A damning report in the UK press recently reveals Sky Bet groomed a gambling addict, and sent that victim’s data to various corporations. One of those corporations is Iovation, which was closely associated with the fraud poker sites, Absolute Poker and Ultimate Bet - it appears that other outlets have not yet picked up on this association between Sky Bet and the perpetrators of one of the gambling industry's biggest ever frauds.

UK press reporting: https://www.thisismoney.co.uk/money/...et-hooked.html

Executive summary of the report: https://cdn.sanity.io/files/btrsclf0...74ae7b5824.pdf

Full report of the data transfers: https://cleanupgambling.com/news/cracked-labs

Documentation of Iovation being associated with the fraud at Absolute Poker and Ultimate Bet: https://forumserver.twoplustwo.com/2...5-9-a-1329842/


4 years ago, Iovation claimed to the BBC that it had "no access to information, such as the winning and losing history of players, nor do we have access to specific betting details".

However, this new report provides extensive documentation claiming that Sky Bet sent some records to Iovation relating to:
-player registration
-money depositing
-money withdrawn
-even details about when the user clicked "deposit" and "cool off" (I think this is a responsible gaming mechanism)


It is shameful that gambling corporations are sending customer data to people associated with the fraud behind Absolute Poker and Ultimate Bet.

sorry totally grunching thread

Just posting here cuz its Josem... so prob a legit topic

I would tend to think whatever he says about the topic is correct, so I am going to go with that.

as sky bet has the same owners as pokerstars, do they do the same?

You can read the player's side of the story here...

damn... surprised this thread hasn't blown up yet

If Skybet changes its name it will reveal whether its fact or not because Sky will not want to be associated with this given all those adverts about responsible gaming. Always knew Sky were gobshites anyway as they have been raising the price of the TV subscription constantly for years and treat loyal customers like shite.

I hope this is accurate and they get their wings clipped as no-one deserves it more.

When I used to do arbing/matched betting most (all?) bookies used Iovation, there were specific scripts you had to block in your browser or new accounts would get limited immediately. It's shady but unless something has changed in the past few years it's not much of a story. They claim it's used to prevent fraud but in reality it's always been used for tracking/profiling.

^yes and the UK data protection authorities basically said they dgaf about the abuse of flash cookies by iovation, which was actually a form of hacking imo. The same authorities who also think it's ok for a barely regulated gambling company to ask for and retain full bank statements, property deeds, pension fund and investment records in support of "affordable gambling enquiries".

links to scripts?

NoScript add-on for Firefox is what I used, it's been a while so can't remember what specifically needs blocked.

ty

Pretty unethical stuff here..

This reminds me the ub movie is a must watch for any poker enthusiast.

Thanks for your work Josem. You are a hero for the community.

You used to be able to block it effectively by editing the hosts file. That was several years ago though and no doubt Iovation is even stronger and there are likely different softwares used by bookmaker sites now.

Although iesnare does proclaim it's used to stop fraud, when you go on their website they advertise it to bookmakers as being able to stop "arbitrage betting" as well. That is most certainly not fraud. Even visiting a website such as Coral's in the past was enough to have it secretly downloaded and installed on your computer tracking your movements, all without you having to give permission or being notified.

The amount of data it tracks is quite unsettling, as that article explains they are even monitoring your email reading activity for example. The major problem with it however is all your data is uploaded on a central database which bookmakers share, and thus they already know what to expect from you when you sign up for an account. You might think this is against data protection rules but the way they get around it is that the data being shared is on a specific device (and devices linked to it). That way they can claim its not an individuals data.

Good luck ever trying to find out what they hold on you via a subject access request. This is the stuff of nightmares for regulators and they have basically washed their hands of it here in the UK and allow it to continue. If you do a lot of serious sports betting make sure you are up to date on the latest methods to stop it.

As already mentioned the person behind this is Greg Pierson. Him to stand up claiming to be a white knight stopping internet fraud is pretty laughable for those that know the allegations against him.

Can't find a Sky thread so adding this here:

https://old.reddit.com/r/poker/comme...y_major_issue/

This screenshot from Reddit is likely to be a graphical issue (if real) and certainly has no relationship to sending customer data to foreign corporations associated with Absolute Poker and Ultimate Bet.

Alright, calm down dear

As I said this was the nearest Sky thread. We still don't know what actually happened yet

For those who missed it...



Oops, didn't mean to post without mentioning: that video gives a pretty good idea of Iovation's relationship with UB/AP. In short, its founder and CEO (2004-18) was Greg Pierson, co-founder of Ultimate Bet who was very arguably the major ringleader behind the NioNio scandal. Most people think of Russ Hamilton when it comes to the scandal, but Russ was mostly the grunt doing the boots-on-the-ground work for Pierson et al.

I'm outraged