The Kahnawake Gaming Commission has released its final report on the ten week long audit of Absolute Poker that began following the accusations of cheating that cropped up after an user named Potripper suspiciously won a tournament on August 14, 2007. The audit confirmed the accusations, saying that insiders were able to exploit the Absolute Poker software in order to see the hole cards of all the players at their tables, allowing them to rake in profits at the expense of honest Absolute Poker players. The accusations began after a tournament runner-up, suspicious of his opponent’s play, requested a hand history and was somehow given the hand history for everyone who played in the tournament. After examination of the plethora of information contained within the hand histories, it was discovered that the tournament winner always made the correct decision, which is well and truly impossible.
The Kahnawake Gaming Commission ordered an audit after the accusations occurred, and the audit was subsequently carried out by the Australian firm Gaming Associates. The audit looked at Absolute Poker operations ongoing across the world, as well as taking a close look at the accounts accused of cheating.
According to the audit, the cheating occurred over a period of six weeks and there were seven different accounts that were connected to the cheating operation, two with another screenname. The following is the list of accounts, with additional screennames listed in parentheses: GRAYCAT, PAYUP, STEAMROLLER, POTRIPPER, XXCASHMONEYXX ( SUPERCARDM55), RONFALDOXXB (ROMNALDO), and DOUBLEDRAG. The persons who conducted the cheating were identified, and the KGC has ordered Absolute Poker to remove the persons permanently from any role in the mind and management or operations of Absolute Poker.
The audit concluded that Absolute Poker did not profit from the cheating scam, as the cheating was the work of individuals working within Absolute Poker and not a concerted effort by management to bring money into the company. However, Absolute Poker was faulted for its response to the cheating. Absolute Poker did not report the cheating to KGC within 24 hours of realizing cheating occurred, as is required by the KGC. Also, persons unknown deleted game logs and records which impeded the investigation.
Absolute Poker is being severely penalized for its breaking of KGC statues. Absolute Poker must pay a $500,000 fine, and will be closely supervised with random audits for the next two years. In addition, Absolute Poker must pay a security deposit to KGC to cover any future violations of KGC regulations as well as pay for the costs of the investigations that have already occurred.
KGC was satisfied with Absolute Poker’s cooperation in ensuring that a similar incident doesn’t happen again, and is also satisfied with Absolute Poker’s quick response in distributing money back to the players who were affected negatively by the cheating. While the audit is content that all wrongs have been redressed, players have two months from the time the report was released to file any complaints and show evidence they were affected. The deadline is March 11, 2008.