PokerStars Cracks Down on Tournament Leaderboard Competition Abuse

The world’s largest online poker room, PokerStars, announced this week it will begin cracking down on Tournament Leaderboard Competition abuse.  So what exactly is going on?

From the PokerFuse.com website:

While making a deal at a final table, one of the front-runners on this year’s leaderboard paid players more money than a seat was worth for sitting out, guaranteeing first place TLB points.  It was an agreement made on an $11 Turbo tournament final table back in mid-November that kicked off the controversy. Down to the final three, a normal final table deal had been made. Then, the current leader in the yearly TLB race, “uareadead lol,” offered the remaining two players an additional $100 to allow him to win the tournament and in the process capture the first place TLB points for that tournament.

Citing the ongoing crisis, PokerStars issued the following statement: 

“On the back of this case, I wish to make it very clear that the type of actions involved here will not be tolerated.”

It then issued a series of steps that would be taken should violators continue abusing the Tournament Leaderboard Competition:

• First offense: deduction of all points in affected tournaments
• Second offense: disqualification from current year’s TLB competition
• Third offense: disqualification from next year’s TLB competition

And the most ominous of all:  Forth offense: barring from PokerStars.

- Ace King, Gambling911.com