Absolute Poker Cheating Scandal
Okay, so, anyone who follows 2p2 or P5s or a lot of other forums has probably noticed all of the Absolute Poker uproar. If you don’t know about it, here’s the basic idea…
CrazyMarco, a well-known online tourney player, played in a 1K AP tournament on 9/12/07. The tournament was won by a player named POTRIPPER who made a crazy call with T high against Marco’s 9 high flush draw. In the following days, Marco emailed with AP support and asked for a hand history so he could review POTRIPPER’s play at the final table. There were rumors that POTRIPPER could see hole cards and he wanted to follow up because of the possibility that he was cheated. On Friday Sept 21st, AP sent Marco a huge excel file (10 mb and a full 65,536 rows, the excel limit for most versions being used currently). He didn’t think much of it and it was too scambled and complicated to analyze, so he put it on the backburner for the time being.
Fast forward a few weeks. Marco, along with his roommate Jared “TheWacoKidd” Hamby, decided to take a look at the file. This happened sometime around October 12th or 13th as I understand it. They realized soon after that AP had send Marco ALL of the hole cards in the hand history. This, of course, allowed them to watch how POTRIPPER played and to examine what hands were at the table when POTRIPPER was/was not playing hands. It quickly became apparent to all who saw the history that POTRIPPER was cheating and, somehow, knew peoples’ hole cards. You can view the hand history on PokerXFactor here. One thing to note is that the spreadsheet only had the first 2 hours and 20 minutes of the tournament because of the Excel line limit, so the hole card access somewhat cuts off around hand 94.
Anyway, I noticed posts talking about this Excel file. On Saturday, MrTimCaum sent me a copy of the spreadsheet. I started to play around with it and noticed that there was random IP/email/user id data interspersed with the player actions. It wasn’t clear at first exactly what the info meant. It didn’t seem like the info pointed to people at tables for the following reason (click image for full size):
The IP info looked something like that. It told me when someone “entered” a table, what their email was, what their IP was, what their user id was, etc. Note that I changed all of the info in this line to protect the privacy of the real data. I put in my email address for the hell of it. Anyway, there were 845 lines with either “TABLE_ENTER” or “TABLE_LEAVE” and through some analysis, I realized that there were tons of players in the event who I knew and they never appeared in the “TABLE_ENTER” or “TABLE_LEAVE” lines. Eventually, we figured out that Enter and Leave lines were recorded for people who were logged into the software and opening or closing the table, but not seated at the table.
Next, I analyzed the lines related to table 13, where POTRIPPER was seated. 2+2er snagglepuss, who I forwarded the spreadsheet to, had already pointed out to me two sketchy observers, one of whom opened up table 13. And when I looked at the data, I noticed something a little weird. One of the sketchy observers opened up table 13 and he was user number 363! This number is incredibly low and I instantly knew that the account had been created by AP or someone who was associated in some way with AP. It had to be a test account of some kind to be made that early in the system. Here’s a screenshot (click image for full size):
I am still hiding some of the sensitive info, but this line in the spreadsheet was probably the key to cracking the case in my opinion. It showed a number of things:
- A Costa Rican IP address (and this IP address becomes more important)
- An observer entering the table and never leaving the table until at least 11:20 PM (or over two hours later when the spreadsheet cuts off)
- A very very low user number that indicates AP involvement in some way — not that the company as a whole knows, but that SOMEONE on the inside was involved.
The next step was to cross reference the IP address within the file. When I did that, some info on the other “sketchy” guy came up (click image for full size):
Once again I blacked out some of the info, but the important thing is that SCOTT@RIVIERALTD.COM had the same IP address as user 363. He stopped by table 9 for whatever reason for about 20 seconds. The only real significance of table 9, as far as I know, was that Mark Seif, an AP sponsored player and AP co-owner (I think?) was playing on it. That doesn’t mean that Mark was involved, but it is a relevant fact with regards to table 9.
