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ABSOLUTE SCANDAL

 

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_amh11 GB _amh11 Enthusiast
Posts: 8906 		 

RE: Absolute scandal - On 60 Minutes this Sunday

Nov 30, 2008 06:18 AM. Post 401
hi muss,i will cutnpaste 4 u?

Anything you want in particular? heres the main article:

Players Gamble on Honesty, Security of Internet Betting










Whenever Todd Witteles signed on to an Internet poker site, the first thing he did was look around for inexperienced players. One day in August 2007, the Las Vegas poker pro thought he had found an easy mark on AbsolutePoker.com.



A newcomer using the name "Greycat" was making unusually big bets off weak hands. "He seemed like a bad player who had just been getting incredibly lucky," Witteles recalled. "When you see someone like Greycat, you stop everything you're doing to play."

But in a series of one-on-one games, Witteles quickly found himself down $15,000. Worse, Greycat began taunting him. Soon, some of Witteles's online poker friends began wondering publicly whether Greycat was cheating. It was almost as though he could see Witteles's hole cards.

It turned out that was exactly what Greycat was doing. After months of pressure from a small group of players who took it upon themselves to investigate the claims, AbsolutePoker was forced to admit that a cheater had cracked its software, and it refunded $1.6 million to Witteles and dozens of other players.

It appeared to be a huge victory for the players and the self-policing nature of the Internet. Yet just weeks later, rumors of a new scandal rocked the world of online poker, this time at AbsolutePoker's sister site, UltimateBet.com. The stakes were dramatically higher: more than $20 million cheated from players over four years. The alleged culprits included a former world poker champion and UltimateBet employees who had hacked into the site.

Even as Internet gambling grows in popularity and profits, with millions of players and billions of bets, the two biggest cheating scandals in online gambling are raising fresh questions about the honesty and security of a freewheeling industry that operates outside of U.S. law.


Unlike brick-and-mortar casinos that undergo rigorous security checks, many Internet gambling sites operate in a shadowy world of little regulation and even less enforcement, a joint investigation by The Washington Post and CBS's "60 Minutes" has found. Dozens of these sites are located in countries with no reporting requirements. The licensing agencies there essentially operate as pay-as-you-go boutiques, generating millions of dollars in fees while showing little interest in policing rogue sites.

As it has given birth to Amazon.com, eBay and scores of other 21st-century businesses, the Internet has also spawned its own gambling boom, with estimated revenue more than tripling over five years, to $18 billion annually, including about $4 billion from virtual poker.

Millions of the bets originate in the United States, where online poker and gambling sites are banned, forcing players to reach out across the Internet like modern-day bootleggers. Yet players have little way of knowing who is watching their bets or where their money is going. Often, owners hide behind multiple layers of limited partnerships, making it difficult to determine who controls the sites or to lodge complaints about cheating.

In the AbsolutePoker and UltimateBet cheating scandals, players decided to investigate the matter themselves after managers and regulators did not respond to their complaints. "No one would listen to us," said Serge Ravitch, a 28-year-old lawyer-turned-poker pro who played a key detective role.

A Tribal Business


AbsolutePoker and UltimateBet operate out of a shopping mall in Costa Rica, run their games on computer servers housed on an Indian reservation near Montreal, and are licensed by a Mohawk tribe that has no background in casino gambling and does not answer to federal or provincial regulators.

Joseph Tokwiro Norton, who owns both Web sites, is the former grand chief of the Mohawk tribe. He was instrumental in setting up the licensing agency and a highly profitable companion business that owns the server farm. Yet until he issued a news release in October 2007, even some of the most powerful members of his tribe had no idea Norton owned the poker sites.
"I was as surprised as anyone else," said Michael Delisle, the current grand chief of the Mohawk Council of Kahnawake. He added that he had not spoken with Norton about the cheating. "I have had no opportunity," he said in an interview, "and honestly I don't think it's any of my business." The Kahnawake collect millions in fees each year by licensing Internet gambling companies and hosting the Web sites on servers inside a high-tech building converted from a mattress factory. Recently, they took a 40 percent stake in another Internet server firm on the Isle of Man, in the Irish Sea. They collect more than $1 million a year from that investment, which aims to expand and protect their Internet gambling footprint.

