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The UB Scandal Continues The UB Scandal Continues

07-14-2008 , 06:05 PM
Quote:
Originally Posted by Jae14
He never said Lauren = Nvtease. If he did I sure missed it and I've been following pretty closely. His initial comment was that the Makars are likely innocent but then the link to Russ was discovered because of Russ purchased a Makar owned property. Yet I don't recall there ever being a Lauren = nvtease post.

As for Houston Curtis, yes it was previously posted that H_Curtis is possibly his account but no confirming evidence has been found.
Wicked chops had a whole story about it but it was abruptly taken down. I'm guessing it wasn't because the story was inaccurate.
07-14-2008 , 06:15 PM
Need help clarifying. Please let me know if I have anything incorrect.

So we have:

1. UB insider "brainwashdodo" posts administrative screenshots with transfer history of several accounts including -Fred- and Phil Hellmuth.

2. Freddy Deeb's account Kid55 and superuser account Nionio had transfers from a master UB funding account (-Fred-).

3. The superuser account had Russ Hamilton's home address listed in the account details.

4. Kid55 (Freddy's name is Kassem I Deeb and he was born in 1955) was closed 1 day before NioNio was closed with the same admin notes as per "brainwasheddodo"'s amin screenshots.

5. Many of the superuser accounts had the number 55 (deeb's number of choice for both his email adresss and screenames) in their names.

6. Kid55 cashed out more than a million than it deposited. There are also logged sessions of Kid55 where the account wins at the astonishing winrates the superuser accounts. Some of the withdrawl amount can be assumed to be monies paid to Freddy for his endorsement deal and live UB tournament wins.

7. 6. Kid55 recieved no cheating refund despite the fact that he was active in the high stakes games during the cheating period.


All correct so far?

Last edited by AdamSchwartz; 07-14-2008 at 06:22 PM. Reason: added #7
07-14-2008 , 06:23 PM
Quote:
Originally Posted by AdamSchwartz
Need help clarifying. Please let me know if I have anything incorrect.

So we have:

1. UB insider "brainwashdodo" posts administrative screenshots with transfer history of several accounts including -Fred- and Phil Hellmuth.

2. Freddy Deeb's account Kid55 and superuser account Nionio had transfers from a master UB funding account (-Fred-).

3. The superuser account had Russ Hamilton's home address listed in the account details.

4. Kid55 (Freddy's name is Kassem I Deeb and he was born in 1955) was closed 1 day before NioNio was closed with the same admin notes as per "brainwasheddodo"'s amin screenshots.

5. Many of the superuser accounts had the number 55 (deeb's number of choice for both his email adresss and screenames) in their names.

6. Kid55 cashed out more than a million than it deposited. There are also logged sessions of Kid55 where the account wins at the astonishing winrates the superuser accounts. Some of the withdrawl amount can be assumed to be monies paid to Freddy for his endorsement deal and live UB tournament wins.

All correct so far?
If they are wiling, maybe you could have Nat or Trambo on 3 way to direct some of the questioning or with follow ups?
07-14-2008 , 06:24 PM
The superuser account that had xfers with -fred- was shaqtack, and shaqtack was closed 1 day after kid55's was closed. Also note, Lyle Berman and Phil H recieved refunds for the cheating, Freddy did not despite playing a decent amount of hands in the middle of all the cheating going on.
07-14-2008 , 06:26 PM
Quote:
Originally Posted by AdamSchwartz
Need help clarifying. Please let me know if I have anything incorrect.

So we have:

1. UB insider "brainwashdodo" posts administrative screenshots with transfer history of several accounts including -Fred- and Phil Hellmuth.

2. Freddy Deeb's account Kid55 and superuser account Nionio had transfers from a master UB funding account (-Fred-).

3. The superuser account had Russ Hamilton's home address listed in the account details.

4. Kid55 (Freddy's name is Kassem I Deeb and he was born in 1955) was closed 1 day before NioNio was closed with the same admin notes as per "brainwasheddodo"'s amin screenshots.