The next step, which I think I did the next day, was to figure out some info on rivieraltd.com. I pinged the domain and found the IP to be 66.212.244.147. Note that someone has since changed this, but the IP can still be connected to the mail server as of this writing. Then upon doing further research on that IP address, I traced it to what I believed to be the Kahnawake gaming commission. I posted my findings on 2+2 and P5s. Then a poster on P5s named JackBileDuct pointed out the following:
66.212.244.147 is mail.riveraltd.com telneting to it on port 25 gets a greeting from a mail server. It *IS* a mail server.
Also that IP is NOT the Kahnawake Gaming Commission. Are you ready for this… It is AP.
Mohawk Internet Technologies MIT-BLK-01 (NET-66-212-224-0-1)
66.212.224.0 - 66.212.255.255
Absolute Entertainment S.A. MIT-ABPOK-02 (NET-66-212-244-128-1)
66.212.244.128 - 66.212.244.255Go to http://www.arin.net and enter the IP address in a whois search. That connection is from one of their own IP’s….
CustName: Absolute Entertainment S.A.
Address: Plaza Mayor 2nd building 2nd floor
City: San Jose
StateProv:
PostalCode:
Country: CR
RegDate: 2006-08-16
Updated: 2006-09-26
That might be kind of technical, but the general idea is that the email address was hosted by Kahnawake but actually belong to AP! So this SCOTT@RIVIERALTD.COM fellow was actually connected to AP. This was overwhelming evidence in my mind… remember:
- There was a low numbered user watching the table (and probably sharing hole card info) with the suspicious player POTRIPPER
- The low numbered user was connecting from Costa Rica
- An AP-associated person was on the same IP address and even though he wasn’t watching table 13, he revealed himself nonetheless
My head was spinning. I kept posting more and more of these revelations online. One issue was that I didn’t know who Scott was. So I sent out a feeler email (PM in some cases) asking various places to check on the IP address that was used by the two sketchy accounts.
Sure enough, I woke up Tuesday morning to find a rash of evidence sitting in front of me. 2+2 moderator Adanthar found that the IP address was used by a 2+2 account with the login name scotttom. P5s admin Adam Small told me that he knew one of the AP owners was named Scott (although he didn’t say the last name). A few other sources who do not want to be named told me that Scott Tom was associated with that IP address. It was also pointed out to me that there was an online blog post where some girl said that Scott and Phil Tom (brothers I think, although only Scott seems to have been implicated) were AP owners and executives. Adanthar posted his findings on 2+2 and revealed that he’d connected the somewhat mysterious IP address to an actual person. Also, other sources that do not want to be named confirmed that the IP address was a residential cable modem tied specifically to the Tom family.
So that’s how everything was tied together on as simple a level as I can make it. I am not including a ton of various leads that I’ve followed or some of the inside info that I received, but this is the general gist of it. I’ll post more as time goes on, especially on things like the media, AP and community reactions to this stuff.
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Comments
Very interesting. I haven’t followed up on all of this AP stuff yet but your break down makes me want to follow it from here on out. I look forward to seeing more entries about this.
Some pretty crazy shit!
You are like the Sherlock Holmes of the online poker world - remind me to never piss you off. 
Isnt it nuts, in rakes and tourney fees these sites can make a million a day and the CEO or president or someone on the fkin gravy train has to have more. What a black eye for gaming, gamblers, pokerplayers, hustlers, rounders, casual players, trusting fishies and everyone inviolved. Maybe online poker should be illegal unless its regulated, this is what happens. I hope AP goes down in flames.
Proving Sklansky right…
Every time you play a hand differently from the way you would have played it if you could see all your opponents’ cards, they gain; and every time you play your hand the same way you would have played it if you could see all their cards, they lose. –…
[…] Now there’s another reason not to play online. There are some accusations floating around the (fairly large) online poker community that one gaming site has been complicit in a cheating scam. […]
extremely well explained! have been looking threw forum posts about this for hours and hours, should have just waited and go straight to your blog!
I just got goosebumps seeing that excel file for the first time… I’ve seen enough of those as a developer to recognize a straight-up database dump when I see one.
