Ultimate Bet Software Firm Slapped with $75M Lawsuit; Nobody Knows Who Really "Owns" UB

Ultimate Bet is going to need an army of lawyers to get itself out of this mess.

MSNBC just published an exclusive story on the $85 million dollar lawsuit just smacked down on UltimateBet.

The $75M claim was filed by Blast-Off Ltd. of Malta, "a private company that currently has an ownership interest" in UB, against Excapsa Software Inc. of Toronto, "which formerly owned and licensed the poker software to UltimateBet."

The total sum of the suit doesn't actually represent the money that UB stole from its players, so its likely for the ambigious "damages." Not joining the suit are all of the legit online poker sites who UB put at risk because they are greedy assholes that could bascially sink the industry as a hole for an extra few mil even though they were already making money hand-over-fist.

The article goes on to detail how UB's players, not Tokwiro Enterprises (current owner) or the Kahnawake Gaming Commission (regulatory arm), started to note highly suspicious play by the NioNio account. You know the rest of that story.

It continues on how Tokwiro passed the buck to the previous ownership group, which MSNBC blasts by saying that "blaming employees of a prior owner, Tokwiro might have resolved the mystery had UltimateBet not been the rubber ball in an international shell game."

"But it is unclear to whom —and even whether — the software business was sold." - continue reading after the jump

The trial of who owns UB gets really, really murky from here. The company was started off software by ieLogic, a Portland, Ore., company.

According to the article:

An undated and unbylined article on the TotalGambler.com Web site, titled “The history of online poker,” alleges that ieLogic founders Greg Pierson and Jon Karl created the UltimateBet site at the end of 2000, along with “some secretive high stakes poker players.”  The article did not identify the players, but it stated that Russ Hamilton, winner of the 1994 World Series of Poker Main Event and a well-known Las Vegas gambler, was employed as a consultant and began recruiting some big-name poker players, including Hellmuth, to promote the site.

ieLogic never claimed ownership of UB, eventually trying to disassociate itself with the company. ieLogic supposedly sold its gambling software to "a newly incorporated Canadian company, Excapsa Software Inc.," but it's unclear if that actually really did happen.

The lines of ownership and who runs UB then get even murkier, if that's possible. The company went public, then delisted, then sold to Blast-Off, then Tokwiro came in and claimed ownership of both UB and AP even though there's no papertrail to prove it. This has led many to believe that:

The tangled corporate trail has persuaded some players that Tokwiro is a false front created to obscure the true ownership of both UltimateBet and Absolute Poker.

Are you CEREUS? Awesome. A site with no accountability or true regulatory body that could very easily do the same thing to anyone stupid enough to play on it. Again, why anyone still supports UB or Absolute Poker by is beyond us. But if you do, we've got some timeshares we'd like to sell you.

Read the full article MSNBC here.

Comments

[Chops Lover]

There is a lot of frightening stuff in that Phil picture. Just sayin.

[Joe Schmo]

I stopped playing online a while back. I am convinced the real cheating is going on in low stakes games, and it is not through a super user account where the hole cards can be seen. It is in the software itself. How many times online does a guy call your all-in with A-2 and hit his second pair on the turn, or calls you with an insde straight draw and hit it? Way too many times. No one is going to complain that they just got ripped off in a $6 sit and go. Now, think of that happening a few hundred times a time in all different types of low dollar games. It adds up real fast.

Let me share with you my favorite hand that made me uit online forever. 3 handed in a $11 sit and go that started with 10 players. All 3 of us are about even in chips, I have the least but not by much. I flop the nut flush on the button with Kd-10d, board is Ad, 9d, 3d. first guy bets, second guy raises all in, I call, first player calls, 3 way all in. The other two guys are both holding Q-9 off suit. Of course, turn is a Q and river is a 9, and I am gone just like that. I sit there in fucking disbelief. I stay and watch them play one hand, J-5 vs. 8-4, and they both go all-in. The 8-4 wins with a pair of fours, tourney over like that. I became convinced at that moment it was fixed, especially when in the chat each of them said "gg" at the same exact time.

Plus, think about it. i would be too ashamed to complain over an $11 loss, which I ma sure they know full well that anyone would.