The biggest breakthrough in the story comes after a seemingly routine $1,000 buy-in tournament played at Absolute Poker on September 12. Marco Johnson, a well-known online tournament player which goes by the screen name CrazyMarco, reaches the final stages of the tournament, only to loose a head-to-head battle with cheat account Potripper. CrazyMarco smells something rotten, and asks for the hand history of the final table.

Two weeks pass, and CrazyMarco receives a huge Microsoft Excel spreadsheet from Absolute Poker. It’s scrambled and complicated, containing 10MB and a full 65,536 rows (which is the limit in most current versions) of information. CrazyMarco decides to save it and look at it later.

In the mean time, the four cheat accounts Graycat, Steamroller, DoubleDrag, and Potripper are suspended and frozen by Absolute Poker. More rumors about cheating at Absolute Poker circulate around the internet, including many posts on the twoplustwo.com poker forums. The cheating rumors become so big that Absolute Poker can’t ignore them any more, and they come out with an official statement on October 12th. The company states that they take these allegations “extremely seriously”. According to the statement, Absolute Poker has “determined with reasonable certainty” that no can see the hole cards, and that no super accounts exist. On allegations that players exhibited “infinite river aggression” (never calling on the river cards, only raising or folding), AbsolutePoker.com feels this is “also without merit”. They did, however, admit that chip dumping did occur and promised to “investigate this issue”.

On October 13th, exactly one day after the first statement made by absolute poker, CrazyMarco sends the Excel file to more tech-savvy friends, realizing that the information enclosed may shed much light on the whole scandal. One of these friends, TheWacoKidd, manages to unscramble the data, and realizes that he just hit the jackpot. Absolute poker has accidentally sent CrazyMarco not only the hand history of the final table, but the hand history of the entire tournament, including each and every player’s hole cards. And that’s not all. The file also includes the IP address and email of each player. As if that’s not enough, the file also includes IP addresses and emails of every player observing the tournament.

After reading through the file, it is clear to see how Potripper won the tournament in question. Potripper folded his first two hands, but once observer #363 arrived at his table, he never folded pre-flop again for over 20 minutes. He never calls on the river, only folds or raises, and he always seems to know exactly when to do what. Even when pot odds are clearly against him, his decisions are always relative to other player’s cards. For example, he plays hands like 7-2 off-suite, the worst hand in hold’em, over and over again, but then folds a KQ when another player at the table is dealt AA.

Making matters worse, Potripper’s email address is , and the IP address is tracked back to a cable modem in Costa Rica owned by Scott Tom, co-owner of Absolute Poker and president since 2005 (yes, the same guy that was heading to Colombia in his private jet with $3 million in cash). It is now believed that the Potripper account belonged to AJ Green, who is a former Director of Operations at Absolute Poker and Scott Tom’s best friend. No more than 2 hours after the results of TheWacoKidd’s investigation is made public on the internet, the DNS (domain name server) information for rivieraltd.com is deleted. Absolute Poker comes out with an official statement claiming that Scott Tom has not been employed by the company for over a year.

Only on October 19th does Absolute Poker finally admit that their online poker software has been hacked and its security has been compromised, even if for a limited period of time. They claim that this was done by an employee who was using the accounts of Scott Tom and AJ Green. “This is literally a geek trying to prove to senior management that they were wrong and he took it too far,” an Absolute Poker representative said.

But on October 21st Joe Norton, owner of Tokwiro Enterprises ENRG, which holds an 100% interest in Absolute Poker, released a far more satisfying statement. “The integrity of our poker system was compromised by a high-ranking trusted consultant employed by AP whose position gave him extraordinary access to certain security systems,” the statement reads. “As has been speculated in several online forums, this consultant devised a sophisticated scheme to manipulate internal systems to access third-party computers and accounts to view hole cards of other customers during play without their knowledge.”

Absolute Poker is now bumping every player that took part in the infamous tournament up a spot, and is refunding their $1000 + $50 entry fee.

The cheating scandal has prompted the Kahnawake Gaming Commission to audit Absolute Poker, and an independent investigation is currently being held. David Montour, the Kahnawake's Gaming Commission's Chairman said that “the allegations of impropriety have been bought to the attention of the Kahnawake Gaming Commission. We have appointed experts to conduct a thorough audit of all circumstances, provide findings and recommendations to the Commission. The audit will not be restricted to examining theories circulating in Internet chat rooms.”

It is essential that all online gaming and wagering is conducted in a fair and honest manner where customers are protected,” The Chairman went on to say. “The Kahnawake Gaming Commission is committed to ensuring fair and honest gaming.”

More than anything, this story shows that no one can cheat at online poker and get away with it for long. There are too many systems in place to make sure that the games are fair and honest. Even when high-ranked employees try to take advantage of their situation, too many eyes are watching. Internet blogs, forums and chatrooms are the watchdogs of fair online poker play.

Note: PokerMaster.org has never promoted or recommended Absolute Poker as an online poker destination.

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