I really can’t imagine a run-of-the-mill support person having access to the raw database data, but you never know…
Hey, do you think graycat joined the 1K buy in tourney and sat out waiting to take over just incase potripper busted out of it. It sounds like a likely possibility to me.
[…] In other news, there is a huge scandal with an online poker site caught cheating. Check out the write-up Nat did. […]
Anyone try and load that XLS file into Excel 2007, to get around the 65k cell limitation?
(since I don’t know how that data was exported in the first place…)
[…] thanks to Justin Goff, twoplustwo.com, natarem.com, and neverwinpoker.com. Related PostsOfficial Absolute Poker Response To Player Fraud […]
Awesome work Nat. As a poker enthusiast and seasoned security professional I think this will get some major coverage.
This makes me wonder about the potential for class action lawsuits by anyone who has lost money in a game involving potripper. As these all of these events are logged, it could be useful to describe a method for online game sites to monitor for suspicious activities.
[…] still been following the forums as there has been two major topics as of late. The first being the Absolute Poker Inside Job cheater, and the second being the disqualification of the WCOOP ME winner for multi-accounting. The WCOOP […]
[…] N 82 50 24’s Blog :: The AP situation Even more information…. (tags: poker security cheating) […]
Nat,
I usually don’t post on 2+2 or poker blogs but as a regular high stakes pleyer I’d like to sincerely thank you for the work you put into keeping the games honest.
Regards,
Kerpowski
Definitely the best, most concise explanation of the situation I’ve seen. Thanks for sharing and compiling all this.
Actually, it’s likely that you have FULL hand history in that file, it’s just that Excel cannot load it after line 65534. Most probably, it was automatically exported directly from DB in CSV format (maybe with XLS extension), but it’s really plaintext. So you may want to try to import it into Access, or just about any text editor (not notepad).
Referring what dee said, which I completely agree, you can also use “csved” that is a free software that handle very well those large files; you would be able also to filter the relevant infos and make a smaller file. Good work by the way.
Great work uncovering this! I’m glad that AP has decided to reimburse all losses. Unfortunately, it’s probably either extremely difficult or impossible to keep poker software from being hacked by those that had a big role in creating the software in the first place. I don’t have any problem with the fact that this happened. It’s really no surprise.
What really gets me is that AP sent that log file to a customer. That is a huge violation of customers privacy. If they hadn’t sent that I would feel sorry for AP, and would even continue to play on their site.
If you want to look into other possible cheating…check out the 100K Pro Bounty this past week….the final two at the table seemed to have some kind of intuition…in fact Mark Seif was in the final 4 at that table.
The guy who finished 2 claims to have been there 3 times in a row..
the fact that ap (and probably most other sites)have programmers that cheat should be a foregone assumption. as a begginner programmer it is easy to see how back doors would b put into it.ihave won over 50k playin but go in assuming im getting fked over most of the time . lost the 1st 5 final tables i played with aa… not real likely without screwed up programming or cheating goin on. good to see someone watchin it
The most damning part of this is that the Kanawakee Gaming Commission has not acted decisively and, in fact via a couple of well connected individuals, may be compromised themselves. That casts a pall over the entire industry.
Unless immediate and Draconian measures are taken against AP and the participants in this fiasco, the credibility of every firm domiciled in Kanawakee is in question.
wake-up and smell the coffee!!!
Is this really a shock to us all?
In the back of your minds I think you knew all along
that online poker wasn’t a square deal!!!
That’s why we need goverment regulation and oversight.
Poker sites must originate out of Nevada. The gaming commission will guarantee no fraud from the insiders
or they will lose it all! As far as the outsiders
collusion will take place, but when you get caught you will be prosecuted to the full extent of the law! How about that? Did I frighten anyone yet?
This is a disgrace but definitly the evidence I have been looking for b/c we all knew shady shady stuff was going on. That being said, it’s still bullshit. They knew this was going on and they are putting a great public relations show on right now for all of us. They know degenerates are degenerates and people are not taking off their money. They gave me the 500 dollar entry fee back from saturday’s 150k but it is not enough. I have sent them numerous emails with attached hand histories asking them how this was possible and it was not potripper. THERE ARE MORE SUPER ACCOUNTS ON ABSOLUTE POKER.