5. Many of the superuser accounts had the number 55 (deeb's number of choice for both his email adresss and screenames) in their names.

6. Kid55 cashed out more than a million than it deposited. There are also logged sessions of Kid55 where the account wins at the astonishing winrates the superuser accounts. Some of the withdrawl amount can be assumed to be monies paid to Freddy for his endorsement deal and live UB tournament wins.

All correct so far?
It wasn't nionio that -Fred- transferred to. It was the ShaqTack account (it had some other names too, but none were nionio). This is the same account that was closed 1 day after Kid55, not nionio. Also, I looked pretty closely at Freddy's sessions. While it is true that he had some "astonishing" sessions, overall it looked pretty normal. His net over the transactions listed was like $25K or something. The spreadsheet is on my other comp. or I'd be more exact. I'd stay away from this red herring. If he was superusing, I don't think it was with the Kid55 account.

Other than that, all looks accurate. (This is all assuming you believe the brainwashdodo information.) However, Hamilton may not have owned the property when the superusing occurred, or at least when the account was created. It was previously owned by the Makar's.

Last edited by econ; 07-14-2008 at 06:34 PM.
07-14-2008 , 06:31 PM
Quote:
Originally Posted by econ
It wasn't nionio that -Fred- transferred to. It was the ShaqTack account (it had some other names too, but none were nionio). I think that this is the only CONFIRMED (by UB) superuser that -Fred- transferred to. .
Nope headskase01 was also a confirmed superuser that -fred- transferred to
07-14-2008 , 06:35 PM
Quote:
Originally Posted by trambopoline
Nope headskase01 was also a confirmed superuser that -fred- transferred to
Fixed. Glad you're here and keeping close tabs...
07-14-2008 , 06:54 PM
Quote:
Originally Posted by AdamSchwartz
6. Kid55 cashed out more than a million than it deposited. There are also logged sessions of Kid55 where the account wins at the astonishing winrates the superuser accounts. Some of the withdrawl amount can be assumed to be monies paid to Freddy for his endorsement deal and live UB tournament wins.
His win at the WPT Aruba paid $1 million. Combining with endorsement payouts, I'd say that his discrepancy in deposit/withdrawal is fully accounted for.
07-14-2008 , 06:55 PM
Quote:
Originally Posted by rockforlight
where the f is that dude nat emailed???
He got the dirt, laughed and said thanks for sending it. Nothing of interest outside of entertainment value.
07-14-2008 , 07:07 PM
Adam,

All the discrepency between withdrawls and deposits is explained with people trading casino chips for online money. It's pretty easy for them to explain away. Also RussHamilton's address was on 3 of the super users but not on NioNio's account.

It's really important if you can ask Freddy about account sharing. Did he ever let others play on his account? You can PM me about this if you want, its just a theory so I don't want to post it.

Also can you ask him who was calling the shots when he was with the company.

Thanks
07-14-2008 , 07:11 PM
truthspeaks,

Yeah you're right, I confused the Makars account and the Bajayo's account...made it more complicated than it was.

So Russ Hamilton, Travis/Lauren Makar, and the Bajayo's should all be packing their bags by now. Nice!
07-14-2008 , 07:20 PM
Cliffs on who Haim Bajo is plz?
07-14-2008 , 07:24 PM
If this comes up right, post #444 in this thread that I've linked.
07-14-2008 , 07:25 PM
Quote:
Originally Posted by noricha

5. Excapsa eventually closes around the time of UIEGA. Public company goes private in what is sure a buyout but no information exists. Blast Off comes into play at this time.

