60 Minutes to have the $20m Poker Cheating story on in a few minutes.

[raiders72]

How Online Gamblers Unmasked Cheaters

60 Minutes/Washington Post Joint Investigation Questions Honesty, Security Of Gambling Sites

Comments 25
Nov. 25, 2008
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(CBS) <!-- sphereit start -->A collaboration by two of the world's most respected news organizations reveals how online poker players suspecting cheating were forced to successfully ferret out the cheaters themselves. That's because managers of the mostly-unregulated $18 billion Internet gambling industry failed to respond to their complaints.

The results of the four-month investigation by 60 Minutes correspondent Steve Kroft, producer Ira Rosen and The Washington Post’s two-time Pulitzer Prize-winning reporter Gilbert Gaul will appear this Sunday, Nov. 30, at 7 p.m. ET/PT on 60 Minutes.

"He was raising, just really, really bad hands against very good hands. He seemed to play crazy," says Todd Witteles, a computer scientist turned poker player who believed he was losing too much to the same person. "It seemed like he was giving his money away. Except the only thing was, he wasn't losing. He was playing in a style that was sure to lose, but he was killing the game day after day," Witteles, who played a key detective role, remembers.

Michael Josem, a player and a computer security expert, plotted the odds of such consistent success. "We did the mathematical analysis to find that they were winning at about 15 standard deviations above the mean…approximately equivalent to winning a one-in-a-million jackpot six consecutive times."

The cheating, which netted the cheaters more than $20 million, occurred on two of the Internet's most popular sites, Absolute Poker and Ultimate Bet. The two sites operate out of a shopping mall in Costa Rica and run their games on computer servers housed on an Indian reservation outside of Montreal. They are licensed by a Mohawk tribe that has no background in casino gambling, a tribe that previously made the majority of its money selling tax-free tobacco. Though such gambling is illegal in both Canada and the U.S., the betting laws in those countries have no jurisdiction on the sovereign reservation.

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http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2008/11/25/60minutes/main4633254.shtml

 

[Rude]

"On line poker is all on the up and up"

LOL! For every honest player/company you have someone that is scamming you.

 

[Rude]

That's it ?

Man .... Not much of an investigative story. No interviews with poker pros, other sites to talk about how they keep cheaters out, etc.

Big headlines with "20 Million Dollar On-Line Poker Scam" and in the end .... not much of a story.

Poor reporting by 60 Minutes on this one.

 

[Betallsports]

It's Good to see you Back over here Raiders !

 

[raiders72]

That's it ?

Man .... Not much of an investigative story. No interviews with poker pros, other sites to talk about how they keep cheaters out, etc.

Big headlines with "20 Million Dollar On-Line Poker Scam" and in the end .... not much of a story.

Poor reporting by 60 Minutes on this one.

Haven't seen it here yet. NYJ/Den still on CBS here. I figured it would be a huge story since I've read so much pub on this.

 

[raiders72]

It's Good to see you Back over here Raiders !

Thanks :toast:

 

[juice]

The Washington Post also worked on this investigation and has a multi-part story on it.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/11/29/AR2008112901679.html

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/investigations/poker/?hpid=topnews

 

[RobFunk]

This is some funny stuff

It's scary that what these guys are saying is completely credible.

 

[$$CH$$]

pretty good report so far

i read about the absolutepoker scandal. I have an account at ultimatebet... hopefully i am ok

 

[Jabow]

Another Jab at the offshore industry,