Going Absolutely Full Tilt

CC did a nice review of the facts and there is an article up on our main page and then Linda covers it. I didn’t want to beat too much on the situation but it is certainly a current issue and looks to remain that way long into the future. There are two seperate situations. To some degree, it is a good new <> bad news issue. Who’s at fault? Once again, lay it at the feet of our elected officials.

The weaker issue is Thevoid one – or however his hip-hop ass spells it. It is the classic “you are going to be easily caught, sucker.” issue of playing multiple accounts in a tournament. IP trapping is so documented that qualifies the idiot doing it for a Darwin Award. FullTilt caught him. Surprise! Surprise!

Of course, anyone can have multiple IP addresses for a very low cost – cable, DSL, and regular phone. That gives the typical location the potential for three IP addresses. That isn’t addressable by any of the tracking software. Are there people doing this? Wouldn’t be a surprise.

The other situation is far more serious. It has the appearance of being an inside job. That circumvents all the normal controls available to poker sites. It indicates a site that one cannot place any trust in. And, it is a bigger problem for those of us with U.S. based accounts. How do you trust you money to a company that appears unable to protect your account properly?

It is also a worse problem than most have mentioned. Absolute poker is owned by Blast Off Limited which is a private company operating out of Malta. Its other property/network is Ultimate Bet. If you cannot trust the one, you cannot trust the other. That leaves us with three major site – Bodog, Full Tilt, and Poker Stars.

What you wish to do is your choice. I just withdrew (check) my funds from Ultimate Bet. There was space for a comment and I told them I could not trust their parent company. As luck would have it, that is the site that I had the most funds on and that was the profitable one. Over the years it has been one of my favorite and certainly more profitable sites. UB was also a good site for clearing bonus – in fact my favorite there too. I did have to work to find a stud game there; but, after the withdrawal, that is no longer a problem after I dump $0.71.

There is the old joke about the guy being told he’s playing in a crooked game and replies, “Yeah, but it is the only game around.” I’d feel that dumb to be playing on UB until this is satisfactorily resolved. In the meantime, telling them I’m voting with my feet adds pressure for them resolving the issue properly.

Why do I lay this at the feet of the UIGEA – Wire Act – posturing politicians? That pretty simple. When they went to prohibitions, they exposed the citizens to the Capone era types that will always seek to take our money. Players must always be vigilant but never more so than today. Had the government licensed and audited the marketplace, we would have added safeguards instead of an invitation to cheat the citizenry. This might have still happened with good audit controls in place. But, it would have given federal law enforcement the opportunity to investigate and prosecute. So we’ve been robbed of such protection in the name of special interest and Political Action Committee influence.

Kahnawake Gaming Commission is also very quiet to date. Absolute and Ultimate Bet (Blast Off Limited properties) are hosted on their servers. They hype the following on their main page: Integrity, Accountability, Security, and Community. They say that their charter is: The Kahnawake Gaming Commission, established on 10 Ohiarí:ha/June 1996 pursuant to the provisions of the Kahnawake Gaming Law, MCR No. 26 / 1996-97, is presently comprised of three members appointed by the Mohawk Council of Kahnawake: David Montour (Chairperson), Melanie Mayo, and Kevin Kennedy. The Commission is empowered to regulate and control gaming and gaming related activities conducted within and from the Mohawk Territory of Kahnawake in accordance with the highest principles of honesty and integrity.

That represent a very nice piece of income for our Mohawk brothers. Are they up to the task of resolving this without letting that impinge on their investigative activities? They are remarkably quiet at this point. I would have thought their would have at least been some lip service to their credo at this point. After all, they have access to the servers that were used to possibly perpetrate the illegal activity. Have they frozen the information those servers generated? Have they contacted or been contacted by Canadian law enforcement? That deadly silence doesn’t bode well.

ADDENDUM:

Played what evidently will be my final session on Ultimate Bet – at least for a time. Not much to report. It was one of those hold your own sessions. I did make a bit on Full Tilt. Haven’t played on Stars for a few days. Figured I’d punish their RNG which has punished me of late. LOL

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Interested in how the Feds are implementing the UIGEA? Then read all 52 pages here.

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Quick session on FT this morning: 20 hands +16 BB (Slowly coming back.) I’d been doing similar and then seen it bled away. Thinking I need to book some wins and if this is what it takes… My decision was easier because of the aggression at the table. I don’t mind aggression — profited from it — but it does increase the variance.

This entry was posted on Thursday, October 18th, 2007 at 5:33 am and is filed under Pols and other Crooks. Responses are currently closed, but you can trackback from your own site.