Ultimate Bet and Russ Hamilton
I finally got involved in the whole UB thing this past week after an insider named brainwashdodo posted some screenshots and transfer histories. I’d been staying away because of a lack of hard evidence on the superusers, but thanks to brainwashdodo, I got involved again. Whoever he/she is — you did a good job getting that info.
A lot of the transfers between the superusers had Russ Hamilton’s name all over it. RussHamilton, -russh-, etc. There was another account named -Fred- that was tied to another old school UB guy named Fred David. It didn’t prove much except that it made me virtually certain that Russ and Fred knew who the superusers were. But then again, that was kind of obvious because the UB statements said that it was an inside job from former UB employees, so it was a huge shocker. Nonetheless, I decided to look into it and see what I could find.
As I looked into the history of UB, I found a lot of connections to Madison, WI guys. Guys like Phil Hellmuth, etc — they were all instrumental in the start of UB. There was a tech guy named Greg Pierson who ran a company called ieLogic, which programmed the original UB software. I’m not sure what happened to ieLogic, but Greg then went on to head up Iovation, which is still a company today. My basic conclusion is that since Greg Pierson was in at the beginning of the whole thing (literally the very start of discussions) and he was in charge of the development, he had to know how it all got started.
I also received some information from a UB whistleblower. I was sent the following about the nvtease/NoPaddles/sleeplesss account, which is a confirmed superuser as per the May UB press release:
Customer ID: Token ID: Username: Status: Creation Date: Update Date: 227061 Sleeplesss Active 2003-09-16 16:33:01 2007-09-05 13:12:49 Name: Lauren B Makar Address 1: 1725 Glenview Dr. Address 2: Address 3: Address 4: City, State, Postal Code Las Vegas, NEVADA 89134 Country UNITED STATES Customer Phone: 702326xxxx Customer Birthdate: 1967-xx-xx Email Information: Address: atease@vegasinbox.com
That’s a bit of a shitshow, but you get the idea. I took out some sensitive information to protect privacy. I didn’t know how to lookup records, so I posted asking about that on 2p2 here. I got a PM from sprstoner that pointed me to the Clark County lookup system and I put in the address. That took me, after a click, to here. Who’s the name listed?
HAMILTON RUSSELL & CAROLYN
They bought the property in 2006 from Travis and Lauren Makar. I don’t know how those names are connected. But it showed that the registered address of at least some of the super user accounts belonged to Russ Hamilton, the former owner of UB.
I basically felt sick to my stomach. I talked to Russ on the phone a few times in the fall — brsavage got me in touch with him. We talked about how disgusting it was that this happened at AP. Russ expressed a strong opinion that he was going to do whatever it took to get things right and, at the time, I believed him that he was going to fight to get things at AP right. He even got me in touch with the guys at AP so I could go down there and meet with them on behalf of PokerNews and the community as a whole. This guy RAILED against the people at AP who were superusing.
I made this post on 2p2. I made this post on P5s.
We’ll see what happens in the following days. Does anyone have the balls to ask Phil Hellmuth about this out at the WSOP?
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Comments
Absolutely unreal. Surely he’d have made a bunch of money from being the actual owner and even more he sold it on.
Greed obviously got the better of him.
On the matter of greed, why oh why did none of the super user accounts just sit and win at a high but not ridiculous winrate because they would never have been caught.
And LOL at UB not outing these people properly, shady site that will never see my micro-grinding arse at!
Good work as ever Nat
awesome job man…..
i really hope UB/AP go busto to show any other sites what will happen when they cheat.. as of now, the example shown is they only may have to refund if they get caught. not good.
thanks man
What gets me is that all the people who always used to say that something was wrong with UB or other sites, and that the sites seemed rigged, were constantly derided and ridiculed. Now this kind of stuff starts coming out and we’re supposed to believe that this was the only problem and that no other shenanigans, of any sort, have ever or will ever exist again? I think a lot of people should be eating crow and the industry should be looking for more oversight to prove it’s legitimacy. And poker player consumer groups should be trying to keep an eye on the sites as well. I’d prefer these options over government regulation.
on a treo so this will be abbreviated. already said so in the 2+2 thread but I wanted to stop by here to say thanks…so thanks!!! I know u felt like u accomplished nothing with the ap fiasco. but u did. just because u didn’t bring down the site doesn’t mean nothing was accomplished. u affected me and probably many many like me. so, thanks!
