Absolute Poker and Disney
 

In July, I hit Absolute Poker’s bad beat jackpot for $162,628.21. In the following months, I was cheated out of a substantial sum of money at the AP high limit tables. I do not believe that Absolute Poker has sufficiently compensated me for my damages related to the cheating, nor do I believe that the company has repaired the breach of trust caused by the cheating and subsequent corporate response.

After several weeks of attempting to resolve my concerns via private communication with Absolute Poker, I have become convinced that the company will not take any further steps to repair the situation unless it is publicly pressured to do so. To that end, I have emailed the following statement to espnpr@espn.com:



Disney in business with poker cheats?

On October 19, ABC News(a division of the Walt Disney Company) reported the story of how “a network of professional gamblers turned amateur sleuths followed the money in what appears to have been a series of rigged online poker games” at the online poker Web site AbsolutePoker.com.(http://abcnews.go.com/Technology/sto...500&page=1) As detailed in the article, Absolute Poker insiders “stole between $500,000 and $1 million over a two-week period” and were only exposed thanks to the diligent efforts of online poker players who pieced together the clues for themselves in spite of Absolute Poker’s stonewalling and denials.

And yet, in a case of the corporate left hand possibly not knowing what the right hand is doing, ESPN(also a division of the Walt Disney Company) continues to air advertisements for the Absolute Poker.net “poker school” during its popular and ubiquitous World Series of Poker broadcasts. As detailed on their respective websites, AbsolutePoker.com (http://absolutepoker.com/media/aboutus.asp) and AbsolutePoker.net (http://absolutepoker.net/about-us/Index.html) are owned by the same company- a company that ABC News has exposed for cheating and stealing from its own players.

Can it possibly be Walt Disney Company policy to knowingly accept advertising money on its ESPN sports network from a company that ABC News has exposed as stealing from its own customers?



The Walt Disney Company highly values its good name and reputation, and in the scheme of things, the revenue stream of a minor advertiser like Absolute Poker is not worth the bad publicity of being associated with this scandal.

Re: Absolute Poker and Disney
 

[ QUOTE ]
The Walt Disney Company highly values its good name and reputation

[/ QUOTE ]

bahahahhahahahahhahahahahahha
ahahahahahhahahahaa
ahahahahhahahahahahahahahahhaha

wait, wait

hahahahahahhahahahahaha
ahahahahahhahahahahhaha

Re: Absolute Poker and Disney
 

LOLOL @ cheated

Youre a 1/2 player who thought he could jump into any game he wanted and win

Re: Absolute Poker and Disney
 

Absolute Poker has admitted that I was cheated.

Re: Absolute Poker and Disney
 

how much did you lose, and how much did you get paid back?

Re: Absolute Poker and Disney
 

I don't know how much I lost to cheaters, which is precisely the point.

I know that within 4 days of hitting the Jackpot, I was playing in a $150/$300 game against Graycat, a confirmed cheater. Absolute Poker claims that their investigation has determined that Graycat was not yet cheating at that point, but this is the same Absolute Poker that just a few weeks earlier claimed that their investigation had indicated that cheating was impossible and had not occurred.

Re: Absolute Poker and Disney
 

Than Absolute Poker has NOT in fact admitted that you were cheated

DUCY?

Re: Absolute Poker and Disney
 

Greycat, in everyones experience, WAS NOT cheating in that time period, he was a huge loser

Re: Absolute Poker and Disney
 

Absolute, has in fact, admitted I was cheated. They sent an email and made a credit to my account and everything.

Re: Absolute Poker and Disney
 

Sounds to me like Calvin made the bone head mistake of playing way out of his league and lost a lot of money. He realized that he was an idiot and should have never put that money up for risk and is now trying every way he can to get that money back. IMO

Re: Absolute Poker and Disney
 

Brad Booth would buy 1000 lottery tickets to get the money back.

Re: Absolute Poker and Disney
 

[ QUOTE ]
Absolute, has in fact, admitted I was cheated. They sent an email and made a credit to my account and everything.

[/ QUOTE ]

So wait...then whats the problem?

Edit- I get it. You have no records and are tryin to squeeze them for more then u actually lost

Re: Absolute Poker and Disney
 

[ ] OP was cheated
[x] OP got owned by a pre-superuser fish

Re: Absolute Poker and Disney
 

[ QUOTE ]
I don't know how much I lost to cheaters, which is precisely the point.


[/ QUOTE ]

how much did you lose IN THE GAME and how much did they pay you back

Re: Absolute Poker and Disney
 

calvinhobbes, you just sucked...

Re: Absolute Poker and Disney
 

[x] bunch of idiots who cant recognize a gimmick account

Re: Absolute Poker and Disney
 

[ QUOTE ]
[x] bunch of idiots who cant recognize a gimmick account

[/ QUOTE ]

Re: Absolute Poker and Disney
 

Perhaps I shouldn't have posted this under my own screen name. I was hoping it would get more attention for the actual subject at hand, which is how to apply pressure to Absolute Poker.

