By Alexis Russell

09/19/2008

              The GOP has been trying to find reasons against legalizing online poker but it seems the poker rooms have been doing it for them.  Yet another online poker cheating scheme has come to light this time involving UltimateBet Poker.  All this news comes as some players are still feeling the sting of the cheating scandal less than a year ago at Absolute Poker, UltimateBet’s sister company.

                But this cheating scheme is far beyond what has previously been seen in scope and size.  As early as nine months ago players were questioning some odd playing that was going on within the UltimateBet forums but they had no idea what they had touched upon.  Still they were more than two years too late since the cheating began on or before January 2005 on through to January this year.

                This 3 year run of cheating is longer than any incident before and is part of the reason the scandal is so huge.  The amount of the claim against UltimateBet is also unprecedented at $75 million, though this is only an indicator of what the damages could have been.  No official numbers have been released but one insider has said that the claim doesn’t correlate with the amount that’s estimated to have been stolen.

                The cheating scheme involved UltimateBet’s software that was owned and licensed by Excapsa Software Inc. of Toronto a software provider to numerous poker rooms.  Cheaters were able to hack into the system and see their opponents hole cards which is very similar to what happened with Absolute Poker. 

                Though UltimateBet has publically stated that they will refund anyone who lost money many are doubtful that everyone will get their stolen money back, even after an outside investigation is complete.  And it’s certain that this cheating scandal will be enough to make players leery of playing at UltimateBet which has currently been one of the top 10 poker rooms.  If anything this should serve as an example to the American government that online poker doesn’t need to be outlawed it needs to be regulated.