Serious kudos for all the detective work that went into this. My first reaction when I read this on 2p2 was to be even more pissed with Tokwiro than I already was that players are still left figuring this out for themselves, and I wrote a fairly scathing entry to that effect - but I’m starting to think I was a bit rash. As I give it more thought it maybe explains their silence too, as there’s a good chance they already figured this out themselves with all the account info they have, and if so there could be legal action underway they can’t talk about. I think I’ll file this under wait and see for now.
it’s truly amazing how many people will jump out and make foolish and uninformed comments with little or no true information. russ and carolyn hamilton are close personal friends of mine for over 20 years, i have been to and stayed at their homes many, many times over the years and have been present when russ was playing poker online many times and can say with no reserve that i saw nothing other than normal poker play. i will also say without hesitation that i trust russ completely and have done numerous business transactions with him and have found him to be nothing but aboveboard and honest. i will not ever hesitate to continue the same relationship and would not be the least bit leary of future business transactions with russ. i am honored to be counted among his close friends. kathy hudson
kathy, please read the thread on twoplustwo. there were others who came into the thread echoing the same comments. however, they have had to reconsider given the great work done by nat and many others. at the very least, nat’s comments are certainly more than speculative and russ has some ’splainin’ to do. so, I echo your opinion only mine is directed at you. nat has done yeomans work. all he’s trying to do is get to the truth, unlike some others.
Do you really believe that Russ would actually play on the super user account when he wasn’t alone?
When no one was around is when the dirty deeds were done.
I had a neighbor that was a wonderful man. Had pets, drove a Jag, was the nicest guy you ever want to be around. Had BBQ and invited neighbors and had nice parties too.
Imagine our surprise when the LAPD came a knocking and took him away…he was a cat-burgler. Went out and robbed homes during the day.
So, what you may know is not as alarming as much as what you don’t know…
Being a programmer myself and knowing that I often put my bosses information when asked by software for my own personal info. I can see how a user who has “SuperUser” privileges would have the ability to fill in the address information with anything they wanted to put there. It makes perfect sense to me that these cheaters would hide their own identities as much as possible and place false personal information wherever they saw fit. What better false personal information than the owner of the company itself. In their minds it’s a great joke.
Wasn’t the money funneled through different accounts before being cashing out?
Hasn’t anyone thought of this possibility?
Hey Nat,
I have been playing online for years on all sites. There are two players in particular that stand out to me on pokerstars. These two play high stakes only, sit n go’s. Their earnings’ charts on sharkscope go in one direction, straight up. The odds are astronomical. I have played against both of them many times and every time i out-play them, I get beat somehow, usually on the river. Each are up over $300,000 on the year just in sit n go’s. How do you suggest I go about bringing them down? There is clearly foul play involved here! Do you want to take on another project? Thank you.
goes to show these online gambling companies cannot be trusted. This stuff needs to be regulated by the government
I think that it will probably change things on other sites as well as this one. I stopped playing on UB, a long time ago but I still play on poker stars and AB, and have run into some pretty shady incidents on all of them.
This is why I still refuse to put my hard earned money into any gambling website/s. I’ll stick to playing with play chips online and B&M games for real $$ before I trust my money online.
It’s also worthy to note that there are other ”famous poker websites” that have a poker forum and whenever any forum members mention the possibility of the site/s being rigged, they are ”vehemently ridiculed” by the site Moderators.
Something smells ”very fishy” at these other famous poker sites i.m.o.
Colour me totally unsurprised by this. Long before there was ever such a thing as Ultimate Bet, I’d heard about Russ Hamilton’s scummyness. The best line I ever heard was “Russ was the Puggy Pearson of the 90s”.