Tokwiro Enterprises
Encyclopedia
Cereus Poker Network is an online poker
network comprising Absolute Poker and Ultimate Bet. Cereus is owned by a private company, Blanca Games. Blanca Games purchased all Network assets in August 2010 from Tokwiro Enterprises. The Cereus network was one of the world's ten largest online poker
cardroom
s prior to losing the majority of its player base in the wake of the April 15, 2011 online poker indictments
.
.
Although allegations had been made about several accounts, one of the most remarkable pieces of evidence was a complete history of a tournament which was won by a player called "POTRIPPER". This history was far more complete than normal; it included all hidden hole cards for all of the players at the table, and the IP address
es of players and third-party observers who were watching the game via the internet. It was sent out, perhaps by accident, when a player complained about suspicious play. Reviewing the data, well-known mathematician and gaming expert Michael Shackleford
said:
Shackleford subsequently blacklisted Absolute Poker on his gaming related website.
On October 19, an unofficial source within Absolute Poker claimed that an employee had hacked the system to "prove a point". On October 21, Absolute released an official statement:
In November 2007, Absolute issued an interim statement claiming the employee cheating had taken place over a period of forty days and that the cardroom was refunding $1.6 million to affected players. The Kahnawake Gaming Commission issued its report on the incident in January 2008. Among other consequences, Absolute Poker was fined $500,000.
The Quebec provincial police opened an investigation into the ongoing matter.
..
Once a year, UltimateBet hosts a live tournament, the Aruba Poker Classic, which was a World Poker Tour
event for the first four seasons of the show. In 2005, Freddy Deeb
won the event, claiming the $1,000,000 prize. Prior winners were Eric Brenes
in 2004, Erick Lindgren
in 2003, and Juha Helppi
in 2002. The tournament in 2008 is a $5,000 buy in event with a guaranteed $1 million top prize.
Spokespeople for UltimateBet have included professional poker players Phil Hellmuth
and Annie Duke
, as well as actress-turned-poker player Tiffany Michelle
.
Like other online poker rooms, UltimateBet also offers a .net
play-money-only cardroom.
UltimateBet offers Texas hold 'em
, Omaha high and high low
, seven card stud high and high low
. Mixed games tables are also offered (HO, HOSE
, HORSE
).
Prior to the passage of the Unlawful Internet Gambling Enforcement Act of 2006
, the software parent company of the cardroom, Excapsa Software was traded on the London Stock Exchange
as XCP.L. In October 2006, the company announced it was selling its assets to a private company and moving to delist itself from the stock exchange. The legality of the deal was immediately questioned because most of the payment would take place after the act became law.
The company sponsors the poker television series Poker2Nite
, hosted by professional poker player Joe Sebok
and radio host Scott Huff.
The company claimed the cheating was perpetrated by employees of the former owners, Excapsa Software. According to the company, the fraudulent activity was traced to unauthorized software code that transferred hole-card information of other players to the perpetrators during play. UltimateBet stated it had removed the cheating software as of February 2008 and began issuing refunds to affected players.
On September 29, 2008, the Kahnawake Gaming Commission
stated it had found clear and convincing evidence to support a conclusion that between the approximate dates of May 2004 to January 2008, Russ Hamilton
was the main person responsible for, and benefiting from, multiple cheating incidents at Ultimate Bet.
Online poker
Online poker is the game of poker played over the Internet. It has been partly responsible for a dramatic increase in the number of poker players worldwide...
network comprising Absolute Poker and Ultimate Bet. Cereus is owned by a private company, Blanca Games. Blanca Games purchased all Network assets in August 2010 from Tokwiro Enterprises. The Cereus network was one of the world's ten largest online poker
Online poker
Online poker is the game of poker played over the Internet. It has been partly responsible for a dramatic increase in the number of poker players worldwide...
cardroom
Cardroom
A cardroom or card room is a gaming establishment that exclusively offers card games for play by the public. The term poker room is generally synonymous, since the gambling games played in such establishments are typically, and sometimes exclusively, variations of poker such as Texas hold 'em.Such...
s prior to losing the majority of its player base in the wake of the April 15, 2011 online poker indictments
United States v. Scheinberg
United States v. Scheinberg, 10 Cr. 336 , is a United States federal criminal case against the founders of the three largest online poker companies, PokerStars, Full Tilt Poker and Cereus , and a handful of their associates, which alleges that the defendants violated the Unlawful Internet Gambling...
.
Absolute Poker
Absolute Poker was established in 2003, it is licensed by the Kahnawake Gaming CommissionKahnawake Gaming Commission
The Kahnawake Gaming Commission is a gaming regulatory body that licenses and regulates a large number of online casinos, online poker rooms and online sportsbook sites, as well as three land-based poker rooms that are situated within the Mohawk Territory of Kahnawake.The Commission was first...
.