Yes, I lost money playing in Absolute Poker's high stakes games.

Some of it was due to being cheated, some of it wasn't.

The track record of Absolute Poker's security department gives me no reason to have confidence that they have provided me with an accurate accounting of how much money I lost to cheaters.

No, I was not down to Graycat in the "pre-cheating window" period. I used him as an example (known cheating account playing after exploitable software had been added to the system) of why one would have reason to be suspicious of play outside of the admitted "cheating window."

All of this is secondary to the fact that I WAS CHEATED BY ABSOLUTE POKER MANAGEMENT AND THE COMPANY THEN RELEASED OFFICIAL STATEMENTS ATTEMPTING TO COVER UP THE THEFT.

Even if I were able to have conclusive proof that the amount refunded to me is equal to the net profits off me of all cheating accounts, I would not consider that Absolute Poker as a company had made amends for their attempt to steal my money.

In a nutshell, Absolute Poker stole my money. Absolute Poker lied about stealing my money. Absolute Poker got caught. Absolute Poker then gave me a refund and said "Trust us, that's all we stole."

Re: Absolute Poker and Disney
 

[ QUOTE ]
[x] bunch of idiots who cant recognize a gimmick account

[/ QUOTE ]

If someone wasted their time to concoct a random lie such as this, the joke's on them not on us.

Re: Absolute Poker and Disney
 

My question to Calvin is are you American? Canadian? Most countries consider online gambling illegal even if they still allow you to play. Therefore you have no legal recourse anyway and your actually breaking the law.

Re: Absolute Poker and Disney
 

[ QUOTE ]

In a nutshell, Absolute Poker stole my money. Absolute Poker lied about stealing my money. Absolute Poker got caught. Absolute Poker then gave me a refund and said "Trust us, that's all we stole."


[/ QUOTE ]

you forgot the last chapter, which is your feeble attempt at retribution. by the way, how much did you lose in the game? and how much did they pay you back? why can't you just tell us?

Re: Absolute Poker and Disney
 

Although I dispute your premise, I am not attempting legal recourse. I am attempting economic recourse. Those of us who were cheated, or who take offense at an online poker company cheating its players and then failing to come clean and make amends, have the ability to provide public pressure to Absolute Poker's business to prompt them to change their course or suffer the economic consequences.

One of Absolute Poker's most valuable assets is its brand. One of the main ways in which that brand is developed and maintained is through World Series of Poker advertising that reaches the casual player.

One of Disney's most valuable assets is its brand. Disney attempts to associate that brand with wholesome, family-friendly entertainment. Public association with a dishonest offshore poker room does not fit well with Disney's desired brand image.

Re: Absolute Poker and Disney
 

Ok so now I get it

Youre just several weeks to late to hop on the "HATE AP" banwagon and want to start your own?

Re: Absolute Poker and Disney
 

As much as possible, I prefer not to disclose personal financial information on internet message boards. I will say that I have been refunded a five digit amount (seven including decimal points). I think that is sufficient information to establish my standing in this discussion.

Re: Absolute Poker and Disney
 

[ QUOTE ]
Ok so now I get it

Youre just several weeks to late to hop on the "HATE AP" banwagon and want to start your own?

[/ QUOTE ]

Pretty much. I'm not sure why that would detract from the validity of my arguments, however.

Re: Absolute Poker and Disney
 

I had a peppered turkey sandwich for lunch with kettle cooked bbq chips, a pickle, and some chicken noodle soup.

it was kinda big, but delicious and i must say that it definitely hit the spot.

Re: Absolute Poker and Disney
 

So if you know who the cheaters are, and you believe to know the time period in which you were cheated, then use your PokerTracker software to see how much you lost to those individuals during that time span. This should essentially be the same thing AP did to refund you the aforementioned 5 digit amount (oh... 7 with decimals, lol). This shouldnt be that hard to reconstruct.

For the obv reply, if you dont have a PT DB then i would definetly be requesting all HHs from Absolute and importing them into a new DB to start the detective work.

[ QUOTE ]
Ok so now I get it

Youre just several weeks to late to hop on the "HATE AP" banwagon and want to start your own?

[/ QUOTE ]
Kinda sounds like, IF THIS IS VALID, that he prolly had to wait a couple weeks for AP to investigate and then give him aforementioned 5 digit credit...

Last thing, why do you think you are owed more? How have you come to that conclusion, you were given an amount that AP says is correct. What evidense (i.e. PT DB) do you have that makes you think you were shorted? In other words how do you know $10,000.00 from $10,500.25?

