?