Norton, a former ironworker, purchased AbsolutePoker and UltimateBet in 2006 and folded them into a newly created holding company, Tokwiro Enterprises ENRG. The company says it is "properly registered as a proprietorship in Canada." He declined repeated requests to be interviewed for this article, but has denied he knew about the cheating. Managers at AbsolutePoker and UltimateBet also declined interviews, as did the Kahnawake's licensing and regulatory body, the Kahnawake Gaming Commission.

In January, the commission fined Norton's company $500,000 for the AbsolutePoker scandal. But the apparent victory by the player-detectives quickly soured when the Kahnawake declined to name the cheater or turn his name over to prosecutors.

In September, the panel slapped UltimateBet with a $1.5 million fine. But it stopped short of following through on a recommendation by an outside investigator to suspend or close the site.

The three-member commission largely operates in secret, and it would not disclose the size of its staff. It outsources background checks to a security firm in Horsham, Pa., and uses a small company in Australia to audit its licensee's software. It called on Frank Catania, former head of the New Jersey Division of Gaming Enforcement, to investigate UltimateBet and reopen the AbsolutePoker probe.


In an interview, Catania said there was no comparison between New Jersey and the Kahnawake when it came to oversight. "I don't think they have -- they don't have the staff, first of all," he said. "With the New Jersey Gaming Commission, I had about 400 people there. I had CPAs. I had our big budget."

'I Quickly Got Slammed'


AbsolutePoker's origins are sketchy. Records and interviews point to a poker aficionado named Scott Tom, who attended the University of Montana in the late 1990s. After graduating, Tom and several partners headed to Costa Rica and started the business.

A number of online gambling sites already existed. But it was not until a few years later that Internet poker exploded. The impetus was a former Tennessee accountant and aptly named player, Chris Moneymaker. In 2003, Moneymaker came from nowhere to win the main event at the World Series of Poker in Las Vegas. His $2.5 million victory was televised on ESPN and is widely credited with igniting a worldwide surge.

"When I am being glib, I refer to it as the Moneymaker effect," said David G. Schwartz, director of the Center for Gaming Research at the University of Nevada at Las Vegas.

Soon, scores of sites began popping up in Antigua, Costa Rica, Malta, the Isle of Man and other exotic locations. The Kahnawake alone license 450 sites run by 60 permit holders. By 2007, Internet gambling sites had revenue of $18.4 billion, up from $5.9 billion in 2003, according to Christiansen Capital Advisors, a New York firm that tracks online gambling.

Thousands of those players found their way to AbsolutePoker, which boasts on its Web site that it has handled more than 300 million hands since it started accepting bets and that at its peak accounted for as much as 5 percent of the multibillion-dollar online poker market. "It was probably pulling in between $150,000 and $250,000 a day," estimated Bobby Mamudi of the Gaming Intelligence Group, which tracks worldwide gambling issues from England. Hundreds of customer service employees worked at its office in a mall in San Jose, Costa Rica, and at a smaller office in Panama. Generally, Internet poker is divided into two types of games: cash games in which winners collect the money on the table, just as in a live casino game, and tournaments in which players put up an entry fee and the winning pots are divided based on play. A key difference is that games are played on computers, not face to face. Players cannot see one another to gauge expressions or tics. The online style of play is also faster and more aggressive than that of live games. Some players may have four or five games going at once. Poker sites use a variety of payment methods, including prepaid debit cards, electronic transfers and bank wires.

In addition to tournament fees, Internet poker sites make money from advertising and by taking a small percentage of the pot, called a rake. The rake can be as little as pennies but adds up over millions of pots, industry analysts say.

One of the regulars at AbsolutePoker was Witteles, a former computer scientist whose screen name is "Dan Druff." At 36, he jokes that he is often the oldest player in Internet games. "It's a very young crowd," he said. "Most of them are in their early 20s."

Witteles said he plays almost exclusively in cash games. When he squared off against Greycat in 2007, it was to play Texas hold 'em, currently the most popular poker game, in which bluffing is critical. "So if the other guy can see your cards," Witteles said, "it's a real disaster. I quickly got slammed for $6,000."

