There have been more cheating allegations in the world of online poker - this time it is the Ultimate Bet website which has been open to foul play.

This follows in the case of Absolute Poker who were fined $500,000 after it was found that some employees of AP used a test account which allowed them to see other players’ hole cards.

What connects the new scandal with the one that happened at AP is that Ultimate Bet is run by Tokwiro Enterprises, who also run AP.

Back in January, Ultimate Bet became aware of a suspicious online poker player named NioNio who was having irregular winnings.  Other players were also suspicious of NioNio and believed the only way he could keep winning was if he had an unfair advantage such as access to other players’ hole cards - like what happened at AP.

An Ultimate Bet spokesman said: “On January 12th, 2008, Ultimate Bet was alerted to allegations that a player with the online handle “NioNio” exhibited abnormally high winning statistics and was accused of having an unfair advantage during play.  These allegations were made both directly to Ultimate Bet by concerned players and the KGC, and indirectly through several web forums.  The allegations also included reports of suspicious activity concerning the deletion of the NioNio account and other accounts that may have been related to this scheme.”

What is also similar between this saga and the one at AP is that it wasn’t the software or security that unravelled the cheating scandal, but the high stakes online poker players themselves.  Ultimate Bet have also mentioned an unnamed ‘expert’ involved in this scandal and there is speculation among online poker players as to why this man, or at least his position, isn’t being disclosed.

The issue of cheating at Ultimate Bet was raised months ago in the poker forum 2+2 and it seems they are only now starting to deal with the issue.

So far though, it is only the NioNio account which has been exposed as suspicious.

The Ultimate Bet spokesman concluded: “Ultimate Bet is in regular communications and contact with its regulatory authority, The Kahnawake Gaming Commission (KGC), and will continue to cooperate fully with that body.  Ultimate Bet is determined to complete a full and thorough investigation.  We pride ourselves on providing a safe and secure playing environment for our customers.  The investigation has proven to be extremely complex and, therefore, has been more extensive and taken much longer than initially expected.  We continue to aggressively pursue the matter and will communicate the findings of our full investigation to our regulatory authority and to our customer base as soon as practicable.”

The KGC will have to impose penalties if these allegations are true or they may risk undermining their authority as a credible licensing jurisdiction.