If you play online poker you might want too read this

[BearDown]

How Online Gamblers Unmasked Cheaters, 60 Minutes/Washington Post Joint Investigation Questions Honesty, Security Of Gambling Sites - CBS News

[moondog22]

I'll have to put LSUFan on the case

[BettorsChat]

Serge Ravitch, another lawyer-turned-poker pro, began using a software program called "Poker Tracker" to review thousands of old hands.

"What I saw did not make any sense," he remembers. "This account was simply winning too much money for the type of game that he was playing. And he was doing it by never having the worst hand. When the other person was bluffing, he would always go all in. When the other person had some kind of made hand, he would always fold."

Ravitch says it was like he knew what everybody's cards were.

"If you can see everybody's cards in poker, you could be the worst poker player in the world, up against the best poker player in the world, and you're gonna beat him just about every time," Witteles says.

Soon, the Internet poker forums, chat rooms and blogs were atwitter with fresh reports about suspect players. And when Absolute Poker and Ultimate Bet failed to respond to complaints, the online poker community undertook its own investigation.

[BettorsChat]

The company, which is headquartered in a shopping **** in Costa Rica, was finally forced to acknowledge that a former employee had cracked their software code and cheated online players by looking at their cards.

But what really made the victims angry was that Absolute Poker cut a deal with the cheater to protect his identity, in exchange for a full confession of how he did it.

"Here, these people stole millions of dollars from their customers, from their best customers, from the high-limit players of the site, and in the official report released about what happened, not only did nobody get into any kind of legal trouble, their names weren't even publicized," Witteles says.

The commission fined the two sites a total of $2 million, ordered them to repay the losses to players who were cheated, but Absolute Poker and Ultimate Bet are still in business.

Asked if he knows who did the cheating, Catania says, "Well, the one name has already been released by the Kahnawake Gaming Commission. That's a fellow by the name of Russ Hamilton."

Hamilton is a former champion at the World Series of Poker.

In 1994, Russ Hamilton won $1 million and his weight in silver for winning the main event at the World Series of Poker.

According to the gaming commission, Hamilton and five unnamed conspirators used multiple screen names and accounts to cheat online players out of more than $20 million. And so far they seem to be getting away with it. Because of jurisdictional issues, no criminal charges have been filed, and no one even seems to be conducting a criminal investigation.

"We're willing to work in collaboration with anyone who wants to bring these people to justice," Delisle says.

"In this case, you have somebody who you know was cheating. It's like the person's gotten away with it," Kroft says.

"I believe that anyone else, named or not, will be brought to justice," Delisle says. "If they can be found. That's really the defining factor."

But we didn't have that much trouble locating Hamilton. He seems to be holed up at his home in Las Vegas behind the security gates of an exclusive golfing community.

Last week, we called his house and were told by a woman that answered the phone that he would be back in a little while. We left a message, but he hasn’t returned the call.

[BettorsChat]

Beardown great article thanks for posting the link.

I can't believe how much money these guys stole and this one particular guy is in Vegas and walking away scott free.

[kbsooner21]

I was pretty amazed watching this on 60 minutes this past Sunday.

[WayneChung]

GUYS,I HAVE BEEN PREACHING THIS FOR YEARS,i mean this is not rocket science,you can not see the dealers,anybody that lost big money on line needs to consider GA !!

[WayneChung]

GUYS,I HAVE BEEN PREACHING THIS FOR YEARS,i mean this is not rocket science,you can not see the dealers,anybody that lost big money on line needs to consider GA !!

I KNOW,THIS IS NOT HOW THEY WERE CHEATING BUT COME ON,YOU SAW THOSE OFF-SHORE OPERATIONS,NO GOVT.SUPERVISION-HOW MANY ROBOTS DO YOU THINK ARE PLAYING IN THE BIG LIMITS-IT AMAZED ME-HOW MANY PEOPLE GOT SUCKERED ON THIS-I GIVE THE AVERAGE GAMBLER MORE CREDIT-GEEZO !!

[WayneChung]

I KNOW,THIS IS NOT HOW THEY WERE CHEATING BUT COME ON,YOU SAW THOSE OFF-SHORE OPERATIONS,NO GOVT.SUPERVISION-HOW MANY ROBOTS DO YOU THINK ARE PLAYING IN THE BIG LIMITS-IT AMAZED ME-HOW MANY PEOPLE GOT SUCKERED ON THIS-I GIVE THE AVERAGE GAMBLER MORE CREDIT-GEEZO !!

I'M OUTA HERE,GETTING READY TO PLAY SOME ONLINE SLOTS !! PS-I HAVE NEVER LOST !!