Witteles waited for Greycat's luck to run out. But he continued to make one unlikely winning bet after another. Witteles's losses mounted to $15,000. Although frustrated, he didn't yet suspect cheating. And had Greycat not taunted him -- ridiculing his skills in the game's instant-message box -- Witteles said he might have gone undetected. "There was a real arrogance and vindictiveness to the thing," he said.


It is not uncommon in Internet poker for other players to follow the games. Some started to post comments on a popular poker forum about Greycat's improbable winning streak and several other suspicious accounts on AbsolutePoker. Witteles wondered whether Greycat somehow had access to a "superuser" account, which would allow him to use the site's software to spy on his cards. But when he complained to AbsolutePoker, Witteles said, "I got a different story every time."

A few weeks later, in September 2007, a 21-year-old player named Marco Johnson paid $1,000 to enter a tournament sponsored by AbsolutePoker. Johnson, who uses the screen name "Crazy Marco," reached the final against a player called "Potripper." They played 20 hands and Potripper won them all, collecting $428,520.

At first, Johnson shrugged off the loss. But others watching the final games online insisted that he, too, had been cheated. Johnson requested his hand histories for the games. Poker sites generally promise to keep players' archives for as many as five years.

A few days later, Johnson received a confusing Microsoft Excel spreadsheet containing 65,000 lines. At first, he set it aside.

Armchair Detective


While players heatedly debated Potripper's play in poker forums, the management at AbsolutePoker released the first of several statements denying the cheating allegations. "While we are continuing with our investigation, we have yet to find any evidence of wrong doing," the first statement said. "A super-user account does not exist in our software," stated the second. "Absolute Poker remains a 100% secure place to play."

Players continued to attack AbsolutePoker in online forums, complaining that they could not get answers to their questions or tell who owned the site. A few frustrated players decided it was time to start their own investigation. Although players can be fiercely competitive during a match, it is not unusual for them to share information afterward. "Most of the top players know one another," said Ravitch, who plays on his laptop from his home in Queens. "If I don't know someone in the seat next to me, chances are I know his friends."

This Story
Players Gamble on Honesty, Security of Internet Betting
Monday, Dec. 1 at 1 p.m. ET: Inside Online Poker's Cheating Scandals
From Wall Street to Online Poker
The Game: Texas Hold 'Em
Document: Tokwiro Enterprises Responds to Investigation (PDF)
Timeline: Catching the Cheaters
Timeline: Internet Poker and the Law
Reporter's Notebook: The Mohawk Connection
Full Report
Catching Poker Cheats
View All Items in This Story
View Only Top Items in This Story
Ravitch is a graduate of the University of Michigan Law School who realized he enjoyed playing poker more than filing legal briefs. "Sunday is my work day," he said. "That's when all the big tournaments are."

Each week, Ravitch said, he averages about 20 hours of play while spending an additional 10 hours studying a large database of hand histories he has compiled, searching for competitors' tendencies. "Poker has become mathematically much more sophisticated," he said. Among the successful participants, he added, "there are no dumb players."

Ravitch offered to help analyze the suspect hand histories. He was joined by Nat Arem, a former auditor in the Philadelphia office of the consulting firm Deloitte & Touche. Like Ravitch, the 26-year-old Arem is good at math and with computers. In 2006, he attended Emory Law School in Atlanta for a semester but dropped out after selling a software program that players use to track the results of poker tournaments. He now lives in Costa Rica, where he develops poker-related businesses.

In the fall of 2007, Arem and Ravitch obtained copies of Marco Johnson's spreadsheet file and started analyzing the data. Arem wrote a software program to decode the information. Joined by a handful of other poker detectives, they quickly identified improbable betting patterns for Potripper and several other suspect accounts. The patterns suggested that the players with improbable win rates could somehow see their opponents' face-down, or hole, cards.

"Obviously, if you can see your opponents' hole cards, you have a huge advantage," Ravitch said. "That helped to explain how the suspect accounts never seemed to lose."


One of the first things the poker detectives noticed was that Potripper was playing exclusively in "nosebleed stakes," games with the biggest pots. "He got caught because it was easy to catch," Ravitch said. "There are only a handful of other players playing those stakes, and everyone knows one another."

Instead of losing a few hands to deflect attention, Potripper continued to win every time. "It would have been so easy if he had just lost a few hands. No one would have ever suspected a thing," Ravitch said.

