I tracked down an adult-oriented site with a large customer base and the guy said he probably paid less than $100k per year. The concept arises in the film towards the end where current CFO Doug Shafer talks about "rescuing" iovation.

Thank you

In the film, Chops talks about Greg showing up in 2012 to rail Phil at the WSOP. I imagine they don't meet in public but continue to be friends. Chops has video that we wanted to use where Phil was ambushed on the red carpet about the scandal in 2009 or 2010 and said "people are innocent until proven guilty" after the KGC released it's findings.

I always thought this was interesting, the forums were actually way more judicious than anyone gave them credit for. People were routinely defended and downgraded that probably deserve more scrutiny. Deeb is the perfect example. Crowdsourcing worked exceedingly well.

brainwashdodo released a transaction log for Duke where she was making $47k/mo prior to the investigation and $25k/mo after with some addl bonus money. Considering Phil's role, you can extrapolate. I would be surprised if he made less than a $1m/yr. Leggett said the contract was surprising even to him.

I remember the first time visiting the FBI's new office in Denver. It's got crazy procedures for getting into the building post-9/11 but after finally sitting with an agent for an hour, I realized his entire notes were prolly going into the circular file. After the tape release, the statute of limitations is likely up. It is why people should be frustrated with brainwashdodo for leaking the tape info clear back to 2009 without actually releasing it.

By then, they were running on AP software, which was a little dodgy. A technical glitch got mishandled by a PR team up to their necks in selling Pierson's limited refunds.

Leggett was installed by people who understood the magnitude of Russ' cheating and were looking to divorce themselves from possible prison sentences. Those things are what hamstrung the site after the cheating (in addition to the the investigation/site rep).

We now sort of know that post 2008, site expenses were paid at least partially from player deposits leading to the Blanca insolvency. Both shareholder groups were abandoned after the scandals because there was no profitability to pay them. The intriguing concept is Beckley saying he felt there was a way to get players some part of their money, but law enforcement wouldn't allow it. That suggests a large amount of dough in processor receivables.

The Kahnawake were an effective firewall between cheaters and law enforcement. Their lack of willingness to turn over evidence stopped any prosecutions cold. We can work now to make sure agencies understand all of the involved actors should not be recycled into a regulated U.S. market.

Players need a real advocacy group willing to work/make tough decisions similar to how the PGA or other professional organizations work. There isn't a lot of money to fund legal efforts or good journalism. I'm really thankful for the $ assistance we received.

There did appear to be some coaching, though Joe is correct in saying he owes the tournament to making a call where AD preferred a fold and he gets a lucky turn or river card. If I had to guess, I would say she played the bulk of the tourney (with or w/o god mode, that part is unclear). It was her account, so why not just bail out on the commentary and tell the webcast guys she was busy at the final table? It's just typical of the shadiness and specifically, AD's always taking a less than straightforward route. Her character has been well revealed since the scandals.

Negreanu was peeved over the Pro side of the Aruba WPT in that it wasn't an honest marketing effort (he blamed Russ, Russ actually defended himself on RGP). Ultimately, UB was forced to do something for Phil Gordon. It goes to Russ/Greg being cheapskates and always looking to underpay while overpaying themselves.

Just watched it! Great documentary! Very well done

Hasn't it just

Thanks again to everyone involved for their hard work.

I saw the question asked earlier but didn't see a response.

If I want to watch this on my iPad on a plane without wifi what are my options?

Thanks in advance!

Is anyone a member of the Clark Howard forum? He is a personal finance talk show host that seems to enjoy talking about credit bureau warnings. The fact that iovation has partnered with Equifax and Experian might be a good topic for discussion for his show.

When I have covered iovation stories I have reached out to partners for comment and never gotten a response. Maybe none of them know the story?

Vimeo allows a download option when you purchase the film. You should be able to right click on the download link and save as. I am trying to get clarity from them on why the On Demand stuff doesn't have a similar link section where customers can choose various resolutions to download but if you PM me, I can send you a link you should be able to access if you purchased the movie.

Purchased and watched. Well done and thank you.

I enjoyed it a lot. Thanks.

Curious if you can confirm how much I got refunded. Screen name gobboboy. Feel free to put it here in the thread.

They show you at $10,148.00 in the 2nd round and nothing in the 1st.

OK, I watched it and I loved it. I offer the following comments in a spirit of improvement, recognizing that what I suggest probably isn't remotely doable, but it might still give you some things to bear in mind.

- I loved the movie *but* I've been following this story very closely for the last however many years. I suspect that someone who isn't as immersed in it as we are wouldn't make it past the first 15 minutes or so. I know someone said they watched it with their girlfriend, but my wife would kick my ass if I made her sit down and watch something like this.

- Why? Because it's too complicated, too technical and insufficiently character driven. OK, the characters are in there and *we* get that story because we know them -- we know their backstory. But you don't really show any of that in the film.

- So, who are these people? Why do we care about them? Why do we care what happened to them? What were they doing before this happened? You do do some of this, but you do it primarily through exposition and talking heads. Show, don't tell.

- Other people have already made the point that the stuff about the companies is too convoluted, and because of that, the point you're making is obscured. I realize that there's a lot of effort gone into researching and reporting this aspect of the story, but it's really one of those 'murder your darlings' things. If it doesn't advance the story, if it doesn't keep the viewer hooked, you need to find a way to simplify it or lose it altogether.