[…] view one page, so it is a not a sticky site) and around 35,000 uniques in the last 30 days (thanks AP situation post). I usually get way less uniques than that, but I do have a fair amount of AP-related stuff to […]
this is not a suprise at all, the site regularily sets up hands to win or lose, and the fact that someone in AP is cheating doesnt suprise me, my friend western unioned money to Botswana to get onto the site one time, this was set up by the ap cashier department….. No B.s total truth
[…] EDIT: If you’d like to read the post that I made last October during the scandal, here’s a link: Absolute Poker Cheating Scandal. […]
Yea i have seen it done to many times i don’t understand why people cheat. And also i want to know what yall are doing to resolve the issue it’s supposed to be a fun site not a cheat site there needs to be some kind of action taken and soon.
not only do ap cheat, is rigged, and if i send them emails, in wanting some answers or even the truth, they will twist things around as though they act fake or change the story around cuz i know they are lying. they are a huge company that have a enough money to hide the fact their site does cheat. they will get away from telling us true players the truth. and whats sad, is that, if i continue to email them cuz we can, they feel that i am harrassing them but its their job to answer our mails, why would they call them customer service? i dont get it? so when they feel we harrass them by emails they cant answer with the truth, they will block our chats, our accounts when it had nothing to do with in game, or they will themselves will hack our ip address to lose ever hand, or have our cards shown to every player. i have proof i was playing a hand, and some other player called out what i had in hand before the flop was shown on the turn. ap is rigged and it makes me sad, sick that they can cover up their lies cuz of money
ap is a joke, its like every hand on the turn is high cards, that is not poker
they say their cashier or dealer is set up on machine, i think its a lie, i honestly feel, they have people that deal out cards and if they feel they dont like a certain player, they deal out bad cards to them or its pretty sad when people come in and sit for hours at a seat, every hand is given to them. ap say its luck, its not, there was a player KENSHINICA at a seat winning ever hand, he won 12 times in a row and you know what ap said, it had nothing to do with my email cuz he ignore the situation
hi i just want to say, i have a strong feeling player “KENSHINICA” at table Eruka ST 749945, has been cheating or can see cards. the only reason why i have a feeling, cuz i was at the table myself and saw he won 12 times in a row. how can a player win each hand. i mean he played alright but every bet he made or called he would win no matter what and was getting every hand. i just thought it was fishey a player could win 12 times in a row without losing unless they can see cards, cheat or works with the dealer?
“my email to ap”
so when i called him out, he finally left and i sat at the seat he was sitting at which he won tunz of money, and what was odd to me, i was not getting the cards he was getting and that at which he was winning every hand, 12 in a row.
thank you
ap reply”
Dear Mr. Hope
Thank you for contacting us.
Your account has been reactivated; however, you will not be able to withdraw the money you received through chip dumping.
Please remember that you cannot use our tables to transfer money; always send an email requesting the transfer and our customer service agents will gladly assist you.
Please let us know if there is anything else we can do for you.
If there is anything else we can assist you with please let us know.
Sincerely,
Jonathan
Team Absolute ~ Security & Control Department
i know i have the right not to play on line poker, i dont have the right to judge but when i feel in my gut something odd goes on i speak my mind and the truth even if i cuss but i know its not right
but i feel ap is rigged, they are double standard site, i even think yahoo works with them. i think ap dont care about people or even care that there are true players like me who do like to play and can and dont have to cheat to play. yes its fake chips. i dont use real money never could or would, but its about respect as a player i am. i have patient to lose or win but its suck that there are players who have to cheat to step so low cuz they cant play and ap lets it happend cuz all they care is about people that do gamble real money when they dont care abou people that can play but with fake chips.