In addition to hand histories, the poker detectives said, Johnson's spreadsheet contained e-mail and Internet addresses that appeared to connect one of the suspicious accounts to Costa Rica, to a home owned by Scott Tom, the founder of AbsolutePoker who sold the business to Joe Norton in October 2006. When the poker detectives posted their findings on a popular poker forum called Two Plus Two, bloggers pounced on the information as proof that Tom must have known about the cheating, if not have cheated himself.

It was not clear from the information, however, whether Tom used the account or whether someone else may have had access to it. AbsolutePoker officials did not address the bloggers' charges. Instead, they released a statement saying that Tom had not worked at the site for more than a year -- a claim that they would later be forced to retract. In fact, Tom continued to manage day-to-day operations at AbsolutePoker until October 2007, when he resigned as the cheating scandal was heating up.

Norton was "aware of the press releases but did not [initially] realize they were false," the company said in response to written questions from The Post. "The fact that they were misleading, if not outright false, contributed to Joe's decision to change the management" in October 2007. AbsolutePoker officials have said that Tom was not involved in the cheating, but they have declined to say who was. Tom declined requests for comment.

Tom's father, Phil, defended his son in interviews and via e-mail, saying Scott was "attacked viciously and unfairly by bloggers" who tried to link him to the cheating. "I couldn't believe some of the things they were saying, how he was the cheater," he said. According to his father, Scott Tom is still living in Costa Rica but is hard to contact. "Even I have trouble reaching him," Phil Tom said. "I don't call him. He calls me."


Finding the Cheater


If Scott Tom wasn't the cheater, who was?

The poker detectives kept pushing. By mid-October 2007, they were focusing on an employee at AbsolutePoker's Costa Rica office. They posted their findings online, setting off a new wave of charges and increasing pressure on AbsolutePoker's management and the Kahnawake Gaming Commission to address the cheating.

Shortly thereafter, the commission announced that it had hired Gaming Associates, a small Australian computer security firm, to audit the poker site's software. Two days later, AbsolutePoker released an e-mail acknowledging that it had identified "an internal security breach that compromised our systems for a limited period of time." It added: "The cause of the breach has been determined and completely resolved."

The company's statement did not detail how the breach occurred, how many players were cheated or how the cheater was able to spy on cards without being noticed.

Unbeknown to the players, AbsolutePoker had already cut a secret deal with the cheater, whom it characterized as a "consultant with managerial responsibilities." The company agreed not to release his name in return for a "full and detailed explanation" of how he cheated, according to company officials and other interviews. AbsolutePoker also agreed not to sue the cheater or turn him over to Costa Rican authorities, company officials told The Post.

"Of course we considered going to the police, but we decided that it was in the best interest of our cheated players and of AP to get the perpetrator to tell us how the cheating was done," company officials wrote in response to questions from The Post. "We also recognized that prosecutions for white collar crimes in Costa Rica can be time-consuming and sometimes unsuccessful."


(The name of the alleged cheater has circulated widely among poker players on the Internet. The Post is not publishing his name because, even though he purportedly confessed to AbsolutePoker, the company did not release its records and would not discuss the matter. The alleged cheater declined requests to be interviewed.)

Witteles and other players said they were appalled by AbsolutePoker's decision not to seek prosecution of the cheater. "Yeah, we were paid back," he said. "But they made absolutely no attempt to bring any of the people to justice. If someone stole that amount of money from a casino, they would be thrown in jail."

AbsolutePoker said it fired the cheater on Oct. 20, 2007, the day before it started sending $1.6 million in refunds to the cheated players. "Our previous business culture was entrepreneurial, decentralized and individualistic," company officials wrote The Post. "In retrospect, this decentralized approach was not conducive to strict oversight and accountability." The company says it "installed a completely new management team" in order to "build a solid security foundation."

In January 2008, the Kahnawake Gaming Commission released a four-page report on the AbsolutePoker scandal. It said a single cheater using several screen names had taken advantage of a flaw in the software to spy on players' cards during a six-week period starting in August 2007.

It fined Norton's firm $500,000. But it also declined to name the cheater, contending that there "would be no material benefit to the affected players."

"I don't know about that," said Frank Catania, the former New Jersey gambling official who helped the Kahnawake write their Internet gambling regulations, and who was hired by the commission last summer to investigate Norton and his poker sites. "Maybe what they should have done is named the person."

