Absolute Poker

Regular readers of PokerBlog know that if you are looking for the smart, intelligent analysis then you should be reading what the Poker Shrink writes here. On the other hand, if you want to read some real over-the-top ranting about anything and everything poker, well then you should be waiting for the Cranky Olde Coot to post. Details and facts are the highlights of most posts by Lindy and that leaves me with the half-naked ladies of poker and assorted crazy stuff. So you can imagine how happy I was to run across this great picture the other day.

If you want the details of the Absolute Poker Scandal, click on this link or this link, you understand there has been some big time coverage of the entire story. If you want to know about the results of the investigation go here. If you actually would like to read the official report here it is. Wanna talk with other poker players about all of it, here is the place. Want the whole blow-by-blow-by-blow in intricate detail, be my guest. As for me, well I just wanted to post that great picture. Oh and I did close my Absolute Poker account and my Ultimate Bet too, but that is another story and another picture.

Absolute Poker has released a statement following the "independent" audit of their insider cheating scandal. The complete text of the release can be found below.

I want to say a couple of things about this entire incident. First, the audit was not independent, as it was done by the same folks who run the Absolute servers and "sanction" the Absolute site.

Absolute employees tried to cover up the cheating incident they knew had occurred. The evidence stands uncontroverted that the first reaction of everyone at Absolute was to deny and cover-up.

Documents and records that would verify the acts of cheating and identify the employees who cheated were destroyed. The argument that this was inadvertent is not to be believed.

There has been no meaningful punishment to Absolute, they are paying a half a million dollar fine, which comes out of one corporation account and goes into another. They do promise not to do it again, where have we heard this before? They are also going through a lot of smoke and mirror public relations effort to give the appearance of genuine concern.

Too little, too late and just too many lame excuses.

Will this happen again in the future at some big online poker site? Yes, it will. There are hackers, cheats and crooks out there looking for security holes in the cyber-systems.

What everyone should look for is how the next site responds to a security breech. Will they deny and attempt a cover-up like Absolute Poker did or will they deal with the issue openly and honestly. The measure of security is trust and trust is earned. Absolute Poker lost my trust and all this corporate double-speak will not gain it back.

My last question is: Why are there still players on Absolute Poker?

[Text of Absolute statement follows the page break.]