Tokwiro Comments on Kahnawake Final Report – September 18th, 2009
Tokwiro Enterprises, parent company of the Absolute Poker and UltimateBet online poker operations, has commented on the final report on cheating scandals involving the sites issued last Friday by the Kahnawake Gaming Commission.
Chief among the points made in the Tokwiro statement by chief executive Paul Leggett is that no-one currently associated with Tokwiro or UltimateBet was involved in the cheating scam, which the KGC report laid at the door of former WSOP champ Russ Hamilton and 31 accomplices. Leggett says in the statement: “The welfare of our players is our top priority and we are very pleased they now have access to the details of the fraud and all the facts and findings released by the KGC included in their report,” he stated.
“A lot of our players have been patiently awaiting the release of the full list of usernames involved in the cheating incidences, and we can now answer any of their outstanding inquiries related to their refunds.”
Leggett goes on to reiterate his company’s earlier statements that management was unaware of the cheat code housed in the UB poker client software when it was purchased from Excapsa Software in 2006. The two companies subsequently reached a legal settlement in which Excapsa paid Tokwiro $15 million towards reimbursing the players on the site who were affected by the cheating. In all $22 million was paid to players prejudiced by the cheating, the KGC report revealed.
In addition, Tokwiro’s subsidiaries are now subject to precautionary requirements by the KGC, including regular inspection of gaming logs by independent analysts and submitting new management applicants to the KGC for approval. These precautionary measures have been augmented voluntarily by the company with initiatives of its own, mainly concerning operational changes.
UltimateBet spokesperson Kathryn Farrell probably voiced management’s relief that the KGC appears to have finally drawn a line under online poker’s biggest yet cheating scandal, remarking:
“With the public release of that [KGC] decision, we are finally able to close the book on that chapter of the company’s history. While we vow to never forget, we look to the future as a company with a passion for the game of poker and for providing our players with the safest and most secure poker rooms on the net.”