As you can see, I rely 100% on all publicly available investo presentations and annual reports of Excapsa and media reports so I get lost around #5 above in terms of dates and actions. I have strong oinions about what happened based on business experience and hints littered here and there but zero factual evidence or data from #5 onward.
A press release from Excapsa from this time (from share trading website ADVFN):


Sale of Operating Assets (Excapsa Software)



RNS Number:4111K
Excapsa Software Inc
12 October 2006




FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE 12 October 2006



Excapsa Software Inc.

('Excapsa' or the 'Company')

Sale of all operating assets


Excapsa Software Inc. (AIM: XCP) announces that in response to the pending legal developments in the United States the Board has concluded that the sale of the Company's operating assets consisting of its software, gaming network and related intellectual property is the best course of action to maximise shareholder value. As such, Excapsa announces that it has sold all of the shares of its wholly-owned subsidiaries, Excapsa Services Inc. and Game Theory Holdings Limited, to Blast Off Limited, a privately owned company based in Malta and a current licensee of the Excapsa Gaming Network. The transaction is effective 12 October 2006 but remains subject to final ratification by the Company's shareholders and certain contingencies including the pending legal developments in the United States.

The sale represents the disposition of all operating assets of the Company.
Under the terms of the agreement, Excapsa will be paid US$130 million comprising of an initial consideration of US$10 million in cash and a promissory note, secured against the shares and assets sold, for US$120 million paid by scheduled payments over the course of the next five and a half years with monthly instalments of US$1 million per month for the first year and US$2 million per month thereafter.

Following ratification by the Company's shareholders, it is anticipated that all
cash currently held on the balance sheet, being approximately US$47 million, and the funds received from the sale of the subsidiaries, less closure costs and contingencies, will be distributed to the Company's shareholders as soon as practicable with periodic distributions following in due course.

Complete details of the transaction will be set forth in the information
circular for the shareholders' meeting which will be posted to shareholders
within the next two weeks. As a result of the transaction, the Company has sold materially all of its trading business and assets. The Excapsa group had net income for the six months ended 30 June 2006 of US$15.1 million. It is currently proposed that the Company will make an application to cancel its quotation on AIM which would also require the approval of shareholders. Following the cancellation, Excapsa would proceed to close its remaining business in an orderly manner.


For more information please contact:
Excapsa Software (removing phone number)
Jim Ryan, Chief Executive Officer Ext: 5100
Gail Gleed, Finance Director Ext: 5102
Melissa Gaddis, Director, Investor Relations Ext: 5116

Last edited by Kevmath; 07-14-2008 at 07:32 PM. Reason: removed phone number
07-14-2008 , 07:27 PM
Quote:
Originally Posted by AdamSchwartz
Cliffs on who Haim Bajo is plz?
According to Trambo and Nat, his name was on nionio. This is information that, I believe, was received from an insider they had access to some time ago. Older (50's) man from NY. Has a brother who's a poker player named Eli. noataima saw them within the last week. Eli moved to Costa Rica. The email on nionio was isrelly@something.something. The email is owned by a young rapper (who is Haim's son?). Young rapper was contacted by IM and didn't seem to know anything. Well, both Trambo and Nat have seen the chat logs and Nat says he thinks the kid didn't know anything, but that is just his best guess, while Trambo says the logs don't prove anything.
07-14-2008 , 07:31 PM
Adam you may want to ask Freddy if he got a refund for the cheating.

edited to remove my recall. looked at account shots and now just think it's a fair question.

Last edited by apefish; 07-14-2008 at 07:40 PM.
07-14-2008 , 07:37 PM
Quote:
Originally Posted by ShizzMoney
Interesting tidbit I picked up from that forum: an H_Curtis was one of the superuser screen names.
here is the page wickechops took down. you can email them at contact@wickedchopspoker.com. Good questions would be what made you make the leap from h_curtis to Houston Curtis and who made you take it down. You can also thank them for helping with the cover up.


Quote:
Is Houston Curtis the Cheater Behind UltimateBet Account "h_curtis"?