'A Bunch of Blind Men'


A day after the Kahnawake commission released its report about AbsolutePoker, managers at UltimateBet were alerted to new allegations of cheating involving a player using the screen name "NioNio."

One of those who had played against NioNio was David Paredes, 29, a Harvard graduate and lawyer-turned-hedge fund employee. As a childhood math whiz, Paredes had been good enough at chess to travel to national tournaments. In high school, he and his friends played poker for as much as $100 a game. During breaks from law school at New York University, he played at the Foxwoods Resort Casino in Connecticut and in the city's network of underground clubs.

Paredes started playing online around 2005. "I made money almost from the start," he said. Over time, he said, he used his winnings to pay off his law school bill, rent a Manhattan apartment and pay private tuition for a high school student he mentors.

In July 2007, Paredes lost $70,000 to NioNio in a series of games. NioNio had played recklessly, Paredes recalled, making one improbable bet after another, yet winning most hands.

Paredes said he did not suspect cheating until he discussed his hands with another player who also had lost to NioNio. They did a statistical analysis of hand histories, and what they found shocked them: During one brief stretch, NioNio had managed to win $300,000 while rarely losing. Another poker detective calculated that his win rate was about equal to winning the Powerball jackpot three days in a row.

Moreover, it appeared that NioNio was not the only unusually lucky player. Their investigation turned up seven other suspicious accounts that had won a total of $1.5 million on UltimateBet. Later, UltimateBet officials determined that the cheaters had used as many as 88 screen names to avoid detection.

It was as though the cheaters were playing against a "bunch of blind men," Catania recalled. "I mean . . . you're the only one that can see. Everyone else is blind."

In news releases, UltimateBet said that former employees had secretly installed a back door in the software allowing them to spy on players' cards. They stressed the gaming commission's finding that the breach took place before Norton bought UltimateBet in 2006 through a limited partnership in Malta called Blast Off Ltd.

The company told The Post that it performed full financial and operational due diligence before the sale but that it did not find the unauthorized software. Catania, the outside investigator, said that UltimateBet officials did "no due diligence on the technical part. None." At the same time, he said he did not think Norton was aware of the cheating.

UltimateBet officials acknowledged to The Post that the "winning-hand statistics were certainly suspicious and should have been flagged for investigation." They said the accounts belonged to professional players who had been designated as VIP players by the prior owners, and as such were not subject to the same level of scrutiny as other accounts. They added that they did not review the VIP accounts until after the cheating allegations surfaced.

Citing what they said were UltimateBet player logs and real estate records, some of the poker detectives this summer linked former World Series of Poker champion Russ Hamilton to the scandal. In online posts, they alleged that several of the suspect accounts were traced back to property Hamilton owns in Las Vegas, where he is based.

Hamilton did not respond to the accusations. In September, the Kahnawake Gaming Commission announced that there was "clear and convincing evidence" that Hamilton "was the main person responsible for and benefiting from the multiple cheating incidents" at UltimateBet.

The commission did not disclose its evidence allegedly linking Hamilton to the cheating. But Catania said the player accounts "point directly to Russ Hamilton." He added that six to eight accounts were involved in the cheating. "And we know Russ Hamilton was . . . part of those accounts."

Hamilton's lawyer, David Chesnoff, scoffed at the accusations. "Have I heard these allegations? Yes," he said. "We deny them." He added: "Without having an opportunity to review what is alleged to exist, we can't answer the questions and don't think we should dignify it with answers."

In a statement, UltimateBet's owner, Tokwiro Enterprises, cited the commission's finding that Hamilton was responsible for the cheating. The company noted that Hamilton "was never employed by Tokwiro or any of its companies," though he briefly had a "relationship" with the company in which he referred players from his Web site to UltimateBet.

To date, UltimateBet has issued $6.1 million in refunds. Catania said the poker site has promised to reimburse players an additional $15 million, at which point he expects UltimateBet to lose its license or be sold.

The gaming commission fined UltimateBet $1.5 million "for its failure to implement and enforce measures to prohibit and detect fraudulent activities." It defended its handling of the case but said its actions "were not well communicated to the poker industry or public at large, creating an incorrect perception that the [commission] was doing nothing."

