For the past few years, poker investigator/blogger Scott Bell has been compiling evidence on the UltimateBet cheating scandal, which saw dozens of high stakes players defrauded by superusers. And now, Bell is set to release his documentary via Video on Demand on October 22nd.
Bell’s production company, Doublehead Pictures, explained what players can expect with the following synopsis:
The story tracks an intersection of old school hustlers and technology during the “poker boom”. After successfully launching a popular site, a group of insiders used software access to defraud players over a period of years without detection. When discovered, they went to great lengths to cover-up the crimes in order to repay less than the amount stolen.
Nobody was ever investigated, arrested, indicted or prosecuted for the crimes. The subtext is how a small group of players crowdsourced an online investigation to force the site into repaying far more than they intended, if not fully.
Some of those who were cheated in the scandal will be featured in this documentary, including Brad Booth, Mike “trambopoline” Fosco and Todd “Dan Druff” Witteles. Besides appearances by victims, UltimateBeat will also include bits with Travis Makar, who, earlier this year, released taped conversations from Russ Hamilton and Iovation CEO Greg Pierson – two of the biggest figures behind the UB cheating scandal.
Now, six years after the UB scandal broke, many people still have questions they want answered. How much money did UB actually refund to affected players? What was Phil Hellmuth’s stake in the parent company? Did Annie Duke play a role in this scandal and/or cover-up? How are the original figures behind the cheating scandal set to capitalize on legal online poker today? Hopefully UltimateBeat will help answer some or all of these questions.
