Absolute Poker Admits Internal Security Breach - 11-11-07

November 11 - Finally, after a month of denial and some serious spin doctoring, Absolute Poker has admitted what it calls "40 days of unfair playing", and has announced that it will pay back US$1.6m to affected players.

Absolute Poker now admit that the player called 'pot-ripper' won in excess US$800,000 during a so-called "period of unfair playing" which continued for over 40 days. Whilst the Kahnawake Gaming Commission still completes an enquiry into the whole scandal, Absolute Poker has announced that it is paying back players who have been impacted by this security breach. 

The poker room says in a statement that it is fully cooperating with the KGC, and a spokesperson said that the security breach has been dealt with and that the site is completely secure.

The "known perpetrator" apparently also no longer has no access to Absolute Poker. The system breach was the result of a recent internal software release impacting internal reporting. The breach was exploitable only by an authorized AP person that manipulated the internal reporting software, together with the AP gaming software. The security breach was not, therefore, the result of an external action, and no individual outside AP could exploit the breach."

However, the company still denies that existence of a "super-user" account which would have the ability to see other players' hole cards.

The statement from the company concludes that:  "AP regrets the damage that has been done to its players and to its own reputation by this incident. We are absolutely focused on doing the right thing for our loyal customers, employees, consultants and business partners and we will continue to work with the KGC and Gaming Associates to bring this incident into the full light of day and to right any wrongs done to innocent victims of this unfair play."

Only time will tell if Absolute Poker's credibility  will suffer long-term as they initially denied any security breach in the face of overwhelming independent evidence.