The Kahnawake now say they operate one of the most secure Internet gambling operations in the world. Tokwiro says it has "established cutting-edge security systems that make us the safest site in the industry." But Catania said he does not expect cheating to stop: "I'm sure there are people out there right now figuring out, let's say, 'Here's a way we can do it again.' "

Steve Kroft, Ira Rosen and Sumi Aggarwal of "60 Minutes" and special correspondent Gary Wise contributed to this report.
 
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_amh11 GB _amh11 Enthusiast
Posts: 8906 		 

RE: Absolute scandal - On 60 Minutes this Sunday

Nov 30, 2008 06:24 AM. Post 402
cutnpaste2. from link on main story:

'The mowhawk connection'

The Mohawk Connection
POSTED: 10:30 AM ET, 11/29/2008 by The Editors


In reporting his two-part series about online poker, Inside Bet, Post writer Gilbert M. Gaul learned that the two big cheating scandals occurred at Web sites owned by the same person -- Joseph Tokwiro Norton, former grand chief of the Kahnawake Mohawk tribe located on a reservation near Montreal.

The Kahnawake became the unlikely hosts for computer servers that handle not only Norton's companies but many of the world's biggest online poker businesses. In this edition of Reporter's Notebook, Gaul explains how this came to be:

At first glance, Joe Norton and the Kahnawake might seem like surprising players to control a large share of the $18 billion Internet gambling business.


While in his twenties, Norton worked as an ironworker helping to build the World Trade Center in New York City. At the age of 28 he was elected to the Mohawk Council of Kahnawake, the governing body for the 8,000-member tribe located minutes from Montreal. Two years later, Norton took over as grand chief, a position he held for more than two decades.

For years, the Kahnawake had relied on cigarette sales and payments from the federal government to get by. Under Norton, they began to look at gambling as a way to lift up the tribe's economic fortunes. In the mid-1990s, Norton promoted an effort to open a land-based casino on the reservation, but the tribe voted it down. A second referendum was also rejected.

Norton and the Kahnawake shifted their focus to Internet gambling. Several factors played to their advantage.

First, the Kahnawake consider themselves a sovereign nation, outside the laws of the federal and provincial governments. So, even though Internet gambling is considered illegal in Canada, they could set themselves up as a licensing authority and not have to worry about being prosecuted.

Second, they were close to the potentially lucrative U.S. market with millions of online gamblers. That was attractive to Internet gaming sites. Finally, running near the 35,000-acre reservation was a major broadband pipeline capable of handling millions of bets and other transactions.

In 1996, the Kahnawake established a gaming commission and later drafted regulations and started licensing Internet gambling sites, including Absolute Poker and UltimateBet. Today, the Kahnawake Gaming Commission licenses more Web sites than any other agency, generating thousands of dollars in fees from each license.

But that's only the start. Gambling sites that apply for a Kahnawake license are required to place their computer servers in a refurbished mattress factory on the reservation for a minimum of three years. Mohawk Internet Technologies collects millions in fees annually from these rentals, though Kahnawake officials said most of the profits have been plowed back into the company.


Norton played an instrumental role in helping to set up MIT and later worked at the site for two years after he retired as grand chief in 2004. In 2006, he bought Absolute Poker and UltimateBet, though he didn't announce the purchases until a year later.

Recently, the Kahnawake expanded their reach by taking a 40 percent stake in a company called Continent 8 Technologies, based on the Isle of Man in the Irish Sea. The new company operates an Internet server farm for gambling Web sites and other businesses, and offers the Kahnawake a potentially lucrative portal to the growing European market for online gambling.

One of the owners of Continent 8 is Michael Tobin, a consultant who helped the Kahnawake establish their foothold in the Internet gambling business and set up Mohawk Internet Technologies.

"They were looking at building a data center for the financial markets at first," Tobin said in an interview. But that idea of a financial trading post didn't work out. "Somebody [then] made a call to a lawyer friend of somebody at the Mohawks. He said, `I have a customer who might be interested.' It turned out it might be an online gaming customer," recalled Tobin.

The Kahnawake were in the right place at the right time, said current Grand Chief, Michael Delisle. "It was a field not yet occupied....we were the first ones into it."

