Cheating Investigated at UltimateBet
Since the Absolute Poker cheating scandal first came to light in the fall of 2007, numerous players have made
allegations that cheating was also taking place at UltimateBet. The two sites are sister companies, both owned by Tokwiro Enterprises at the hand of former Mohawk Grand Chief Joe Norton. After months of players making complaints to UltimateBet, the company has confirmed that suspicious activity has occurred.The allegations were brought to UltimateBet’s attention by concerned players, the Kahnawake Gaming Commission, and multiple posts on internet forums. All of the concerns seemed to center around one particular player – “NioNio” – who showed irregular and unusually high winnings before that account was deleted. Everyone suggested that NioNio might have had access to players’ hole cards, as did the superusers in the Absolute Poker scandal.
In response, UltimateBet released the following statement on March 6th:
On January 12, 2008, UltimateBet was alerted to allegations that a player with the online handle “NioNio” exhibited abnormally high winning statistics and was accused of having an unfair advantage during play. These allegations were made both directly to UltimateBet by concerned players and the KGC, and indirectly through several web forums. The allegations also included reports of suspicious activity concerning the deletion of the NioNio account and other accounts that may have been related to this scheme.
We immediately launched an extensive inquiry involving an independent third-party expert to review hundreds of thousands of hand histories, all of which were promptly locked down and made available to this expert. The initial findings of our third-party expert confirm that the NioNio account’s winning statistics were indeed abnormal, and we have expanded the investigation to look into whether an unfair advantage existed, how such a scheme might have been perpetrated, and whether additional accounts beyond those of NioNio were involved.
UltimateBet is in regular communications and contact with its regulatory authority, The Kahnawake Gaming Commission (KGC), and will continue to cooperate fully with that body.
UltimateBet is determined to complete a full and thorough investigation. We pride ourselves on providing a safe, secure playing environment for our customers. The investigation has proven to be extremely complex and, therefore, has been more extensive and taken much longer than initially expected. We continue to aggressively pursue the matter and will communicate the findings of our full investigation to our regulatory authority and to our customer base as soon as practicable.
According to the UltimateBet release, the site was informed of the suspicions only one day after the Kahnawake Gaming Commission released its final decision regarding the Absolute Poker cheating scandal. If the timing seems suspicious in itself, it is.
As the poker community did for months after cheating was discovered at Absolute Poker, it waits for the results of a third-party investigation now at UltimateBet.
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