Re: Absolute Poker and Disney
 

[ QUOTE ]
So if you know who the cheaters are, and you believe to know the time period in which you were cheated

[/ QUOTE ]

I know the cheaters that Absolute has admitted to, and the time period during which Absolute has admitted that I was cheated. This does not equal being able to know exactly how much I was cheated out of.

Re: Absolute Poker and Disney
 

Calvin,
Do you realize why people are giving you a hard time? You are basically saying, "ya they made retributions but it's not enough." People are asking how much you think is enough. You give no answer and say you really have no idea. So it comes off as you just wanting money back that you may have legitimately lost.

If you could say, I lost xx,xxx during that time period and they only gave me yy,yyy back, then people may side with you. As it is now you are coming off as a loser who just wants money he is not entitled to. Nobody is disagreeing that Absolute is terrible, but they can't just give everyone who was down in that time period everything they lost back.

Re: Absolute Poker and Disney
 

Calvin,

Ill stop the flames for just a minute.

You say youre not sure why it detract from the validity of your arguments.....Im not sure I see any arguement here.

I take it you dont have PokerTracker?

If you purchase it you can still import all of your hands(they are saved on your comp), after that you can see exactly how much you lost to the cheat accounts after the update.

Sure it sucks that what happened happened, and some people have def been getting dicked around with how much they got(I personally was only shorted about the amount of the promised interest...but a few have been shorted far more).

Im just saying that you coming on here and being like...."I didnt get a full refund...I just know it!" isnt going to accomplish much.

Go buy PT and import your hands. Go from there.

Re: Absolute Poker and Disney
 

Four questions:

1. Absolute Poker claims that $800,000 was stolen over a 40 day period beginning on August 14, 2007. What reason does anyone have for believing that those dates and dollar amounts represent the entirety of the cheating that has occurred?

2. Assuming that the $800,000 figure is accurate, what would be an appropriate amount for Absolute Poker to refund to its players, in light of the internal nature of the theft and Absolute's original official responses to the allegations?

3. Absolute Poker claims to have refunded $1,600,000, which works out to a refund of approximately $2 for every dollar stolen. Should one of the players who was most victimized by the cheaters be happy to have personally received a refund of approximately $1.01 for every dollar that was acknowledged as stolen?

4. If, more than a month after Absolute admitted the cheating occurred, a player is not satisfied with the company's response, what steps should that player take?

Re: Absolute Poker and Disney
 

Cliffnots: Retarded OP upset because you thinks AP owes him more money. How much? He's not really sure.

Re: Absolute Poker and Disney
 

1. No reason for me personally other then the play I experienced against the cheat accounts. Greycat and Steamroller were huge losers before the update and played drastically different and were huge winners after.

2. Totally personal beliefs

3. Again, personal beliefs, but no I dont think they should

4. Should take? I dont know. Can take? None

It boils down to this.
-AP has done what they are going to do and seems to be ignoring any further inquiries.
-They arent going under because of this
-The momentum against them is gone

This thread will do nothing for you, AP will look at it and laugh.

I doubt anyone will ever see the results of the "impartial audit"

Those who actually have some inside info have, for whatever reasons, neglected to release any of it.

Guess my point is I dont think anything more will ever come of this.

Re: Absolute Poker and Disney
 

Email I recieved from AP the other day



Dear Valued Customer,

We are writing to update you on events surrounding the recent security
breach on our site.

First, it is important to know that the security breach, which resulted
in unfair play, was resolved immediately after it was confirmed. The
known period of unfair playing was approximately 40 days in length,
beginning on August 14, 2007. We want to assure you that since that time,
AP’s sites have been and continue to be absolutely secure.

At this point, all players known to have been adversely impacted by the
security breach have been fully reimbursed with interest. The amount
that was illicitly ‘won’ by the illegitimate accounts was
approximately US $800,000. The amount reimbursed to players by us as a result
of the security breach to date was approximately US $1,600,000.

So far, the accounts known to have been involved are: potripper,
graycat, steamroller, doubledrag, payup, supercard55, and romnaldo. These
accounts have been closed. All players who played against these accounts
during the period in question have received refunds, plus interest, for
the net amounts lost.

This incident was a major shock to us and as a result we are continuing
our internal investigation and working on many initiatives to improve
the transparency and security of our business. In addition, the
Kahnawake Gaming Commission has engaged a third party auditor to review all
potentially affected transactions and to verify that the security breach
has been closed. If further investigation reveals that any other
accounts were fraudulent, we will refund any other affected players in the
same manner.

Obviously, we cannot refund players for games where there is no
evidence of an unfair advantage. However, if you have:

1) played and lost against these accounts during the period in question
and you have not received a refund please provide us with the
specifics (i.e. Dates and descriptions of tourney or games played against these
accounts) so we can further investigate your claims.

2) If you believe another account had an unfair advantage, please
provide us with the account name so we can investigate that account and
specific games or tournaments that you would like us to investigate.

