The Return Of The Ultimate Bet Executives

The US regulated online gaming market started 2016 with a bang. But as we all know, not all bangs are that good...

First, PokerStars coming to New Jersey news broke out encouraging all the American poker players to dream with their eyes open. A very good news indeed but as the US poker community was jumping from one foot to another, two other topics slowly crept in almost unnoticed. For some old players, those topics coincide with their worst nightmares but for the new ones, they are hardly headlines or worth reading at all. If you aren’t entirely familiar with this subjects, let’s make a quick recap of what happened in 2007 and 2008, just after the Unlawful Internet Gambling Enforcement Act of 2006 (UIGEA) was signed.

God Mode and Poker Superusers

First, let’s start with Absolute Poker. It was 2007 and a player hiding under the screen name POTRIPPER was crushing AP. During a weekly $1,000 buy-in tourney, he showed his dominance by playing a high percentage of his hands preflop and making no mistakes whatsoever post-flop. He would always fold when he was beat and raise when villain bluffed. During the heads-up play, he even called with Ten high on a drawy board as if he knew his opponent was bluffing with a flush draw. He won that MTT with the hero call and his opponent, noticing his flawless, unnatural play, contacted AP and told them what happened.

Shortly after, some high stakes players also noticed several users crushing the limit games although they played way too many hands. Eventually, AP responded to the MTT runner-up and told him they found nothing wrong. However, upon a close inspection of the hand history AP provided when proving that "nothing was wrong," the MTT player noticed the hole cards of all the players were included with no exception (although the site shouldn’t have that power). Something was fishy. Upon realizing the mistake, AP began covering its tracks.

Half a year later, question marks were raised this time on Ultimate Bet. A player hiding under the screen name NioNio was dominating the high stakes landscape playing 60% of the hands, thin valuing at perfection, and making some unbelievable hero calls. In merely 64 hours of play, NioNio won over $600,000. Shortly after, the account was deleted or changed. Other suspicious usernames were spotted all playing the same style as NioNio and all being deleted (or changed) after cashing in big. UB later acknowledged the unfair play and the use of a God Mode in its software - users who could see other players’ hole cards. Shortly thereafter, the Kahnawake Gaming Commission who licensed both AP and UB - both owned by Tokwiro Enterprises ENRG - found Russ Hamilton to be the player responsible for the fraud going on at UB. Other pros like Phil Hellmuth and Annie Duke promoted UB during the cheating scandal. However, there was no proof that they knew or benefited from the God Mode in any way.

In November 2008, UB agreed to pay $15.1 million in refunds yet many poker players believed and still do the actual damage is much, much bigger. Both AP and UB were closed on the notorious Black Friday of Poker.

So why are we referring to those terrible events almost nine years later? And what all of this has to do with 2016 and the US regulated online poker market? We brought up the UB story because some of the companies and people involved directly or indirectly with UB are back in business. Companies like iovation and individuals like Jim Ryan, Uri Kozai and Greg Pierson.

Iovation Is Nevada-Bound, Greg Pierson Tries To Clean Up His Name

So what about iovation? Well, according to a Nevada Gaming Commission Disposition - which can be found here - the fraud prevention network has a brand new licence as a geolocation service provider. The licence however is conditioned and among others, the company representatives mustn’t have any contact with the notorious and the most despised name in poker history Russ Hamilton. Also, the company must submit internal control procedures within 60 days and must fund NGC with $25,000 for investigation purposes.

For those not familiar with iovation and what Russ Hamilton has to do with this story, the company provided software to Ultimate Bet at the time when the superuser scandal broke out. The CEO Greg Pierson was also the CEO and co-founder of ieLogic, from which UB had its online platform and security software. Pierson sold ieLogic and founded iovation in 2004.

Besides those two software companies, there is no real link between Pierson and the UB fraud. In fact, he told GeekWire after his company won the Nevada gaming licence that he has been mistakenly linked to the UB management:

He even dismissed the notion that ieLogic created the God Mode during his tenure as CEO and went on to state that the accusations based on the Makar secret audio tapes - in which a voice sounding like Pierson talks about minimizing Hamilton’s losses - are taken out of context and are ‘unfortunate wording.’

The CEO now believes the licence awarded to iovation is a clear statement that he’s innocent and had nothing to do with the UB fraud. Unfortunately for him, not that many poker players who suffered in one way or another from the fraud are ready to give him the benefit of a doubt just yet.

For example, UltimateBeat producer - a documentary that tried to uncover the entire UB fraud - Scott Bell said on a post on 2+2 forums:

Jim Ryan And Uri Kozai To Provide Online Poker Platform For Borgata?

While Pierson is up and ready to enter the gaming market in Nevada, another two individuals linked with the UB scandal will allegedly storm their way this time straight into the New Jersey poker market.

According to an eGamingReview report from last month, Borgata will part ways with Bwin.Party as its online poker provider and work instead with a company named Pala Interactive. Pala already has a presence in NJ with its casino platform and was close to open an online poker room last year. They gave up though as PokerStars threat was looming on the horizon.

For most of us, this is hardly news but if we look at the executive management team of the company, some of us will definitely spot some familiar names: CEO Jim Ryan and CTO aka Chief Technical Officer Uri Kozai. Ryan is also a former Bwin.Party CEO but most importantly, he was CEO at Excapsa, the firm who bought Pierson’s ieLogic and provided the poker software to Ultimate Bet. Ryan has never been directly connected to the scandal, yet the UB critics found some hints in the secret audiotapes that point to Ryan having knowledge of the scandalous events. In an interview back in 2014, the Pala Interactive CEO explained the God Mode cheat was created and exploited prior to Excapsa involvement at UB (indirectly accusing Pierson) and sometime after the company sold its subsidiaries in October 2006. He was CEO for almost two years saying he had no knowledge of fraudulent activities going on at UB during that time.

Kozai is also an ex-employer at Excapsa and he developed the algorithm used in the refunding process. Many players scammed by UB still believe that algorithm was flawed and didn’t reflect the reality aka the actual losses, significantly higher than calculated. It is also believed he allegedly possessed a copy of the UB customer database that could have incriminated the real people behind those notorious usernames (and also calculate the real damages).

Of course, both Ryan and Kozai are clean in the eyes of the American government since Pala Interactive has a full licence to operate in New Jersey. The poker community however begs to differ. In other words, as long-time 2+2 user batar put it on the forums:

Notice the irony?

Do iovation, Greg Pierson, Jim Ryan and Uri Kozai deserve a place in the US regulated market after all what happened eight years ago? Have they redeemed themselves? What do you think? Please share your opinion on this delicate matter in the comment section below.