This question poses itself to a lot of new and prospective online poker players but also every now and then to those amongst us who are online poker veterans. In an age where credit card fraud and other criminal activities are omnipresent in the internet one has to ask the question, why online poker should be any different. The thing is: it isn’t.
Just like anywhere else there have been various accusations against specific poker rooms, some incredible incidents have since surfaced and tens of millions of dollars had to be paid in compensation to deceived poker players. The biggest and most famous incident so far was clearly the scandal that involved so called superusers – Absolute Poker as well as Ultimate Bet were the two poker rooms where players were cheated out of millions and millions of dollars.
The fraudulent action was practically identical as in both poker rooms so called superusers cheated in online poker games and made a huge profit at other players’ expense. In both cases the deceived players got their money reimbursed but only after the players could gather enough evidence through their own research. These scandals showed that the U.S. ban on online poker caused companies like Absolute Poker and Ultimate Bet to simply open some shady back doors. They registered their companies offshore and since then pay continuously for “official” licenses from companies that do not much more than simply sell them a seal that basically means nothing but feigns a false sense of security for players. When the superuser scandal became public everyone realised that these “official” control organs did anything but control the poker rooms in question and that they actually had neither the desire nor the possibility to prosecute anyone for their fraudulent behaviour.
What is a Superuser?
Generally speaking a superuser is someone who has more access rights than a normal user and thus gains advantage. In the case of Absolute Poker and Ultimate Bet these superusers could see all the Hole Cards on the table. You don’t have to be a genius to realise that even the worst player will become a great champion if he knows his opponents’ cards. The incident involved huge amounts of money and the first accusations of cheated players were labelled as defamations and whining. After a closer inspection however the community of poker players was able to gather more and more indications and was able to track an odd player behaviour after watching thousands and thousands of the hands in question.
When those suspicious facts became too many to simply let the whole thing die down, lady luck played her part: A player requested a hand list of the suspicious user and an inexperienced Absolute Poker employee sent a file that had the hands with all the cards visible. That made judging the plays and the whole situation so much easier as that player now had the ability to see the table as they suspected this superuser saw it. It all clicked and finally, after months of denying, the Absolute Poker management had to admit to the fact that there was a superuser and fraudulent action had taken place. While this superuser account was only able to watch tables he simply passed on his information to his accomplice who played with a normal user account.
Looking back there were more than just a few obvious indications for Absolute Poker to assume the accusations that had been brought forward were justified (for example the fact that this superuser and his partner in crime always switched tables together) – nonetheless the management did what they could to dismiss this all as conspiracy theories. Eventually they had to admit that two very senior employees (Scott Tom and AJ Green) were guilty of these accusations and while Absolute Poker complied with reimbursing the cheated players their money, they also saw to it that no law suits were filed against those two. Up until now no one has been arrested or brought to trial. This whole situation showed that a legalisation of online poker in the U.S. would not only allow them to profit financially due to the taxes paid but also help to be able to effectively control and monitor online poker companies and eventually bring responsible people to justice. As of now none of the deceived U.S. players can really sue the people responsible because they themselves were not allowed to play online poker in the first place.
Coming Soon…
The second part of this blog topic will take a closer look at the current situation of online poker security. While several poker rooms simply proved their reliability and integrity over many years or are operating in a very clearly and strictly defined legal environment (like bwin Poker – situated in Austria where online poker is legal and state-controlled) there are unfortunately still enough online poker providers that have a bad reputation among insiders, be it because of shady business in the past or the fact that judging by the number of players over the past few years they should not be able to sustain themselves let alone gain money.
We will examine how likely fraudulent behaviour is for (so far) respectable rooms and what you can do to help defending yourself against possible fraud. We will also take a look at how safe your preferred poker room might be and whether security can actually be guaranteed when a famous professional poker player stands for the quality of a poker room with his name.
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