Well-known high stakes player Brad Booth and seven other poker players filed a complaint against Ultimate Bet and its former parent company Excapsa Software at the US District Court for Central California.
They’re alleging UB and Excapsa committed fraud and grand theft to steal $22 million from online players during the scandal a few years ago that involved the use of super-accounts. The operator of these super-user accounts had access to the hole cards of all players at the table. These accounts were supposedly built in to the software for technical purposes, but then used by others to cheat at the game.
The eight players, who regard Ultimate Bet as directly complicit in the scandal, seek a total of at least $10 million in punitive damages. Booth is asking for more than half a million.
The complaint states: “Since at least June of 2003 and until at least January of 2008, Excapsa/Ultimate Bet did conspire to and did direct, effect and permit the theft of over $2,000,000 held in plaintiffs’ online poker accounts at UltimateBet.com. Specifically, by creating and making use of an intentional security flaw in the UltimateBet.com software and with the assistance of owners, agents and employees of Excapsa and its various subsidiaries that operated UltimateBet.com, defendants either allowed others to or did directly view plaintiffs ‘hole cards’ during high-stakes poker matches run at UltimateBet.com.”
If you thought the UB-Absolute Poker scandal was forgotten because of the magnitude of the Full Tilt debacle, it hasn’t. It’s clawed its way back into the limelight and will probably stay there until this gets resolved.
For all the players watching the almost daily drama over the fate of online poker in the US, the UB scandal is just another reason for licensed and regulated poker in this country.
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