Updated Cliff Notes On Absolute Poker Scandal (18th October)

[mattnxtc]

Now this is a great time to explain how using mathematics it was established that these accounts were initially suspicious. If not for the stats found in poker tracker with their aggression factors, these people might never have been caught...This a great start to showing how skill was overcome by cheating.

[entertainme]

Absolute I don't believe that anyone in security could have looked at those accounts and determined there was no cheating and no chip dumping. You tried to cover it up and failed when more irrefutable evidence came out, (the complete hand history.)

If you want to know how to survive this as a company, look to Tylenol. Their complete transparency with the public during the poisoning is studied in business schools today.

You screwed up big time. You need to reveal all the details, return the funds, prosecute if at all possible the perpetrators, rebuild your management from the ground up.

IF you choose to do this and then go forward to ensure Absolute has better transparency and security than the industry standard, you can survive, and even come out better in the end. Only this will save you.

Pocket5's It's time to put aside our forum differences and come together as a poker community. We're all disappointed with the results of their meeting at Absolute. However, these guys took a stand early and got on a plane to Costa Rica to see if they could make any progress. I'm sure there was much more to the conversation than included in the blog post, including pressing the impossibility of the play of these accounts. Absolute is in total defense mode and decided to stonewall. Short of holding a gun to their head, I don't think there was more P5 could do to get them to come clean. P5 is on our side in this fight. Let's act like it. Give credit where credit is due.

Industry Transparency It's ridiculous to me that we're a month into this scandal and we're still in the process of trying to determine who owns who, who is management, etc. Players trust these companies with millions of dollars. As an industry, you all need to step up your transparency. In this regards, cheers to the UK who by making it legal and making the companies public have greatly increased transparency and accountability.

2p2 Watching this unfold, I have even more respect for the intelligence of this community. Mad props to all involved. We all know who they are.

[NoMeansYes_]

[ QUOTE ]
Sorry for spamming, but the story is up on MSNBC now:

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/21364557/

[/ QUOTE ]


its not spamming it can only help

[RiverFenix]

Can anyone fill me in on the connection between Scott Tom & AP owners and what is says about the owners (Tokwiro) on APs page? I'm talking to someone at a major news outlet and I'm just trying to give them some basic information before I get them in contact w/ one of the 2p2 investigators.

[Injection]

Ex-Chief Joe T. Norton is also on the board of TeKnoWave Inc., a Canadian Aboriginal IT training program.

He appears a couple more times as Joe/Joseph but for one-two defunct sites.

http://www.zoominfo.com/Search/PersonDet...92-58df2a416a03

[MatteyA28]

[ QUOTE ]
This series of events could be very good or very bad for online poker. I think it could turn out very bad. Millions of losing players may think 'they were cheated' and not come back to online poker.

This may also add fuel for politicians wanting to ban online poker and those 'on the fence'. They may state something to the effect 'see this is why the legislation was passed and we are trying to ban online poker altogether. You can never be sure about cheating online and we need to do everything we can to 'protect our citizens''. Or some other similar political bs statements. They already had the chance to regulate and tax online gambline and declined. In this sense I am very glad to be a Libertarian!

Thank you,

Jim Kuhn

[/ QUOTE ]

These are some very good points but are very pessimistic IMO. A lot of good can come from this. People who are not aware that online poker has been baned by the US may find out. Hopefully this will spread the word about the governments "big brother knows best" attitude towards internet poker. Could it be the spark needed to get these laws repealed or serious reform to take place? Maybe. It is a longshot but it could happen.

I posted this the last thread but I still want to see the PPA come out with some sort of statement. They need to show how online poker should be legal and the regulations that should be put into place to ensure that the American public is not scammed out of thousands of dollars again. Prohibition sure as hell did not stop America from drinking and the UIGEA sure didn't stop people from playing poker. It needs to be reinstated and regulated and the PPA needs to step up and use the Absolute poker situation as proof why.

[Python49]

Bad news though is that the site realistically could just continue denying all accusations and survive just fine. If they admit that upper executives were involved in a huge cheating scandal then this will reach mass media outlets as actual confirmation of cheating. This would have a bigger likelihood of scaring off fish and ruining the site than if they were to just keep denying accusations and claim no wrongdoing to keep the story from blowing up (with admitted guilt rather than circumstantial evidence to people outside of poker). Since the average fish/joe won't be aware of why the evidence collected on 2p2 is so incriminating, they will just write it off as lacking credibility. Who would the general public believe more, the website or random posters on the internet.

They will be able to get away with this too because if they manage to keep the general public/fish under wraps then they keep the fish pool which ensures the regulars/multi tablers/pros to stay at the site too. You don't actually believe that a site with complete fish will be sharkless do you? I mean look at Iketoys. If there are fish, there will be sharks, so they will be making the decision thats in the best interest of keeping their fish/averages players because in keeping those, they keep the pros.

For them to openly admit the site was compromised well now fish have heard from the horses mouth that there was cheating going on and won't play, and obviously the regulars won't either.

That's just the reality of the situation IMO even though there's nothing i'd love more than to see the truth brought out and AP admit to what really went on. I would also love to be proved wrong in that if AP were to try to sweep this under the rug it would not salvage their business moreso than doing the right thing, coming clean, apologizing and ensuring to fix their security leaks.

[bottomset]

[ QUOTE ]
That he was an early bust has caused thought before.
We know the cheater takes spots he has advantages at times without regard to making sure a safe card comes. The TT vs 88 hand comes to mind for eleventy billion blinds.

It would be very interesting to see how those bustouts happened. So far nobody has come forward who was on those tables at the time.


Fox: I can't tell if you are asking me or asking the person who typed that. My reply was saying "no it isn't misleading. what's misleading is not realizing the entity in this case is both owner and customer".

[/ QUOTE ]

wasn't one of the 8's was dead in the TT vs 88 hand, so I think he had something like 92-96% equity

[MatteyA28]

Looks like the Joe Torre thing kills any chance of this appearing on ESPN. Gonna be scanning other networks for anything about this.

[SL__72]

I believe Scott Tom was one of the founders and Tokwiro are the current owners, not 100% sure though.