All through the last twelve months accusations have been flying on the Internet of fraudulent activity taking place at the online poker room UltimateBet.

So far UltimateBet seemed to be skirting the issue much to the annoyance of those who had suffered.

However now Tokwiro Enterprises ENRG, the proprietors of UltimateBet, have accepted that unfair play did take place between March 2006 and December 2007. They have identified the miscreants and have published the remedial measures they intend to take. 

The target of the fraudulent play was the highest limit game tables. Six players, who used 18 different screen names, were involved. The issue came to notice when an account named “NioNio” showed earnings beyond statistical norms. The modus operandi was the insertion of an unauthorized software code that revealed the hole card of the other players to the perpetrators of the fraud. These persons had worked for the previous wners of UltimateBet and had then introduced the unauthorized code.

When Tokwiro purchased UltimateBet in October 2006, the code was already in place and was being used to swindle genuine poker players. UltimateBet has not yet released the amount of the illegal winnings, though they have accepted full responsibility for the incident and have agreed to compensate players who have lost money to the six named accounts during the relevant period. UltimateBet has also indicated that they may pursue legal action.

UltimateBet has confirmed that the security lapse in the software has been rectified by the removal of the unauthorized code. This has been confirmed through a software audit carried out by Gaming Associates, an independent expert agency hired by the Kahnawake Gaming Commission. A new state of the art Security Center has been established by UltimateBet. This center has been designed by mathematicians, poker professionals and computer experts and one of the objectives is to immediately raise the alarm for any abnormal earnings.

UltimateBet users will not ordinarily be allowed to change their account names. Requests can be made in case of suffering abuse in chat rooms and must be approved by the Chief Compliance Officer. A specialized Poker Security team will independently and dedicatedly work for fraud detection. The accounts of the individuals who have committed the fraud have been disabled and those individuals have been banned from playing. UltimateBet will immediately start refunding losses to losers. All losses incurred in games with the cheats during the relevant period will be refunded. 

The investigation of the fraud at UltimateBet was carried out under the aegis of the Kahnawake Gaming Commission, the organization that has issued the license to UltimateBet. According to the release by UltimateBet, the first suspicion of unfair play came in January 2008. It immediately informed the Kahnawake Gaming Commission and started its own investigation. The “NioNio” account was disabled. By February 2008 the gravity of the situation was realized and an expert third party was involved in the investigation. In February itself the modus operandi described earlier was discovered and the unauthorized code removed.

A detailed scrutiny of history sheets was carried out through March 2008 to May 2008 to confirm that the fraudulent activity took place between 7th March 2006 and 3rd December 2007. UltimateBet released its report to the public domain in the end of May 2008.