Also, with any such request, please provide your full legal name,
address, and the name(s) of your account(s). We will process your inquiries
and respond as soon as we complete our verification. Please note that
although it will take time to process these requests, we are
conducting our internal audit as quickly as we can.

We deeply regret the damage that has been done to our players and to
our credibility within the poker community by this unfortunate incident.
We are committed to doing the right thing for our loyal customers,
affiliates, employees, shareholders and business partners, and we will
continue to work with our gaming commission and its independent auditor to
bring this incident into the full light of day and to right any wrongs.


Please understand that we are experiencing a high volume of inquiries
and we are working hard to compile specific data and process them as
quickly as possible.

Thank you for your patience and continued support.

Absolute Poker Management





Total Joke? Yes

Matters in their eyes? Nope

Matters in reality? Prob not

Re: Absolute Poker and Disney
 

[ QUOTE ]
1. No reason for me personally other then the play I experienced against the cheat accounts. Greycat and Steamroller were huge losers before the update and played drastically different and were huge winners after.

2. Totally personal beliefs

3. Again, personal beliefs, but no I dont think they should

4. Should take? I dont know. Can take? None

It boils down to this.
-AP has done what they are going to do and seems to be ignoring any further inquiries.
-They arent going under because of this
-The momentum against them is gone

This thread will do nothing for you, AP will look at it and laugh.

I doubt anyone will ever see the results of the "impartial audit"

Those who actually have some inside info have, for whatever reasons, neglected to release any of it.

Guess my point is I dont think anything more will ever come of this.

[/ QUOTE ]

I disagree with you on point 4. I do believe there is action that can be taken. My email to ESPN was one such action. I believe that there are others that can be taken and am open to other suggestions. I am personally motivated enough by the amount of money that was stolen from me and my frustration with Absolute's response to attempt to get the ball rolling again. If that means a few people make fun of me for being an idiot, so be it.

Re: Absolute Poker and Disney
 

so you were playing super high stakes without pokertracker and a hud?

Re: Absolute Poker and Disney
 

To clarify, yes, I do have PokerTracker. Yes, the amount refunded to me seems to be in the ballpark of my PokerTracker losses to the acknowledged accounts on the acknowledged days. I am not saying that Absolute has not refunded me what they claim to have refunded me. I am saying that I do not have any reason to trust that cheating was confined to the cases they claim, and that even it was, the amount that they refunded me does not constitute appropriate compensation.

Re: Absolute Poker and Disney
 

Calvin I lost lot's to the supposed cheaters and received about 2/3 of what I have shown lost on my pt. What I did was talk with the highest level of management you can at ap and tell them you are shorted if so you are. Then as I did send them screen shots of all of the players played that are cheated accounts. I still haven't received the rest of my money from ap but at least the COO of the company has emailed me several times that he is working on getting it to me as soon as possible (which is forever it seems).

Seems to me that you think other players that we unknowningly have played agianst could have cheated you or I out of money. From this point other than the players we have looked at it seems very unlikely we can make a case for anyother players than the ones we got.

My advice to you is send in your screenshots all of the known players you played agianst and do your best to get your full amount of money back.

Re: Absolute Poker and Disney
 

If you could PM me with the COO's email address I would appreciate it. I have been trying for weeks to get a response from Absolute other than recycled press releases.

Re: Absolute Poker and Disney
 

[ QUOTE ]
To clarify, yes, I do have PokerTracker. Yes, the amount refunded to me seems to be in the ballpark of my PokerTracker losses to the acknowledged accounts on the acknowledged days. I am not saying that Absolute has not refunded me what they claim to have refunded me. I am saying that I do not have any reason to trust that cheating was confined to the cases they claim, and that even it was, the amount that they refunded me does not constitute appropriate compensation.

[/ QUOTE ]

There's 2 points to address here:

1) You think more ppl were cheating than AP and others have discovered
I dont think anyone denies that this could have been more wide spread than ppl think/have discovered... however there is absolutely no way of knowing without concrete proof to show AP. So unless you have some there's not much to be gained from this angle.

2) You think even for the current scope of the investigation you were not compensated enough for your troubles.
If you think "the amount refunded to me seems to be in the ballpark of my PokerTracker losses to the acknowledged accounts on the acknowledged days" then i guess you're unhappy with the so called "interest" that everyone received? If this is the case then why do you think you deserve more than everyone else got? Or do you think everyone else should be getting more "interest" aswell? Personally i dont think anything but a special added money freeroll or something for the victims should've been put in place instead of "interest" and they should keep their $800k and spend it on something like... oh i dont know.... SECURITY?. How can you justify that they owe you more than what you were cheated out of?

I think your post above pretty much closes the matter for you, you're just trying to get anything you can out of AP for your own benefit...IMO