2007 cheating incident
In September 2007, Absolute Poker began defending itself following accusations made by members of several Internet forums that the online poker room has a "superuser" account which allows one player to read the hole cards of another during a game. By October, widespread Internet allegations of cheating led to the Kahnawake Gaming Commission beginning an investigation.Although allegations had been made about several accounts, one of the most remarkable pieces of evidence was a complete history of a tournament which was won by a player called "POTRIPPER". This history was far more complete than normal; it included all hidden hole cards for all of the players at the table, and the IP address
IP address
An Internet Protocol address is a numerical label assigned to each device participating in a computer network that uses the Internet Protocol for communication. An IP address serves two principal functions: host or network interface identification and location addressing...
es of players and third-party observers who were watching the game via the internet. It was sent out, perhaps by accident, when a player complained about suspicious play. Reviewing the data, well-known mathematician and gaming expert Michael Shackleford
Michael Shackleford
Michael "The Wizard of Odds" Shackleford a trained actuary , now makes his living analyzing casino games...
said:
Hand after hand POTRIPPER’s play is consistent with that of a player who had knowledge of every player’s hole cards. The majority of hands show POTRIPPER bluffing at just the right times when his opponents were weak. Yet, when he was hopelessly outmatched, even with good cards, he laid them down..
Shackleford subsequently blacklisted Absolute Poker on his gaming related website.
On October 19, an unofficial source within Absolute Poker claimed that an employee had hacked the system to "prove a point". On October 21, Absolute released an official statement:
...it appears that the integrity of our poker system was compromised by a high-ranking trusted consultant employed by AP whose position gave him extraordinary access to certain security systems. As has been speculated in several online forums, this consultant devised a sophisticated scheme to manipulate internal systems to access third-party computers and accounts to view hole cards of other customers during play without their knowledge. [...] We will pay for all losses suffered by the affected players as soon as our audit is finished and the amounts are determined.
In November 2007, Absolute issued an interim statement claiming the employee cheating had taken place over a period of forty days and that the cardroom was refunding $1.6 million to affected players. The Kahnawake Gaming Commission issued its report on the incident in January 2008. Among other consequences, Absolute Poker was fined $500,000.
The Quebec provincial police opened an investigation into the ongoing matter.
UltimateBet
Founded in 2001, UltimateBet is licensed by the Kahnawake Gaming CommissionKahnawake Gaming Commission
The Kahnawake Gaming Commission is a gaming regulatory body that licenses and regulates a large number of online casinos, online poker rooms and online sportsbook sites, as well as three land-based poker rooms that are situated within the Mohawk Territory of Kahnawake.The Commission was first...
..
Once a year, UltimateBet hosts a live tournament, the Aruba Poker Classic, which was a World Poker Tour
World Poker Tour
The World Poker Tour is a series of international poker tournaments and associated television series broadcasting the final table of each tournament. It was started in the United States by attorney/television producer Steven Lipscomb, who served as CEO of WPT Enterprises , the firm that...
event for the first four seasons of the show. In 2005, Freddy Deeb
Freddy Deeb
Kassem Ibrahim "Freddy" Deeb is a professional poker player who emigrated from Lebanon to the United States at the age of 19.-Before poker:...
won the event, claiming the $1,000,000 prize. Prior winners were Eric Brenes
Eric Brenes
Eric Brenes is a Costa Rican businessman, farmer, and poker player who won a World Poker Tour championship. He is the brother of professional poker players Humberto Brenes and Alex Brenes....
in 2004, Erick Lindgren
Erick Lindgren
Erick A. Lindgren is an American professional poker player. He has won two World Poker Tour titles, one World Series of Poker bracelet, and more than seven million dollars in tournament earnings during his poker career.-Poker career:He won his first major tournament at the Bellagio in 2002 and...
in 2003, and Juha Helppi
Juha Helppi
Juha Helppi is a Finnish professional poker player from Helsinki.-Career:Juha was originally a poker dealer, but made a name for himself in the first World Poker Tour event in Aruba, where he eliminated Kathy Liebert on the way to defeating professional player Phil Gordon in a heads-up challenge...
in 2002. The tournament in 2008 is a $5,000 buy in event with a guaranteed $1 million top prize.
Spokespeople for UltimateBet have included professional poker players Phil Hellmuth
Phil Hellmuth
Phil Hellmuth is an American professional poker player. He is best known for holding a record 11 World Series of Poker bracelets, for winning the Main Event of the 1989 World Series of Poker and for his temperamental, "poker brat" personality...
and Annie Duke
Annie Duke
Annie Duke is a professional poker player and author who won a bracelet in the 2004 World Series of Poker $2,000 Omaha Hi-Low Split-8 or Better Event and was the winner of the 2004 World Series of Poker Tournament of Champions, where she earned the Winner-Take-All prize of $2,000,000...