On May 29, 2008, Tokwiro Enterprises, the company that owns both UltimateBet and Absolute Poker, confirmed that employees of UltimateBet had been cheating online poker players by gaining access to opponents' holecards for almost two years. While Tokwiro did release a list of account names, they did not identify the people behind the accounts. Then two weeks ago a 2+2 member named trambopoline posted a comment saying he had handed over to the CEO of UltimateBet a list of additional account names he suspected of cheating in connection with the latest online poker cheating scandal (read thread here, see his post here). The list includes the amount each of those accounts won over the course of being "comprimised."

blueberry101 ( X - 5/9/06) ($373,919 over 8504 hands) *44.4 bb/100
dannyboy55 ( X - 6/17/07) ($119,195 over 2211 hands) *125.1bb/100
h_curtis ( X - 11/25/07) ($388,475 over 5229) *103.4bb/100
broke_in_L_A (~7/24/06 - 8/26/06) ($196,604 over 2553 hands) *87.4 bb/100
twenty 1 ( X - 12/12/07) ($183,194 over 6132 hands) *50.2 bb/100 )
wacomaniac (10/22/06 - 10/28/06) ($152,315 over 1831 hands) *42.4bb/100
slimpikins2 (10/21/06 - 10/30/06) ($82,010 over 946 hands) *65.2bb/100
tonyspilotro (12/28/06 - 1/28/07) ($99,403 over 2179 hands) *102.6bb/100

The most interesting one on the list is h_curtis, who the UltimateBet CEO reportedly told trambopoline was "already being investigated" and that there was a "high possibility" he was cheating.

While we're not saying h_curtis definitely IS UBT executive producer Houston Curtis, we ARE saying it looks highly suspicious.

Houston (in photo) is one of the management team members behind the Ultimate Blackjack Tour (bio here) and the Ultimate Bet Aruba Poker Classic (imdb page here, linkedin page here). He also did the Masters of Poker DVD series for Phil Hellmuth and Annie Duke. Point is, the dude is tight with UB management and UB co-founder Russ Hamilton.

Again, while we're definitely not saying it is Houston Curtis, it surely looks suspicious, and given his closeness to UB management, well, did we say it looks suspicious?
More on houston:
http://www.imdb.com/name/nm2148145/
http://www.linkedin.com/in/houstoncurtis



Let's not forget we are very sure, thanks to Nat, that -Fred- is Fred David, one of the original owners and founders of UB.
07-14-2008 , 07:39 PM
Quote:
Originally Posted by apefish
Adam you may want to ask Freddy if he got a refund for the cheating. Without going back and looking carefully memory tells me he did NOT. It's a fair point.
FYP

Go ahead and ask him though, I think its actually pretty incriminating that he didnt receive any refunds despite playing somewhat regularly while all this cheating was going on while Phil Hellmuth and Lyle Berman both did, and their accounts remain open to this day.
07-14-2008 , 07:40 PM
Quote:
Originally Posted by AdamSchwartz
Cliffs on who Haim Bajo is plz?
Quote:
Originally Posted by another_rack
Haim Bajayo is an older dude from Queens
Eli Bajayo is his poker playing brother that lives in Costa Rica

The 22 year old "kid" is Haim's son and the owner of the email that was registered to NioNio. The name on the NioNio account was Haim Bajayo and the address was in Queens. I think the kid might be named after his father but goes by another name, hence some confusion.

Nat also said the name "Yossi" was on an account but I'm not sure which one.

Edit: I talked to the kid over AIM and am pretty sure he knew nothing about this til I brought it up. I don't think he is in touch with his Uncle. Must be pretty freaky to have some random that knows the name of your whole family and has your screen name.

