What the Absolute Poker Official Statement Doesn't Say

The number three largest US-facing online poker website, Absolute Poker, is arguably dealing with what could be the biggest crisis in online poker since the passage of the Unlawful Internet Gambling Enforcement Act last October.

It is alleged - and Absolute has since confirmed - that an employee compromised the integrity of the poker room by participating (and winning) poker tournaments while having the ability to review competing poker players face cards.

The following statement was issued by Absolute Poker as promised to Gambling911.com mid afternoon on Friday, presumably to all its customers.

Dear valued player,

Absolute Poker has identified an internal security breach that compromised our systems for a limited period of time. The cause of the breach has been determined and completely resolved. In addition, all necessary resources, both internal and external, have been engaged to ensure this does not happen again. Our investigation is not fully concluded, and we wish to thank the extended poker community for any and all assistance related to the matter.

Game integrity has always and continues to be of the utmost importance at Absolute Poker. The Management of Absolute Poker is appalled by these findings, and is committed to our players and to the integrity of our site and the online poker industry.

All players affected by the security breach will be identified during the audit process that has been initiated and all funds, including interest, will be returned. Absolute Poker would like to apologize for the recent events and is committed to diligently working with outside security firms, auditing firms, the extended poker community and the Kahnawake Gaming Commission to ensure the situation is entirely resolved.

A comprehensive statement will be forthcoming shortly providing more details of the situation.

There are some things we have gathered outside of this statement through our own discussions with Absolute management.

An employee responsible for sending out the so-called "smoking gun" spread sheet with confidential client information (as well as the server info of the suspect players leading to Absolute's own server) did so out of "laziness".

"Instead of looking up specific information that had been requested, he could not find this information and simply shot the whole spread sheet to a customer," we were told by an executive at Absolute.

That employee was terminated and Absolute Poker is working to ensure that such an instance never happens again.

Information launched to the customer could potentially have been changed, according to management, though this is something that cannot be ascertained at this juncture in time.

Another important bit of information is the relationship to one-time partner in Absolute, Scott Tomm, and his role (or nonrole) in the "breach". 

"Scott Tomm had no involvement in this matter," the representative from Absolute Poker told Gambling911.com. 

Part of the investigation will revolve around whether Tomm was "maliciously implicated".

Lawyers had arrived at the Absolute offices on Friday. 

To clear things up, as Gambling911.com has been at the Absolute Poker office in the past, there has been discussions connecting Nine.com with Absolute.  Nine.com was located in the same Mall office complex as Absolute prior to this year.  For over a year now, Nine.com was moved to Curacao and is now fully integrated into VIP.com.  As a side note, our impression of Absolute was that we believed it to be among the most professionally run operations in Costa Rica.  This was long before they ever joined Gambling911.com as a sponsor.   Our own Jenny Woo visited their office in August 2006

As reported by Gambling911.com Friday morning, Absolute Poker is encouraging representatives of the online poker community (specifically the folks from TwoPlusTwo.com and PokerFives.com) to participate in the audit process in Costa Rica.  The Khanawake licensing agency is performing the audit. 

The most important point to get across is that Absolute Poker wishes to convey to the online poker community that they are committed to making good on what has transpired here and that there was no malicious intent on the part of management at duping the poker playing public.

Gambling911.com will continue to cover this developing story as it unfolds.