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New Evidence On ‘07 Absolute Poker Superuser Scandal

It’s been two and a half years since scandals at UltimateBet and Absolute Poker rocked the online poker world. But new evidence is being reported on the superuser that allegedly won millions by cheating.

A blog post by Haley Hintze, a former reporter/writer for pokernews.com who covered the scandals, alleges that Scott Tom, Absolute Poker co-founder, was more than simply a part of the scandal or on the periphery, but that he was actively using superuser accounts at AP.

Here’s what Hintze had to say in her blog post:

…Scott Tom was the real force behind the ongoing scandal at AP. While there is a miniscule chance that the evidence was somehow doctored itself before it reached me, its content correlates so well with what I’d already learned elsewhere that I believe it to be genuine. In full and honest faith, I believe the images you’ll see to undoctored, and that Scott Tom himself was the primary Absolute Poker cheater.

A little bit of backstory on the AP scandal, if you are unfamiliar with it or forget the details:

In the fall of 2007, several accounts playing high-stakes games had drawn suspicion at Absolute Poker. Despite playing against conventional strategy, several accounts were crushing high-stakes limit hold’em cash games, well beyond what could be accounted for by statistical variance. Many of the people looking into the case believed the accounts could see their opponents’ hole cards, despite AP’s assurances to the contrary.

The break in the case came when a user who had seen a thread at twoplustwo.com about the alleged “superusers” came forward about his experience during a $1,000 buy-in tournament, in which he was suspicious of the play of the tournament’s winner — “POTRIPPER.” The player had requested a hand history from AP, in which the hole cards of all the players were revealed. It was now obvious that a superuser who could see his opponents’ cards did exist. IP addresses included in the file that this player provided allegedly linked Tom to the POTRIPPER account, but not closely enough for anyone to say that Tom has actually been using the account.

Until the new information that came into Hintze’s possession.

In her blog, Hintze details a functionality of Absolute Poker’s architecture called “ieSnare,” which assigns numbers to each computer that uses AP’s software. A previous account allegedly linked to Scott, well before the superuser scandal, called “potchopper,” showed Scott’s device number. Hintze went on to detail that the same device was used to log in to the “POTRIPPER” account. A screenshot of the logins corresponds with the $1,000 tourney that POTRIPPER won, outlined above.

More from Hintze:

But wait, there’s more, much much more, though I’m only publishing a small percentage of it today. Device “11451887″ (a/k/a Scott Tom) was tied to more than just the PotRipper account; it enjoyed a lengthy relationship over long stretches of time with several of the major cheating accounts.

Hintze also produced a screenshot of a transaction history for POTRIPPER that links Tom to the account further. And she also produces more evidence that the highest levels of AP were involved with the account and the cover-up of the superuser scandal:

I mentioned those internal high-level directives to handle these cheating accounts with kid gloves. Several such accounts carried special notations like PotRipper’s: “Please do not close this account for any reason. Issues please consult with Brent, Adrian or Nolan.” So the customer-level support staff was being warned to leave these accounts alone, and this Brent is believed to be Brent Beckley, Scott Tom’s step-brother, also involved with AP from its inception.

Hintze ends saying she plans to release a lot more information she has come into possession of, so the last of the AP/UB superuser scandals has not been heard.

Read the whole thing here.

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