Eight Players Have Sued Old Poker Site Ultimate Bet

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UB.comThis bit of poker news has the poker world simply saying that it’s “about time”.  After Black Friday hit and some of the largest online poker sites found themselves either not allowing online poker players from the United States, or not having enough players to be able to continue to run games; a large number of those players were searching for ways to get their money back.  This was the the story for players on the old site Ultimate Bet, and it seems that as we approach 9 months after the fact, that the players on UB are now fed up.  This is also paired with a pretty big cheating scandal that occurred back in 2008, and this is where our story comes in.

This led to eight of the bigger professional poker players who played on the site deciding to file a lawsuit against the controlling company of the ex-poker site.  The company is called Excapsa Software, Inc, and the players will be seeking damages for their role in the cheating scandal that came out back in 2008.  The players who are involved are Brad Booth, Thomas Koral, Daniel Ashman, Dave Lizmi, Greg Laverly, Joseph Sanders, Daniel Smith, and Dustin Woolf.  All of them listed specific amounts that they are filing for in their damage claims, which range between $20k for Smith and Koral, all the way to $500k for Booth and Lizmi.  All other players are in between those two numbers.

The scandal that is being mentioned here related to the the site and their controlling companies inside players using software to see players’ hole cards.  This led to them winning millions of dollars, and before long they were caught.  There are eight different Causes of Action in this suit, ranging from conspiracy and conversion, to things like fraud and negligence as well.  The players above are hopoing to get both “monetary relief” and “equitable relief”

While these players are definitely hoping that the site and their controlling company are punished for what they’ve done, they definitely want to get back the money that they lost from this situation as well.  It had to have taken a good amount of time for these players to put together the numbers that they feel they are owed, so we will see what the outcome of this lawsuit is.

Scandal Arises from Ultimate Bet

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poker hackerEvery poker player out there has heard of the online poker site Ultimate Bet.  The site was surrounded by scandal, and eventually was done in after Black Friday.  While the bulk of the attention went towards Full Tilt Poker and PokerStars, Ultimate Bet wasn’t far behind in terms of a scandal.  While Full Tilt and Stars owed their players quite a bit of money, Ultimate Bet owed money as well, but at this point players have essentially given up on any chances of getting that money back.  Once Black Friday had come and gone, players on UB had hoped that this was the end of the bad news.  Unfortunately it hasn’t come to an end just yet, as their was recently a new scandal that has come out of the wood works about the site.

It seems that someone went on to the large poker forum Two Plus Two, and released a large amount of personal data that related to different players’ accounts on Ultimate Bet.  The data was deleted with the post around 8 minutes after all was said and done, but players who clicked the link could get all of the information and store it to their computer within that time frame.  The list of things included that were given as far as personal information were things such as their Ultimate Bet screen name, full name, email address, mailing address, phone number, account balance, IP address, deposit methods used on the site, birth date, account number on Ultimate Bet (not bank accounts or credit cards), VIP status, affiliate status, and blacklist status.

It’s obviously very fortunate that this information did not include any type of bank account or credit/debit card number, and also that there were no social security numbers listed.  If this information was given it could cause some serious issues, and you can bet that the scandal would be quite a bit worse than it is right now.

Ultimate Bet has faltered quite a bit, and is actually pretty fortunate that the scandal around Full Tilt Poker has overshadowed their site.  The total list of accounts and information that were released topped 3.5 million, and over 2 million of those accounts came from the United States.

Absolute Poker Issues Statement Regarding Indictement

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Absolute Poker, including UB (formerly Ultimate Bet) brand, hereafter “Absolute Poker,” issued the following statement today:

“Absolute Poker has retained Blank Rome LLP as United States counsel to provide legal advice in relation to civil and criminal matters filed in federal court in Manhattan and made public on April 15, 2011. Absolute Poker is aware that on April 19, 2011, the US Attorney for the Southern District of New York entered into separate agreements with FullTilt Poker and PokerStars. These agreements concern the use of the respective www.fulltiltpoker.com and www.pokerstars.com domain names. The US Attorney, in a press release dated April 20, 2011, stated that the government is willing to enter the same agreement with Absolute Poker and UB.

“At this time, Absolute Poker’s top priority is, and must be, the refund of balances to its and UB’s US players. However, given the far-reaching consequences of the US Attorney’s actions for Absolute Poker and for the entire poker community, Absolute Poker believes that the responsible course of action is to review with its attorneys the relevant court filings before taking any action.

“Absolute Poker believes that the US Attorney shares the view that refunds to US players are an immediate and pressing concern, and Absolute Poker wishes to make clear that it wants to work cooperatively with the US Attorney to safely and efficiently return its players’ funds. To that end, Absolute Poker’s counsel has initiated communications with the US Attorney’s office and plans to continue proactively advancing those discussions.

“Further information and timely updates will be provided to Absolute Poker/UB’s players as we move forward.”

Feds seize Poker Domain Names

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The Feds are once again going after poker sites without defining what “illegal gambling” is. Without a real law, or a working definition, this amounts to just a strong arm shakedown. “We are big tough guys so we will tell you what to do, even though we have no lawful basis to do so”

Excerpt from a press release I am sure that they are very proud of:
MANHATTAN U.S. ATTORNEY CHARGES PRINCIPALS OF THREE LARGEST INTERNET POKER COMPANIES WITH BANK FRAUD, ILLEGAL GAMBLING OFFENSES AND LAUNDERING BILLIONS IN ILLEGAL GAMBLING PROCEEDS

 

 

Multi-Billion Dollar Civil Money Laundering And Forfeiture Action Also Filed

Internet Domain Names Used By The Poker Companies Seized

PREET BHARARA, the United States Attorney for the Southern District of New York, and JANICE FEDARCYK, the Assistant Director in Charge of the New York Field Office of the Federal Bureau of Investigation (“FBI”), announced the unsealing of an indictment today charging 11 defendants, including the founders of the three largest Internet poker companies doing business in the United States—PokerStars, Full Tilt Poker, and Absolute Poker (the “Poker Companies”)—with bank fraud, money laundering, and illegal gambling offenses. The United States also filed a civil money laundering and in rem forfeiture complaint (the “Civil Complaint”) against the Poker Companies, their assets, and the assets of several payment processors for the Poker Companies. In addition, restraining orders were issued against more than 75 bank accounts utilized by the Poker Companies and their payment processors, and five Internet domain names used by the Poker Companies to host their illegal poker games were seized.

Manhattan U.S. Attorney PREET BHARARA said: “As charged, these defendants concocted an elaborate criminal fraud scheme, alternately tricking some U.S. banks and effectively bribing others to assure the continued flow of billions in illegal gambling profits. Moreover, as we allege, in their zeal to circumvent the gambling laws, the defendants also engaged in massive money laundering and bank fraud. Foreign firms that choose to operate in the United States are not free to flout the laws they don’t like simply because they can’t bear to be parted from their profits.”

FBI Assistant Director in Charge JANICE K. FEDARCYK said: “These defendants, knowing full well that their business with U.S. customers and U.S. banks was illegal, tried to stack the deck. They lied to banks about the true nature of their business. Then, some of the defendants found banks willing to flout the law for a fee. The defendants bet the house that they could continue their scheme, and they lost.”

The whole press release can be found here:

http://www.justice.gov/usao/nys/pressreleases/April11/scheinbergetalindictmentpr.pdf