Cheating at AP, updated cliff notes

[El_Hombre_Grande]

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They already have suffered, and will continue to suffer, regardless of how this concludes.

This whole thing made them look both stupid and dishonest on so many levels.

You guys are living in a dreamworld if you think AP will admit to a superuser. They won't. They might as well turn off their servers and shut down if they admit that. Perhaps doing so might be the best plan of action for those of us at 2+2, but it would be suicide in regards of how it would relate to the casual poker player. If AP admits, "Yeah, there was a superuser", every donkey who lost money on the site -- all the way down to the $.02/$.04 games -- will attribute their losses to being cheated by a house account. It would be a complete disaster for them.

We have to find a compromise here, if we want any sort of resolution.

If you're not going to be satisfied with anything but a complete mea culpa on AP's part, you'd have a better chance waiting to see flying pigs and hell frozen over. You ahave to look at this from a realistic perspective, and what we can honestly expect and not expect from this.

Let's be serious, guys. The return of the money would mean far more than just a goodwill return of funds. If AP determines that they will suffer MORE from doing the right thing than their current platform of denial, then they will continue down the road of denial.

Why do I think lightning won't strike again? Everyone will be watching. Everyone will be suspicious. This whole thing almost brought them down once. Trust me -- if they get themselves out of this, there's no way they will ever risk this happening again. Even if security wasn't competent enough to catch this initially, you can bet they will make the necessary adjustments now.

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There is a clear and honorable path for AP to take here, one that will actually solidify it as a company with integrity. They are not doomed as we speak now, but their choices in the next 72 hours (or less) will probably seal their fate, for better or worse. I do not think that they are "damned if they do or don't." I think just the opposite. But they have to act pretty much immediately, and they have to be sincere, and prove that they are serious about providing an honest game and fixing the severe security issues at their site, through their actions.

The first action, of course, is that they should compensate the defrauded players. They should do this not as part of a "cover up", but because they have uncovered gross irregularities and because the games were compromised. But that's just the beginning, as no one could trust a company that just paid "hush money" when it was alleged that one of its current or ex executives defrauded players.

Next, I suppose they could continue to refuse to admit to a superuser; that is their choice. But to do so would be to continue to insult the intelligence of pretty much every knowledgeable poker player who has taken the time to review the video and the hands logs, together with the evidence that this account that was monitoring the table was in the hands of higher ups at absolute. Now, as Absolute has failed to refute these charges in any reasonable fashion, they can try to play this game or they can take the only possible avenue. They can come Absolutely clean (pun intended) and allow a complete independent actual third party audit --you know, the kind conducted by actual investigators or retired federal judges. We don't need to see an excuse sheet drafted by their own muppets. A full complete transparent investigation by a knowledgeable third party, with access to every document and everybody. This is absolutely necessary.

And finally, those individuals that have engaged in these "gross irregularities" must be dealt with in an appropriate manner. By that I mean in the manner you deal with individuals who defraud customers of grotesque sums of money. This means that Absolute needs to remove them from any and all capacities whatsover and cooperate with all appropriate criminal authorities.

If this happened, there would be little reason to not trust Absolute. They would have demonstrated through their actions that they are a company interested in protecting their customers and their customer's money.

I simply can't see ignoring this as an option. The correct business decsion is to stand up an resolve it.