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Absolute Disaster For Online Poker - 11-09-07
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Author: Marc Weinberg
November 9 - The Absolute poker scandal is the dominant story for online poker in 2007 eclipsing even the forced ban on US poker players by publicly traded online card rooms like Party Poker, Paradise Poker, and the rest of the European gang. The two tales are linked in a sense because privately held online gambling firms are not subject to the same regulatory rigours, and are therefore more susceptible to corruption and cheating.
The lack of transparency in the way that Absolute Poker has handled their internal security breach turned a serious matter into a potentially disastrous one, not only for the Costa Rican firm but for online poker as a whole. The latest statement issued by the company last night will have gone a long way to fixing problems that were largely self-created, but did it come in time?
In the statement Absolute Poker makes the first official estimate of what was stolen from players by internal cheats. The amount given is $800,000.
Absolute Poker goes on to say that they have reimbursed those players who were swindled double that amount, with $1.6 million dollars handed out in refunds.
The cheating went on for 40 days, with the first occurrence on August 14th, 2007, and it is categorically stated that no outside parties could have been responsible. The manipulation of the software could only have been the work of an authorized Absolute Poker employee.
The following player accounts are known to have been involved in the scam: potripper, graycat, steamroller, payup, supercard55, romnaldo.
The only way Absolute Poker can ever be trusted again, and I'm not saying that is a given by any stretch, is to continue in this manner and expose every bit of information they uncover. They should also do their best to make Mark Seif's hand histories available to the public, because those rumors that he cheated on their site aren't going to go away if they are ignored.
The internet was made for conspiracy theorists and in this case they were spot on the money. Who knew they had a case?
Related Poker Articles And News Items:
> PlayersOnly Poker Super Bowl Package Offer - 12-12-07
> Online Poker Cheating On Full Tilt - 12-03-07
> All Africa Poker Tournament A Small Success - 11-22-07
> Gus Hansen Wins $1.5M In Two Days On Full Tilt - 11-16-07
> Pacific Poker Players To Get Sports Betting - 11-06-07
> Barry Greenstein Goes To Bat For Online Poker - 10-31-07
> Absolute Poker Cheating Scam Update - 10-23-07
> Absolute Poker Ends Their Denial And Seeks Help - 10-17-07
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