The Kahnawake view their recent investment in Continent 8 as a way to protect their gambling franchise. "Five years ago, the Kahnawake was the fastest place to be," said John Bud Morris, the executive director of the Kahnawake Economic Development Commission. "Today, that's not necessarily true."

Under their deal, the Kahnawake Mohawk Council is guaranteed the first $1.7 million if Continent 8 issues a dividend, Morris said. The next $1.7 million goes to the economic development commission. The council and commission split anything above that. To date, only the council has received a payment, said Morris.

Delisle said the Kahnawake have received "millions" from their Internet gambling ventures, and have used the money to support a native language program and other community efforts. He added that Internet gambling supports about 150 jobs on the reservation.

Less clear is what it means financially to Joe Norton. He declined to be interviewed and has provided few financial details about his Internet poker sites.

-- Gilbert M. Gaul
 
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_amh11 GB _amh11 Enthusiast
Posts: 8906 		 

RE: Absolute scandal - On 60 Minutes this Sunday

Nov 30, 2008 06:29 AM. Post 403
cnp3:

'Timeline:catching the cheaters'

Timeline: Catching the Cheaters
The scandals at Absolute Poker and UltimateBet only erupted after several frustrated players began investigating the cheating on their own. A look at the players' investigation and the response by online poker officials follows.
2006 June: Absolute Poker, based in Costa Rica, receives a license from the Kahnawake Gaming Commission, an arm of the Mohawk Tribe near Montreal.


October: Former Kahnawake Grand Chief Joe Norton buys Absolute Poker and UltimateBet and folds them into his holding company, Tokwiro Enterprises ENRG.
2007 August: Players report suspicious betting patterns on Absolute Poker but managers deny cheating. Frustrated, a handful of players begin their own investigation, identifying improbable winning hands.
Oct. 19: After weeks of pressure from players, Absolute Poker acknowledges it has found a breach in its software and is investigating. About the same time, Joe Norton issues a press release disclosing for the first time that he is the owner of Absolute Poker.
Oct. 24: Absolute Poker informs players that a high-ranking consultant in its Costa Rica office breached its software and spied on competitor's hands, cheating them out of hundreds of thousands of dollars. It began refunding $1.6 million. But in a move that angers players, it refuses to identify the cheater or turn him over to authorities.
2008
Jan. 11: Kahnawake Gaming Commission issues results of its Absolute Poker investigation in a four-page report. It confirms cheating but also refuses to identify the cheater. Poker site is fined $500,000 but keeps its license.
Jan. 12: A new cheating scandal surfaces at sister site of Absolute Poker, UltimateBet.com. Players report suspicious betting and cheating similiar to Absolute Poker. Once again, a small number of players begin their own probe.
February: UltimateBet confirms "abnormally high winning statistics for the suspect accounts."
May: Players post results of their investigation on a popular poker forum. Shortly thereafter, UltimateBet acknowledges cheating and begins making $6.1 million in refunds.
July: As Tokwiro concludes its investigation, the Kahnawake Gaming Commission appoints Frank Catania , former New Jersey gaming official, to investigate UltimateBet.
September: Catania confirms cheating over several years totaling about $20 million and recommends suspending UltimateBet's license. The Gaming Commission rejects the recommendation but fines UltimateBet $1.5 million and gives it until November to make millions more in refunds. It then issues a press release saying there is "clear and convincing evidence" that former World Series of Poker champion Russ Hamilton was behind the cheating. Hamilton's lawyer denies the accusations.
November: Tokwiro Enterprises issues statement in response to the CBS/Washington Post investigation into the cheating scandals, claiming to have done "the right thing in every instance."
 
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Miltbrann NO Miltbrann Enthusiast
Posts: 1690 		 

RE: Absolute scandal - On 60 Minutes this Sunday

Nov 30, 2008 06:31 AM. Post 404
Thx for the info, if anybody knows if it has aired and / or can give a link where it can be viewed it would be much appreciated.

And thx Muss for not moderating your own post for once.

