Quote:
Originally Posted by Kilowatt
Don't count on anything regarding the Stones investigation.
The chief investigator is an attorney who has previously worked for Stones owners.
The goal at this point is to "prove" to the general public that a thorough investigation was done by qualified individuals, and that the investigation cleared all parties.
The initial "investigation" (if one was done at all) was probably conducted by people like Justin, and obviously would not be judged credible by any outsiders with an IQ above room temperature.
The current investigation features a leader with significant credentials (former leader of fraud investigations for one of the US Attorneys offices, among other things). He will put together a "team" of other seemingly qualified people, and probably intentionally look at all the wrong things (the general security of the setup from hacking, rather than a serious look at Mike's play and the streams themselves).
When the setup is declared hacker-proof, this will be shared with the public, and we will see a list of all of the highly qualified techies and others involved with investigating, which should satisfy the general public and/or media. It could also be useful later in court, when they defend the civil lawsuit which Mac Verstandig plans to lead against Stones.
Completely absent from the investigation will likely be anything regarding the highly improbably successful strategies Mike employed, the obvious variance in style and demeanor versus cheating/non-cheating sessions, the presence/absence of people like Justin and Taylor, the bulgy hat, the looking down at the crotch, and the other suspicious factors discussed here.
It's likely that the investigation's goal will be to clear Postle and Stones of any wrongdoing, rather than really get to the bottom of this.
And why?
Because Stones will suffer big time from any self-revelation of malfeasance. They will be open to all kinds of negligence lawsuits (or worse), and their reputation will be irreparably harmed. This will be true whether they blame it all on Mike, or whether they blame it on Mike and one or two rogue employees.
By a very wide margin, they escape from this the cleanest if this is found to be an unsubstantiated accusation.
If they were really interested in finding something, they would hire someone truly independent, rather than an attorney previously associated with them.
If you'd like a comparison, recall the Penn State molestation situation. Though Joe Paterno and other top figures at the school realized that Jerry Sandusky had been molesting young boys on the premises, they did all they could to squash the allegations and cover it up. Why? Because they felt the Penn State football program would suffer immensely if this ever got out, so they chose the school's reputation over justice for the young victims.
Pretty much the same thing here.
I agree with you that, if Stones could get away with it, they would likely conduct an "investigation" purely to lower their liability, while ensuring future revenue streams are not impacted. Basically what any corporation would do.
The problem is the second part of that equation: future revenue streams. Because unlike the Penn State fiasco, Mike's crimes were streamed and recorded for the world to see. And while I agree the key to this is the math and hand histories taken all together (which is hard for a non poker playing investigator to understand), Stones still has a problem: their customers
do understand poker, more or less.
And so their target customer base is going to expect something real and tangible to come out of this investigation. And Stones Casino probably know that. Any investigation that white washes this will almost certainly lead to a boycott of poker at the Casino. And so they are stuck.
They will be highly motivated to make Mike into a lone wolf hacker. Yes, they are still responsible for maintaining the integrity of their games. But at least no Stones employees were directly involved, when Mike acted alone. That is their best case scenario, provided everyone will accept it.
The problem with that scenario, however, is if Mike eventually talks and gives details of how he cheated, and it comes out one or more Stones employees were actively colluding with him. In that case, I can't imagine Stones continuing as a viable entity, at least with poker. Their credibility will be less than zero.
And even if Mike never talks, how realistic is it, with all we know, to believe Mike had no help? For the public to buy this, Stones would have to release a lot of details on the hack. And they would open it up to being refuted with all of the video evidence that is available, and just the knowledge that people here have about various systems, networking, RFID technology, etc.
So there is a decent chance that Stones will just bite the bullet and do a fair investigation, having correctly surmised that anything less will be worse for them long term. Better to do the right thing, perhaps pay out more money now, but show their customers they are going to stand by them when mistakes are made.
We'll see!