i doubut the govement would get involve even though would be nice, but ap is like the goverment they cover up their faults cuz of money and because they can. if i worked at ap and knew how low ap is, i would quit. i would feel ashamed to work for a company that stole, cheats and lies and still are
what i also dont get, ap wont talerate cussing or using the f word meaning being gay even though it does mean happy back in the 40s lol but its ok to promote, bad log on names there is a player that has “_bitch_” has famous actors pictures with no copy write premissions or has weed, gang signs, hitler signs or dirty body part pictures, like i said ap is double standard site and they do have people that work for the game and play, when ever a baby picture is shown, its an ap player for sure
ap are hackers and lie to cover up their blood and they have players that hack computer ip address
i did sent an email to oprah, i may sound like a noob or a coward for being so childish but i am tired of sites that get away with things that is full of lies and are making money out of it
Interesting that they were sophisticated enough to cheat but not enough to cover their IP tracks by bouncing their IP using TOR etc
Good work, and I was about to start playing online, oh well next
There should be a grand Jury investigating everyone and anyone they can get that they have jurisdiction over. Or a Senate investigation. The Credit card companies could and should get involved.
This Whole thing wreaks of malfeasance, and Grand larceny.
You are crazy if you think any of the sites are honest. absolute cards are so far from random its a joke. They actually stole 800 bucks from me sent me an email that said i won too much and i must be cheating even though they dont know how i am cheating and they are freezing my account.
As for the kahnawakees dont expect them to ever do anything. Their license agreements with their sites is based on receiving a percentage of the profits. Now this is of course a huge blatent conflict of interest which makes them ubable to regulate the sites. Surprising nobody they have never investigated anybody and never will. Casinos which were under investigation for flat out refusal to pay winners in countries such as antigua were welcomed with open arms by the kahnawakees and fled jurisdictions which might actually try to regulate them.
ive always know from years of playing on absolute that it was very suspicious in the way things are run but now finally you found a way to pinpoint the cheaters and its not very surprising that its an inside job..it seems as though there are many many people that are favored to get the cards or know what is coming in hands….ive got emails from a person named ken chan regarding cheat programs for 50 to 100 dolars..programs that let you see hole cards or tell you the next cards to come out or even give you the cards you need to win…since you have found a way to point these people out maybe they will actually do something about it…
thankyou for valadating my suspicions . i stopped playing on ap and ub because i felt i was being cheated . i even emailed them and told them my concerns . i have also played against scottom who would make calls with horrible cards and some how win . thanks you should check out other sites as well. ty 744bm
Site owners can give you any cards they want… They can fix flop… and so on. And it is just Bad Luck! (because you aren’t site owner)
I’m not surprised by any of this. As a sometime player of advancing years,I recently made a Mastercard $50 deposit into U.B, and then was informed that I wouldn’t be paid out the same way that I had paid it in. Simple I thought(silly me)that they could send me a check if I were so gifted as to actually win anything substantial. But then the penny dropped when they wanted me to supply-again-all my personnel information; like name address phone ect. But then they needed me to take photos of both sides of my bankcard, place in under a sheet of paper and using a pencil scrub up the embossed numbers. And then the final piece of administration crap they wanted me to sign it.
I don’t know about you but I don’t send my signature along with my card to anyone anywhere, full stop. But they at UB insisted, and so I asked for my money back as I hadn’t used any of it. My account is now frozen until I comply. Now this was bad enough but the big mommy AP step in and also freezes my account with them, because they say I owe UB $100? For what I cry, as they don’t allow you to run up a debt. So if I didn’t have money in there how could I owe them a $100. So there you have it, a couple of multinational companys, earning billions of dollars are holding an old aged pensioner up for ransom. How sad is that. And I still, of writing, haven’t got my $50 back?
JJMac
There is little doubt that cheating has taken place on AP and continues still. One of the new forms is miss leading a player when they first join and began to play on the FREE CHIP side.
