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Cheat at online poker? Absolutely!

Comments (11)
by , Oct 17, 2007 | 11:11 am

The Absolute Poker cheating scandal has been picked up by the mainstream press. That’s if you consider the New York Times mainstream. This is bad for online poker…very bad.


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  • http://hungerfan.blogspot.com/ Ed

    Here is an interesting blog post on the detective work that has been done.

    Ed

  • Ben Matlock

    Unreal. Hopefully, the news will spread quickly and Absolute’s company goes down the shit-hole. Some people are just too damn greedy. I guess his rake wasn’t big enough.

  • http://pokerati.com/about-us/#danm DanM

    Robert, in the long term, is it really “bad for poker” if this case exemplifies the need for it to be a regulated industry?

    Short-term bad, maybe. But long-term good?

  • http://pokerati.com/?author=104 Robert Goldfarb

    Long term bad. Once someone (or an industry) lies to you, it is always in the back of your head no matter how many times they prove they are being truthful. There are players that will stop playing on Absolute…there are players who will stop playing online altogether. Even worse, however, is losing the player who has yet to play and now never will. I am in no way saying online poker is dead…I am saying it will be way worse off with the scandal than without.

    A related note on online cheating: I commend PokerStars for DQ’ing the winner of the WCOOP main event. It’s proof they are trying to do the right thing, but any cheating in poker gives it a black-eye that stands out like a neon sign flashing “DO NOT PLAY ONLINE POKER” to recreational players. Long term bad.

  • http://pokerati.com/about-us/#danm DanM

    ***I commend PokerStars for DQ’ing the winner of the WCOOP main event.***

    This is news to me. What were the reasons?

  • http://pokerati.com/?author=104 Robert Goldfarb

    He entered the tournament on 5 accounts.

  • http://pokerati.com/about-us/#danm DanM

    Oh, right. Now I remember.

    Good for PokerStars … and I wouldn’t expect anything but from them.

  • http://pokerati.com/?author=117 California Jen

    Here is another interesting piece of detective work on the issue by Dan Druff:

    http://www.neverwinpoker.com/forums/index.php?showtopic=44393

    In addition, Dan was interviewed by MSNBC today for a story, supposedly for an article on their website. It hasn’t been published yet, but I’ll keep my eyes open for it.

    The mainstream media attention on this story certainly speaks to the need for regulation in the industry, but anti-gaming folks will certainly use it to portray poker in the most negative light possible. Not good.

  • http://pokerati.com/about-us/#danm DanM

    That Dan Druff thread is pretty good stuff. Well presented, soberly at that. I hope everyone interested in understanding the issues in play clicks.

  • Venita

    As bad as it looks now, I think that this whole incident will ultimately prove to be good for online poker once this issue is resolved. Now that the very real possibility of cheating has come to light, in the absence of any formal entity regulating the sites, the players themselves will serve as watchdogs. Knowing this, I would think the poker sites would be super vigilant from now on to ensure that this kind of thing never happens again, in any form whatsoever.

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