"feareed"

I guess that should read: "farted"

very_happyhappyvery_happy
 
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_amh11 GB _amh11 Enthusiast
Posts: 8906 		 

RE: Absolute scandal - On 60 Minutes this Sunday

Nov 30, 2008 06:35 AM. Post 405
cnp3:

'Tokwiro response to cbs/post investigation'

STATEMENT FOR 60 Minutes: Cheating scandals at AP and UB
Despite 60 Minutes preference for innuendo and unsubstantiated rumor, the facts speak for themselves. These facts are:
1.
Tokwiro Enterprises ENRG, the operator of the Absolute Poker and UltimateBet businesses, is properly registered as a proprietorship in Canada. Tokwiro’s sole proprietor is Joseph Tokwiro Norton.
2.
Tokwiro and its regulatory agency, the Kahnawake Gaming Commission, together with independent audit and investigative experts, have thoroughly investigated the cheating incidents at Absolute Poker and UltimateBet.
3.
In the Absolute Poker incident, Tokwiro, on conclusion of the investigation, immediately fired the cheater, who had been a consultant to the company. In order to build a solid security foundation for Tokwiro, Mr. Norton then installed a completely new management team.
4.
In the Absolute Poker incident, Tokwiro had to understand quickly how the cheating had occurred, and rectify the problem for the protection of all players. In return for agreeing not to prosecute the cheater, Tokwiro received a full account of exactly how the cheating was conducted. Tokwiro made this agreement so that it could repair the security hole immediately and begin to reimburse players. There was absolutely no other motivation for not pressing charges against the cheater.
5.
The September 29th KGC interim report on the UltimateBet incident made it clear that the cheating began well before Tokwiro purchased the UltimateBet business, and that the cheating continued, concealed from the management team, for months after the company changed hands.
6.
The KGC’s interim report further concluded that all evidence pointed to one main perpetrator, Russell Hamilton. Mr. Hamilton was never employed by Tokwiro or any of its companies. For a brief time in 2007, Mr. Hamilton had a relationship with Tokwiro whereby he would refer players from his corporate website to UltimateBet; but he was not an employee and had no responsibilities at UltimateBet. Mr. Hamilton gained the ability to cheat long before Tokwiro acquired UltimateBet in October 2006, and he continued to cheat players and the company after the acquisition.

Tokwiro Enterprises deeply regrets that cheaters took advantage of our customers and of our company. We also regret any damage this has done to the reputation of online poker as a whole. Nevertheless, our consciences rest easy because we have done the right thing in every instance: we vigorously investigated allegations of cheating, cooperated fully with our regulatory body, voluntarily reimbursed millions of dollars to affected players out of our own pockets, and established cutting-edge security systems that now make us the safest site in the industry.
Paul Leggett
Chief Operating Officer
Tokwiro Enterprises, ENRG
 
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_amh11 GB _amh11 Enthusiast
Posts: 8906 		 

RE: Absolute scandal - On 60 Minutes this Sunday

Nov 30, 2008 06:43 AM. Post 406
Thats the main article and a couple of the links muss.If there is any particular link you can see but cant access,let me know and i'll get the scissors and glue out very_happy
 
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Miltbrann NO Miltbrann Enthusiast
Posts: 1690 		 

RE: Absolute scandal - On 60 Minutes this Sunday

Nov 30, 2008 07:04 AM. Post 407
Are you sure you don't have any more info?

surprised
 
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_amh11 GB _amh11 Enthusiast
Posts: 8906 		 

RE: Absolute scandal - On 60 Minutes this Sunday

Nov 30, 2008 07:07 AM. Post 408
gfy milt wink very_happy


ps.If I ever stop cutting and pasting today,I might even get round to replying to your pm mad very_happy
 
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ned_seagoon GB ned_seagoon Pokah! addict
Posts: 12059 		 

RE: Absolute scandal - On 60 Minutes this Sunday

Nov 30, 2008 07:10 AM. Post 409
Thanks, amh, that's brilliant. It's a good job you're a fast typist. How's the shorthand?

And yes, Milt, 'feareed' should have read 'feareed'. Thanks for pointing this out. wink

It's a balanced and good report, on the whole, but with odd errors from time to time. I'm astonished to learn that some of you play as many as four or five games at a time (or whatever it was). very_happy

The 60 mins prog airs tonight. It is expected to be up on their website tomorrow morning European time, probably in full but possibly just in audio.
 
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Miltbrann NO Miltbrann Enthusiast
Posts: 1690 		 

RE: Absolute scandal - On 60 Minutes this Sunday

Nov 30, 2008 07:26 AM. Post 410
LOL @ both

very_happy
 
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