I've written about it twice before and, frankly, if you were still playing at Ultimate Bet, you are a damned fool. The site is lousy and the software sucks. There is poor, or non-existent, customer service.
Oh, and it IS actaully rigged.
Before I get all cranked up, check out the posts I wrote 3 full years ago!
Ultimate Bet Cheats On A Tournament
Ultimate Bet Has Bad Tournament Software
Here's the thing about online poker, it's worth keeping in mind, most of the people who play it are morons. That is less a function of poker itself than a reflection of people in general. For example, a recent Pew survey found that 10% of American voters still believe Barack Obama is a muslim.
18% of the people in that same survey think the Sun revolves around the Earth.
Because they are morons.
The Ultimate Bet Cheating Scandal broke at the end of last year with allegations of "insider access" similar to what happened at the cheat-plagued Absolute Poker. In a "Pocket 5s" forum post back in November there was already some insinuation:
Here are the most interesting points for our discussion:
4. A higher level executive was fired not to long ago, because her 19 year old son, who she got a job at UB, was caught cheating games at the UB office. It is unclear to my source if holecards were able to be seen during the hand, but it is a possibility. He definitely was cheating customers somehow, maybe a cobination of the above things mentioned at the very least.edit: Another close, reliable source has just talked to me and told me "the woman's son had "administrative access" which let him see hole cards." and that the source "wouldn't be surprised if administrative access still exists" The person went on to say "there's also evidence that at least a couple months ago AJ (Green) was overseeing day to day operations"
5. "Someone" was brought on board by UB to help clean up the site. He figured out the problem was that they were using a version of the software from 1998 that had security holes in it (i.e. no security firewalls were/could be put in place) that couldn't be fixed without a complete overhaul of the software, which was estimated at costing 6 million dollars. UB decided it was not in their best interests to upgrade the software.
Now, because most poker writers are not journalists but, rather, shameless hucksters for one or another billion dollar corportation there is little real investigation into this cheating scandals online.
The good stuff is still in the forums.
I read through this entire discussion again after finding a link on Pauly's site.
I HIGHLY reccommend blasting through this 2+2 thread.
Here's a snippet from the Introductory post:
Several million dollars were stolen and the evidence in the HSNL thread indicates very strongly that:UltimateBet has known about the cheating for at least nine months.
UltimateBet knew about but did not make any attempt to acknowledge the cheating before it was exposed on 2+2.
People who worked for UltimateBet facilitated the cheating.
UltimateBet actively took steps to cover up these crimes and thwart the investigation of this scandal.
Additionally:
UltimateBet did not make any public statements or acknowledge that cheating had occurred until March 6th, 2008, three full months after the crimes became public.UltimateBet has not reached out to any of the players who were stolen from (many of whom still don't know that they were cheated). When players read the HSNL thread, discover that they have been cheated and attempt to contact UltimateBet, they're forced to wait several days for an email response, only to be told that UltimateBet is 'looking into the allegations.'
UltimateBet has not offered to reimburse any of the victims of the theft.
Isn't that enough? There is proof, of course, and I encourage you to read the 2+2 post.
Again, UB CHEATS AND STEALS, and you ought to know it by now.
Or you could be like this douchebag who posted on my 3 year old "Still the Worst" post just last month... LONG after he should have known better:
"ive played here for years never had a problem
Posted by: kidplay at May 2, 2008 10:39 PM".
Here's more, responses to this YOUTUBE recreation of AbsolutePoker cheater "Potripper" in action:
"Whatever I play every hand and win tournaments all the time, you just gotta have a gut feeling. Besides if they were cheating why would they make it so freakin' obvious?"
"lol he just seems like anyother typical donk if u ask me. go on any poker romm many ppl play very random"
Folks, Absolute Poker and Ultimate Bet are owned by the same corrupt douchebag. If you play on either site you are just giving money away.
If that is your goal please contact us here at the following poker blog. We will accept your cash.