It's 2007 and a player called Potripper
drags in another pot during a tournament 
on Absolute poker.
Based in Costa Rica,
the player is making perfect Bluffs 
and unbelievable calls.
Soon enough pot Ripper has all the chips in play 
and a big payday.
Though his opponents are suspicious,
they're about to unveil the biggest cheating scandal
in online poker history.
Online forums begin filling with concerns 
and suspicions about Potripper's play,
and investigations are soon underway.
It becomes clear that Potripper
and a Costa Rican accomplice
have cheated by accessing all the whole cards 
of opponents of the table.
Hand history showed that Potripper 
had played perfectly,
and that his accomplice had a 
super user account running called "User363".
The accomplice had been viewing
the whole cards of all players
and relaying the information to Potripper.
Fast-forward to January 2008,
and players on Ultimate bet start to get suspicious too.
Numerous accounts have started popping up 
and crushing the high-stakes games,
causing another investigation to begin.
It is soon revealed that 6 players 
with a combined 18 screen names
have all been able to see opponents' whole cards.
Initially it is not known how long 
these players have been cheating,
or how much money they've stolen from other players,
Investigations reveal that they have been 
smart enough to lose sometimes,
which has helped them remain undetected for some time.
All are found to have been fed whole card information from a super user account called AuditMonster2
which could see every player's whole cards
just as User363 had been able to at Absolute Poker.
Both online poker rooms admit that cheating rings
have been operating in their poker room,
with Ultimate bet issuing a statement in May 2008,
to confirm the existence of the super user account.
Shockingly it says that the cheats have been operating between March 2006 and December 2007,
but even more shocking developments are yet to come.
An independent investigation later finds that 
cheating has been going on since 2004.
After being fined 1.5 million dollars,
the company was allowed to continue operating,
but lost a large portion of its player pool.
2008 also saw Altima bets' reputation take a further hit
when its leading sponsored Pro Phil Hellmuth 
was wrongly awarded a pot.
The incident happened during a cash game,
and led to an immediate investigation by Ultimate bet,
who said it was simply a software glitch.
Despite representing Ultimate bet for many years,
audio recordings later showed Hellmuth 
knew nothing about the superuser scandal.
Many felt that superuser accounts
could only be used to cheat with help from
higher levels of management within the websites.
In the case of Absolute Poker,
that was apparently shown to be true.
Scott Tom, one of the founders of the company,
allegedly admitted to Absolute Poker
that he was involved in the Potripper scandal.
In the case of Ultimate bet,
numerous player accounts were involved,
and their true identities remain largely unknown.
Ross Hamilton who won the WSOP main event in 1994,
and was involved in the inception of Ultimate bet,
worked as a company consultant in the early 2000s.
Years after the scandal, 
he was identified as the ringleader
after being secretly recorded discussing how he had stolen between 16 and 18 million dollars.
The admittance was kept on audio tapes
which were leaked in 2013,
with Hamilton showing no guilt 
or remorse for his actions.
Serious Poker Network, which hosted 
Ultimate bet and Absolute poker,
later folded in the wake of Black Friday.
Players were left with their funds in limbo and 
were owed a total of 50 million dollars.
After the serious scandal and Full Tilt's closure 
after Black Friday,
players' trust in online poker rooms had diminished
and the poker boom began to lose momentum.
Those involved in the Ultimate bet and Absolute poker scandals largely escaped justice.
"We had a couple of questions for you Mr. Hamilton"
"Are you in any way associated with the ultimatebet.net superuser cheating scandal ?"
"Would you like to take this opportunity to apologize to the online poker community ?"
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