📰 Looking Back at the Ultimate Bet Poker Scandal

It’s been quite a while since we witnessed what is probably still the most controversial event in online poker‘s relatively short history.

Anybody who has ever discussed their card playing hobby with family and friends has surely at one time or another been met with looks of disapproval.

“How do you know it’s not fixed?”

“It’s all rigged mate, only about luck”

“What if they can see your cards?”

In September 2007 the mutterings started on internet forums about how things really might be not so clean after all. Several players were convinced that a certain player was able to play whilst viewing his opponents hole cards in real time.

This is obviously every poker player’s worst nightmare. With the online game still only in the region of ten years old, it was looking like the whole shebang was about to come collapsing down around us. If it was happening in one place then it could be happening everywhere potentially.

We’ve all heard of “God mode” in computer games, we didn’t expect to see it in poker.

The Superuser Unmasked

The scandal broke when high-stakes player “CrazyMarco” lost a $1,000 heads-up match to “Potripper” and suspected foul play. After requesting hand histories, support accidentally sent him all players’ hole cards — exposing impossible, perfect play.

A gaming analyst confirmed Potripper’s moves were statistically flawless: bluffing only when opponents were weak and folding with uncanny precision. It was poker no human could play without seeing the cards.

Within weeks, Ultimate Bet admitted its security had been breached. Officials first blamed a rogue employee, but later confirmed four connected accounts, including Potripper’s, had exploited insider access. Over $1.6 million was stolen in just forty days — funds the site promised to repay as the online poker world reeled from its biggest integrity crisis.

Finally We Had a Name

Fast forward to September 2008, and finally the villain was unmasked. The Kahnawake Gaming Commission stated it had clear evidence that 1994 WSOP Main event champion Russ Hamilton was behind the whole thing.

But it wasn’t only $1.6 million that was to be repaid. An in depth investigation uncovered more than $22 million worth of fraud.

The money did finally get repaid to the affected players, but it took a while for everybody’s paranoia to settle.

The Champion’s Fall from Grace

Once the truth of the Ultimate Bet superuser scandal emerged, Russ Hamilton instantly became persona non grata in the poker world. News sites and forums lit up with stories portraying him as the ultimate hustler who had betrayed the very game that made him famous.

Hamilton had been a poker legend since winning the 1994 World Series of Poker Main Event, where part of his prize included his own weight in silver. Weighing in at around 360 pounds, he was famously seen loading his pockets to squeeze out every ounce of extra winnings — even after pocketing $1 million in cash.

Since the scandal, no incident of comparable scale has rocked online poker. While today’s challenges revolve around AI bots and collusion detection, modern platforms operate under far stricter security standards and independent regulatory audits. Players can only hope those lessons hold — and that poker never again sees a betrayal on Hamilton’s scale.

Did you like this article?

Tweet
+0