Someone else has already made the point that this is research for a book, and I think that shows. It would work much better as a book because you can go through the material at a more leisurely pace, provide charts and footnotes, etc. You also aren't as constrained by length/format.

I also think that the film does a perfect job of addressing the core audience -- the 2+2 reader who's followed the story from the start. We'd be pissed off if we didn't get all that detail. And it may be that that's all that you wanted to achieve. It may be that you have no interest in making the story more accessible to a general audience. If so, ignore the above.

I'd also like to say what a great job so many of the talking heads did in your film. Stand-out interviews: Todd Wittles. Noah S-D, Matasow, Brad Booth, Trambopoline, Josem and Nat Arem. Even Mason was wonderful -- looking awkward as ever.

But I do think you needed to cut down on the number of talking heads. Fewer characters, more backstory! Again, I understand the dilemma you faced here. If you left anyone out, 2+2 would be up in arms. But for a general audience, it's just too many people, too many talking heads.

Despite all that, I loved it. Very well done.

Though I totally agree with most of the above, the two major limitations of budget and nobody willing to actually speak to the case really hamstrung the script to an exposition. It's the reason for multiple talking heads, so that it wouldn't be 100% narrative over web graphics. That said, I did make this for the poker world and not as a normal doc, partly because i wanted to document the case and partly because as a 1st time effort I am not naive enough to believe HBO or Sony would get excited. But, the poker world is pretty big so there's that.

Long/short, I have revised the timeline. I have deleted details and added details where necessary. I am working on a better time graphic. I think the rough backstories are there for the people who matter, Greg, Russ, Carolyn, a little of Phil. Hoping to get it out over the next several days and people who already purchased will automatically have access.

I thought twice about posting what I posted because I knew that it would be time/budget/resources that would be constraining you.

But I also think there's a fairly gripping mass audience story in there, and I do think you get half-way to the job of telling it. Who knows, maybe somebody will watch it and think 'this story might be worth the punt of a couple of million.'

And if I was the person looking to punt a couple of million at this story, I'd definitely want you on board and involved in the process. The question is, would I want you as a consultant bringing your knowledge of the case to the table . Or would I want you as a filmmaker, buying you in for your ability to tell a story (specifically, this story) on screen.

Yes, the poker audience *is* a big audience. You've just put your work in front of some pretty wealthy and influential people. If I were in your shoes, I'd want to maximize my chances of getting a shot at the second role rather than the first, so where I could find opportunities to humanize the story, I'd take them.

You could go a long, long way in this direction by giving more backstory on Brad and Prahlad -- and you wouldn't even have to shoot more footage. You could take footage that was already out there and have them do voice over about what their lives were like before this, how it impacted on them, what their lives were like after.

But hey, I'm not trying to make your film for you. It's your vision and I don't think anyone can take anything away from the job that you've already done. For a movie made on a shoestring, I think you've done an astonishing job -- and I really do think you should look into the possibility of showing it at some of the international documentary film festivals.

Whatever you decide, I'm sure this will deliver you some opportunities that you would never have even imagined possible a couple of years ago -- and deservedly so. Props.

I feel like buying Trambopoline a beer all of a sudden. Or, because it's Gobbo, the Samurai Special at Musashi.

Awesome job, bought it and watched it last night. I was astonished at the amount of detail that was uncovered, and although I had followed the story on here over the years, I never understood all of the connections. I'm grateful that the film was able to put that complicated mess into a context I could follow and understand. Well done.

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Just watched, really enjoyed, I too was hoping you guys would go into the poker a little bit more. I would have really enjoyed hearing about prahlad or brad booth just crushing other players and then getting owned and not understand why. Mentally it had to just **** with them so hard.

Shouldn't we be forwarding this to the DOJ to prove that these sites were frauds?

Also, I enjoyed the film and thought it was very informative.

Well done.

Somebody should do part II of this

Hey folks,

We need to hit 100 subs on our youtube channel to take advantage of their live streaming. If we get there, I will be hosting some free live streamed viewings with a few of the people that appeared in the project. These will include Q&A and some giveaways.

Scott

Just wanted to say that I thought the doco was fantastic and well worth the $6.

I followed the whole thing from afar and am by no means a regular poker player and decided to buy this after hearing EG and Fosco on the podcast. I thought it was incredibly informative and also very entertaining.

Also could not believe the head of hair that Fosco is sporting. I thought it was a wig!

i know for a fact ted forrest owned a large stake in UB - did his name come up at all ?

The revision is done and up at ultimatebeatmovie.com

Biggest change is reordering all the historical stuff in one linear time sequence, moving the cheating account stuff into a single sequence and adding some narrative for laypeople. I feel like it is a better presentation but have watched the thing so many times, I'm not really able to be objective. Also made some corrections based on forwarded information. Some color fixes, audio leveling and added a few new graphics while deleting some others.

Vimeo makes it real easy to do changes, but I obviously won't be working on this for the rest of my days. If people identify glaring things that need fixing, let me know. I am still adding to the credits for instance so that will occur over time without announcement.

If you purchased the film, you have immediate access to the new version. If you are willing to sit through it again, I'm interested in your feedback.

Cool, thanks for the update EG. Will be good to re-watch.