, as well as actress-turned-poker player Tiffany Michelle
Tiffany Michelle
Tiffany Michelle is an American poker player and actress, born and raised in Los Angeles, CA.Michelle gained fame when she was the last woman remaining out of 6,844 players in the 2008 World Series of Poker Championship Event, making $334,534 for her 17th place finish...
.
Like other online poker rooms, UltimateBet also offers a .net
.net
The domain name net is a generic top-level domain used in the Domain Name System of the Internet. The name is derived from network, indicating its originally intended purpose for organizations involved in networking technologies, such as Internet service providers and other infrastructure companies...
play-money-only cardroom.
UltimateBet offers Texas hold 'em
Texas hold 'em
Texas Hold 'em is a variation of the standard card game of poker. The game consists of two cards being dealt face down to each player and then five community cards being placed face-up by the dealer—a series of three then two additional single cards , with...
, Omaha high and high low
Omaha hold 'em
Omaha hold 'em is a community card poker game similar to Texas hold 'em, where each player is dealt four cards and must make his best hand using exactly two of them, plus exactly three of the five community cards...
, seven card stud high and high low
Seven-card stud
Seven-card stud is a variant of stud poker. Until the recent increase in popularity of Texas hold 'em, seven-card stud was the most popular poker variant in home games across the United States, and in casinos in the eastern part of the country. Two to eight players is common, though eight may...
. Mixed games tables are also offered (HO, HOSE
HOSE
HOSE is a term used for playing a mixed game of poker consisting of four different poker games.* H stands for Hold'em* O for Omaha Eight or Better* S for 7 Card Stud* E for 7 Card Stud Eight or Better...
, HORSE
HORSE
H.O.R.S.E. is a form of poker commonly played at the high stakes tables of casinos. It consists of rounds of play cycling among:*Texas Hold 'em,*Omaha eight or better,*Razz,*Seven card Stud, and...
).
Prior to the passage of the Unlawful Internet Gambling Enforcement Act of 2006
Unlawful Internet Gambling Enforcement Act of 2006
The Unlawful Internet Gambling Enforcement Act of 2006 is United States legislation regulating online gambling. It was added as Title VIII to the SAFE Port Act which otherwise regulated port security...
, the software parent company of the cardroom, Excapsa Software was traded on the London Stock Exchange
London Stock Exchange
The London Stock Exchange is a stock exchange located in the City of London within the United Kingdom. , the Exchange had a market capitalisation of US$3.7495 trillion, making it the fourth-largest stock exchange in the world by this measurement...
as XCP.L. In October 2006, the company announced it was selling its assets to a private company and moving to delist itself from the stock exchange. The legality of the deal was immediately questioned because most of the payment would take place after the act became law.
The company sponsors the poker television series Poker2Nite
Poker2Nite
Poker2Nite was a poker television series on Fox Broadcasting Company television network. It was hosted by professional poker player Joe Sebok and radio host Scott Huff. The show was sponsored by online poker network UltimateBet....
, hosted by professional poker player Joe Sebok
Joe Sebok
Joe Sebok is a professional poker player from San Francisco, California. His stepfather, Barry Greenstein, is also a professional poker player. He is known as "The Cub" because he calls Greenstein "Bear." Beginning professional play in 2005, as of 2009, his total live tournament winnings exceed...
and radio host Scott Huff.
2005–2007 cheating scandal
UltimateBet had a cheating scandal similar in nature to that of Absolute Poker. In May 2008, the company released a statement about the scandal, claiming that cheating had taken place from March 2006 to December 2007. However, in a later statement they confirmed that the cheating had begun at the start of 2005:
We have also confirmed that the cheating dates back further than we initially believed. We can now confirm that the cheating began in January 2005, long before Tokwiro Enterprises ENRG acquired UltimateBet from the previous ownership.
The company claimed the cheating was perpetrated by employees of the former owners, Excapsa Software. According to the company, the fraudulent activity was traced to unauthorized software code that transferred hole-card information of other players to the perpetrators during play. UltimateBet stated it had removed the cheating software as of February 2008 and began issuing refunds to affected players.
On September 29, 2008, the Kahnawake Gaming Commission
Kahnawake Gaming Commission
The Kahnawake Gaming Commission is a gaming regulatory body that licenses and regulates a large number of online casinos, online poker rooms and online sportsbook sites, as well as three land-based poker rooms that are situated within the Mohawk Territory of Kahnawake.The Commission was first...
stated it had found clear and convincing evidence to support a conclusion that between the approximate dates of May 2004 to January 2008, Russ Hamilton
Russ Hamilton
Russ Hamilton was the 1994 World Series of Poker main event champion. He defeated Hugh Vincent in heads-up play to win $1 million in first-prize money, as well as his body weight in silver. Following his World Series win, Hamilton served as a consultant for Ultimate Bet, an online poker server...
was the main person responsible for, and benefiting from, multiple cheating incidents at Ultimate Bet.