The Absolute Poker scandal

Hand=main=les deux cartes que chaque joueur reçoit

I) What did the fraud consist in?

In 2003 the poker website Absolute Poker was still in creation. Several test accounts were created to see if the software worked properly, including the account 363. This account allowed its user to see all the hole cards of all the players of the table. It was created to see if the software redistributed correctly the money to the proper player (the one who had the best hand).

In 2007 -> first update of the software, so the account 363 is reopened for test purposes. But a high ranking trusted employee noticed the potential of such an account, and all the money he could make thanks to it (playing poker while seeing the cards of the opponent is an easy game).

This employee couldn’t directly play with this account, so he hacked 4 inactive accounts of former real players (Potripper ; Doubledrag ; Greycat ; Steamroller). These 4 former real players were not cheaters, didn’t know each others, and lived in different places in the USA. The had all stopped playing on this website for 1 year.
The cheater used these accounts to play (one at a time) and used the account 363 as an observer with another computer to see the hole cards of the other players.
Ex : he plays with PotRipper on the table n°45. He can’t see all the cards on his screen. Then on a second computer he logs in with the account 363, and goes to the table n°45 as an observer, and now he can see all the cards on the second screen.

He earned ~800 000$ in a few weeks/months.

He can’t cash out (withdraw the money) because the money would go to the bank account of the former owners of the accounts, so to get the money he asked a couple of relatives/friends to create new accounts. Then he would play against them, and loose on purpose. This way, he gave his money to his friends, and these friends would then cash out the money (legally) and give him back.

II) How did he get caught