Also the kid said his dad play Ultimate Blackjack online, for play money only.
Quote:
Originally Posted by arbianight
Both Bajayo brothers were in vegas this weekend. It was very frustrating, but assault on 60 year old men is not exactly my thing (plus although I knew Eli was there, I didnt know the man with him was Haim until afterwards). Through talking to people, I am fairly certain that the kid wasnt in on it. I have my doubts about Eli being in on it as well, as the people I talked to who knew him and who I trust said that he is swearing innocence. As for Haim Sr., I am almost 100% certain that he was in on it, however, I wasnt able to find out what his exact role was or why Hamilton needed him in the first place. I am trying to find out more as there is a suprisingly large number of longtime professional poker players who now live in Costa Rica.
I really think arbianights poast has been overlooked
07-14-2008 , 07:44 PM
Theres no possible way that Haim Jr didnt know anythings about this, to the point where he claims he didnt even know real money was being played for. So you're trying to tell me that you use the email address isrelly@aol.com, and never questioned why youd receive emails from UB regarding cashing out/transferring hundreds of thousands of dollars? Did you think it was a joke or something?
07-14-2008 , 07:47 PM
Quote:
paid by scheduled payments over the course of the next five and a half years with monthly instalments of US$1 million per month for the first year and US$2 million per month thereafter.
It was established that the payments were illegal and none were probably ever made.

Let's review.

They took the company public for 100 million according to this:

Quote:
Excapsa's IPO in February 2006 on the AIM was the second largest in 2006. The Internet gaming software developer raised £56.2 million. With the passing of the US Internet Gambling Regulation and Enforcement Act, the company sold its assets and the divestiture resulted in an approximately 30% of loss of its IPO price.
(thats over 100 million united states dollars raised at IPO with big beneficiaries including Annie and Phil. According to Barry, other investors didn't do as well)

A few months later the shareholders get 10 million for the same company with promises of 120 more in payments. The buyer is Russ Hamilton's Blast Off Media.

Then they claim they can't make payments because the payments are illegal.

Hellmuth claimed Russ might be worth a billion dollars. Not hard to see how. The numbers involved here are staggering and once you get your head around them, the lying responses by Annie and people like her start to make sense.
07-14-2008 , 07:52 PM
Quote:
Originally Posted by trambopoline
FYP

Go ahead and ask him though, I think its actually pretty incriminating that he didnt receive any refunds despite playing somewhat regularly while all this cheating was going on while Phil Hellmuth and Lyle Berman both did, and their accounts remain open to this day.
FWIW, if the kid55 account was closed voluntarily, and coincidentally at the same time as the superusers, it would not surprise me that UB would cheap out an not make an attempt to contact the customer of a closed account to make a payment, and just pocket the money instead.

Yes, its suspicious. I just want to say its not a smoking gun.
07-14-2008 , 08:01 PM
Quote:
Originally Posted by trambopoline
Theres no possible way that Haim Jr didnt know anythings about this, to the point where he claims he didnt even know real money was being played for. So you're trying to tell me that you use the email address isrelly@aol.com, and never questioned why youd receive emails from UB regarding cashing out/transferring hundreds of thousands of dollars? Did you think it was a joke or something?
I don't think it matters whether the kid is believable or not. The chat was actually pretty much a footnote in the grand cheme of things. The one thing it did for me, since I don't have yours and Nats info stream, is sort out the discrepencey between Haim and Isrelly and confirm they were related to Eli.
07-14-2008 , 08:25 PM
I've officially been threatened, so I suppose I'm done with this. Not worth getting hurt over.

I've forwarded on my info to a few trusted sources and they can take it from there.

Good luck everyone.
07-14-2008 , 08:28 PM
Quote:
Originally Posted by trambopoline
Theres no possible way that Haim Jr didnt know anythings about this, to the point where he claims he didnt even know real money was being played for. So you're trying to tell me that you use the email address isrelly@aol.com, and never questioned why youd receive emails from UB regarding cashing out/transferring hundreds of thousands of dollars? Did you think it was a joke or something?
With the people in charge doing all this what makes you think they couldn't circumvent any emails from being sent to an innocent?

      
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