NioNio – Cheating at Ultimate Bet
UPDATE JUNE 1st, 2008: NioNio Cheating Confirmed
According to a recent report by the Gaming Intelligence Group, Ultimate Bet (UB) have confirmed that there was suspicious activity related to the account NioNio on their site.
After receiving complaints from players and evidence supporting some “abnormal” play, Ultimate Bet performed an investigation of the account “NioNio” on their site.
UltimateBet says it immediately called in an independent third-party expert to review “hundreds of thousands of hand histories, all of which were promptly locked down and made available to the expert”.
UB went on to say: “The initial findings of our third-party expert confirm that the NioNio account’s winning statistics were indeed abnormal, and we have expanded the investigation to look into whether an unfair advantage existed, how such a scheme might have been perpetrated, and whether additional accounts beyond those of NioNio were involved.
“The investigation has proven to be extremely complex and, therefore, has been more extensive and taken much longer than initially expected. We continue to aggressively pursue the matter and will communicate the findings of our full investigation to our regulatory authority and to our customer base as soon as practicable.”
UltimateBet is in regular communications and contact with its regulatory authority, The Kahnawake Gaming Commission (KGC), and agreed to continue to cooperate fully with that body. They posted the following statement on 2+2 poker.
This can’t be a good thing for Tokwiro Enterprises Enrg (the parent company of Ultimate Bet) as this is the same company that owns Absolute Poker. Absolute Poker was the center of a huge scandal last year where it was found that company insiders were using super-user accounts (which could see hole cards) to defraud players on the site. They were fined $500,000 for that incident and also paid out all loses to players involved.
I am still trying to confirm if this is just a few players running a scam, or if this is something insider. More on this story as it develops.
