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Russ Hamilton Cheats Online Poker Of Its Good Name
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Author: Marc
October 15 - Russ Hamilton won the World Series of Poker Main Event in 1994. It was the 25th anniversay of the event and to celebrate Binions offered the winner "his weight in silver". Unlucky for them back then Hamilton was a fat, greedy slob who weighed 330 lbs. Fast forward 14 years and it seems that although Hamilton is skinnier his avaricious bent is still very much alive as he has been named as the man behind the Ultimate Bet cheating scandal.
People are asking why he would do it as he was an original consultant back when the company was formed, a world class poker pro, and was earning a lot of money from the online poker room in his capacity as a super affiliate and as a consultant. Some were even under the impression that he was an owner of the site - and maybe he did have shares; the point is he was coining it from UB for years. Ah, but the extent was barely known. He did it because as the man behind the superuser cheating whereby the hole cards of other players are visible he got away with it for over FOUR YEARS, and that the amount of money reimbured so far is over SIX MILLION DOLLARS ($6.1 million officially to date), and they're not nearly finished paying back all the stiffed players just yet.
Here is the pertinent extract from the KGC report on the matter: "The Commission found clear and convincing evidence to support the conclusion that between the approximate dates of May 2004 to January 2008, Russell Hamilton, an individual associated with Ultimate Bet's affiliate program, was the main person responsible for and benefiting from the multiple cheating incidents."
This in tandem with the Absolute Poker superuser scandal, which has so many overlaps that one wonders if the same people were involved, has effectively destroyed the reputation of online poker and many of the poker professionals who endorse those sites.
What did Phil Hellmuth and Annie Duke know, and when did they know it? Russ Hamilton is their friend and partner in the Ultimate Bet business after all. He recruited Phil to Ultimate Bet in his role as a consultant for the site. Putting that aside as speculation the point remains that for FOUR YEARS this prick cheated people out of millions of dollars, proving that the greatest fear about online poker, namely the issue of fairness and whether it was legit, was very real. It wasn't paranoia, it was reality, and who are you to say that it isn't reality right now at the highest level online cash games?
Why would anyone in their right mind play high stakes poker online? The "auditing glitch" that existed at Ultimate Bet and Absolute Poker clearly exists at every single online poker room. Think about it - the cards that you are dealt is nothing more than a stream of code, and somewhere on the system that code can be seen. It is encrypted for you and I, but the guys that built it also built the encryption.
The greatest barrier to stop online poker operators from cheating is the argument that they're already making millions of dollars from us thanks to the rake, so why would they then play in the games as well and steal? Russ Hamilton provides that answer for you today: Just because you're full doesn't mean you're necessarily going to stop eating.
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> Full Tilt Poker Launches FTOPS IX - 08-09-08
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