Tokwiro responds to Kahnawake verdict on Ultimate Bet cheating scandal

Tokwiro responds to Kahnawake verdict on Ultimate Bet cheating scandal

Tuesday, 15 September 2009

Tokwiro Enterprises, the owner of Ultimate Bet and Absolute Poker has given its response to the Kahnawake Gaming Commission’s report on the Ultimate Bet cheating scandal.

In the report, the Kahnawake Gaming Commission claimed that 1994 WSOP Main Event winner Russ Hamilton and 31 other conspirators used super accounts and software that revealed opponents’ hole cards to scam millions of dollars from high stakes players.


The KGC concluded that Tokwiro wasn’t aware of the deficiencies in its control systems until after the fraud had been initiated. The original software designers at Ultimate Bet created super accounts to test software but didn’t delete these accounts when the site went live. After Ultimate Bet was sold to Tokwiro Enterprises, the original software creators are thought to have used the superuser accounts to cheat.


Tokwiro has paid $22m to the defrauded players and also paid a $1.5m fine imposed by the KGC as well as the cost of the investigation.


KGC Chairman Dean Montour said of the action, "Despite the unfortunate circumstances that resulted in this cheating, we are satisfied that the actions taken by the commission provided an equitable result for affected players, our first priority. We remain optimistic that this experience and the lessons learned from it will result in a higher standard of gaming regulation for companies licensed and regulated within the Mohawk Territory of Kahnawake and elsewhere."


Paul Leggett, Chief Operating Officer for Tokwiro said, “The welfare of our players is our top priority and we are very pleased they now have access to the details of the fraud and all the facts and findings released by the KGC included in their report. A lot of our players have been patiently awaiting the release of the full list of usernames involved in the cheating incidences, and we can now answer any of their outstanding inquiries related to their refunds.”


The KGC ordered Ultimate Bet to strengthen their control systems in order to prevent anything like this happening again.


Paul Leggett confirmed that Tokwiro had implemented a new range of security measures including a complete corporate reorganization, new ethics policies, a larger security department plus the use of new technology that monitors collusion, ship dumping and pokerbots.


To read the full report from the Kahnawake Gaming Commission see http://www.kahnawake.com/gamingcommission/kgc091109b.pdf




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