Re: Absolute (2)
Issue raises serious questions for the poker biz
PokerListings refusing to send players to AP and Ultimate Bet

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Anthony in McKinney-ish writes in with more:

Ok, I swear I\’m not an email attention whore, but the hits just keeepp ooonnnnnn coming with this Absolute thing.

http://www.pocketfives.com/06D9EA78-E38F-49D3-AFA1-2B4B128CE7E7.aspx

Not to make it all about blogging, but poker players should be proud of the \”citizen journalism\” at work in this case. When \”former\” chief operators of a company are allegedly the ones pegged as playing with \”superaccounts\” … that clearly can\’t be a good thing. Absolute looks to have done themselves in here. Short-term greed catches up with the offenders. This page now seems like a sadly ironic case of Strong Means Weak.

So as the evidence against Absolute becomes more and more solid, it raises a lot of other questions, including:

  1. Will anyone go to jail? In an unregulated environment can anyone go to jail?
  2. What other sites might be engaging in similar activities?
  3. How can we trust that any particular site is not?
  4. Will politicians in the United States see this as an example of why online poker needs to be regulated, or will it be their case for why it needs to be more comprehensively banned?
  5. Since Absolute is in bed with Ultimate Bet, what will become of that relationship? And how connected are they really?
  6. Will UB pros — Phil Hellmuth and Annie Duke specifically — speak out on the matter? And/or will they leave Ultimate Bet?
  7. Will major online affiliates — such as CardPlayer, PokerNews, and PokerListings, for example — stop sending players to Absolute?

Big questions for online poker. How different folks with a vested interest in the answers react to this situation will tell us a lot about what kinda players we really are dealing with in this biz.

UPDATE: PokerListings is currently refusing to send players to Absolute and Ultimate Bet:

PokerListings.com has temporarily suspended the listing of the Absolute Poker and Ultimate Bet poker rooms as a result of serious problems with both historical and current payments due PokerListings for services rendered. We are aware that our decision not to list these two brands may be an inconvenience, but as a trusted guide and resource, we do not believe it is appropriate to continue listing them.

Sincerely,

The PokerListings.com Team

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