You asked why would any online poker gambling site risk something like this when no real money is involved. Simple, 98% of all cash players have left and gone to other online poker sites. In order to recruit new REAL MONEY players, you have to convince new players they are better than they really are! How do they do this? Simple again, be sure and give them better hands when first playing and continue this practice at the same time you push them to move to the REAL MONEY side. Also offer deals to match funds is a good inducement. This practice appears to take place over a 4 to 8 week period. I have personally sat with many new players and watched them win anywhere from 10 to 30 hands in row. Making calls with hands that no one would even make a first minimum bet or call with under any circumstances. But yet they win.
This method is almost fool proof except that many experienced players have witnessed the actions I have mentioned here and complained to AP. The response from AP is always the same. NO CHEATING ON THEIR SITE! Or they just ignore you all together.
The people that play on this site on the FREE CHIP side are safe as long as they stay there! You may not win as you normal would on a honest site online (there is another whole can of worms to talk about) or in a brick & mortor room, but you can still enjoy the game and no loose your shirt!
Until a Legal Gambling vehicle (under a Gaming Commission like we have here in the US) is put in charge of regulating all online gambling, we will still see cheating taking place.
Stud Player
how can they not be cheating on ub i got rivered 32 times in one weekend always with the best hand in all sites tweek there software for the chipleaders they say no but the astronomical bad beats ive seen beg to differ ub went dirty in late 2007 a bunch of new players came in and all of a sudden no ones winning that anyone has ever heard of
Thanks for the confirmation of what I have been working on for months. I have logged hours of play on several sites only to find that not only is it possible for people to see hold cards but for sites programs to deal cards to seats as they please. I have deleted all online sites off. Keep in mind when Pardise Poker was online I won thousands!!! got paid quickly and never saw the B.S. I have seen on AP, SBook, FullTilt,etc. etc. To those that believe their are not scams, I will you well.
Thanks again for your research.
JD
Excellent work. I hope justice prevails in this case. As a poker enthusiast do you think there is any way to select a more credible site to play on? I think that the cheating site should be exposed in the Poker Player magazines that they give away at the Casinos and Card rooms across the country.This may help in alerting players on these sites. I for one will probably never play online again.
I saw the report on 60 Minutes tonight, so I am reading this for the first time. We all like SMART poker playing, so long as it’s fair. It’s a travesty that that these crimes can go on for so long.
According to the 60 Minutes report, all this cheat got was a warning and no prosecution from AP in change for how he did it. The sleuth work done here was alluded to.
Unfortunately there’s is no one we can complain to in the US. The US does have jurisdictional control over Costa Rica or Canada where one server is based.
Thanks a lot for sharing this information. You did a great job of sniffing out the cheats. (some of them, at least.)
I too have seen some hands that seem to defy logic but since I am a low-limit player I find it hard to believe the thieves would spend time at the tables I frequent.
I am fairly confident that bots are fairly common because I see people playing 13 games at once and not holding up play. It is hard for me to believe that anyone can play “live” under those conditions for hours on end.
I sure hope Barney Frank keeps the pressure on for regulation and taxation in the U.S. and I thank PPA for all of their good work.
ok i hit the royal flush at hollywood poker twice 2 nights in a row hearts the first night paid me 4800.00 spades the next night paid me 2600.00 the minute i cashed any of it out that day i had it seemed every table id play on from that point there was always at least 3 observers and they would follow me to what ever table id move to and i couldnt buy a fricken hand for over a year so i finally decided i was getting scanned by the site and of course i lost thousands before i relized i was getting shafted although i left still a little up as far the site wise i am very glad to read all the info about ap and ub cause im thousands down at both of them
Hey, I used to play on absolute poker back when it first started in 2003. There was this player who used to take me for every time I had, I thought it was a bot at first. Now I realize maybe it was an employee who could see my cards. I would keep losing and he would continuely suck out on me so I would redeposit thinking I would adventually get this guy. No such luck. Anyways, I think the guys username was Clearwater500 or something along those lines. He would be sitting at the 5/10 no limit all day at times. If you know how I can find access to my hand history it would awesome. Thanks. My username was todds18p
Nat, you are a genius. This whole thing just gets more and more unbelievable. Do you think when you get more information it would ever be worth getting a lawyer or something? Do you think it could blow up huge?