It looks like things over at AP/UB are pretty much finished. They're grappling with the Department of Justice, apparently can't afford to let people cash out, and will probably go under rather soon. In addition, it came out that the original AP cheaters are still with the organization (big shocker!)
A little known fact about me is that I like country music. Given that I'm Jewish, not from the South, have never lived in a rural area, and don't hunt or fish, I clearly don't fit the stereotype. However, I enjoy country music because it celebrates appreciating the simple things in life, treating people fairly, and valuing the importance of family and morality.
In the '90s, country star Aaron Tippen sang the line, "Whatever you do today, you have to sleep with tonight." Not exactly deep or complex, but like many country lyrics, it's real and to the point.
Sadly, many otherwise moral people left their scruples at the door when it came to UB. The poker community revolves around money. If you have it, you exist. If you don't have it, you disappear. This is true both on and off the felt. Unfortunately, most modern poker pros and poker media professionals were dependent upon the online poker sites to make a living. The sites provided the games, and they also had the deep pockets to shell out advertising dollars to the media and generous commissions to affiliates. With very few US-facing online poker sites of any consequence, could anyone really afford to turn their backs on one of the most lucrative sites?
That question came up in 2007 and 2008, when the Absolute Poker and UB cheating scandals broke. Once it became clear that the culpability literally went all the way to the top, everyone involved with poker had an important decision to make. Do you disassociate yourself with AP/UB for what they've done, or do you quietly keep doing business with them if it will continue to make you money? It was the classic choice of morality versus greed. Unfortunately, with many in the poker community, greed won out.
With the money in the poker economy getting increasingly scarce in a bad economy, I can understand how the choice became difficult. If you own a poker magazine, do you keep accepting expensive UB ads and softshoe around the scandals, or do you take the moral stance and risk your magazine's financial health? If you run a poker affiliate program, do you stop offering AP/UB signups, knowing that you could be leaving tens of thousands of dollars per month on the table? If you're a poker pro, do you stop playing at AP, even knowing that the games are much easier to beat than their equivalent counterparts on Pokerstars and Full Tilt?
Still, if there's anything I've learned from my 18 years of listening to country music, it's that money isn't everything. Moral behavior should always trump the desire and greed for money -- or at least it should if you consider yourself a good person.
UB is a criminal organization. A lot of language has been thrown around by the Department of Justice recently, making criminals of Pokerstars and Full Tilt, but those sites engaged in victimless crimes. The owners of UB are true criminals. They stole tens of millions of dollars from our community, attempted to cover it up, underpaid people when returning the stolen funds, and arranged a phony "sale" to cover up that the same cheaters still owned the company. They should have been blackballed from the community and left with empty tables, forcing them to dry up and die. Instead, the greed of many in the poker world kept them not just afloat, but established them as the third largest online poker site in the world.
UB managed to keep its pre-scandal activity level due to all of the money-hungry enablers in the poker community.
Cardplayer and Bluff Magazines could have refused their ads and aggressively reported on poker's biggest story ever. Instead they ran expensive, glossy, multi-page ads for these scummy sites, despite knowing they were walking their innocent readers into a site that unapologetically cheated everyone. Instead of being informed of the sites to watch out for, casual poker players saw those ads and signed up for the site that looked the coolest. Why did Cardplayer and Bluff betray their readers' trust like that? Greed.
Large online poker affiliate sites could have removed AP and UB from their offerings, as a show of solidarity with their customer base that was cheated so offensively. Instead, they continued running large advertisements trumpeting 30% rakeback on those sites. New players chose AP and UB for the great rakeback deals, often unaware of the horrors that occurred there. Why did these affiliates continue to promote AP and UB? Greed.
Professional poker grinders recognized that the games on AP and UB were still soft, and showed a high potential for profit. These players were stolen from directly and repeatedly lied to, but they forgave everything in order to put more money in their pockets. Without these dedicated grinders, few people would have waited around to start games, and the casual players wouldn't have bothered to deposit and play. Instead, these grinders basically turned themselves into unpaid prop players, keeping games running and always making sure that a casual fish could find someone to play. They showed AP/UB that no matter how much money was stolen, no matter how many lies were told, and no matter how much people were undercompensated, there would always be a number of short-sighted dopes coming back for the good games. These players essentially told AP/UB that it was okay to cheat. Why did they do it? Greed.
Certain known players like Joe Sebok, Prahlad Friedman, and Maria Ho joined UB after the scandal, displaying a shocking lack of curiosity regarding the site's abhorrently dishonest and non-transparent handling of the post-scandal fallout. None were particularly curious as to who owned "new UB". All ignored reports that they were working for the same cheaters that stole from the community the first time. None seemed to care that hand histories were "missing", and none expressed any concern that the refunds weren't correct for that reason. They appeared in large print ads, enticing their fans to sign up to their incredibly shady network. Sebok threw away years of popularity and embarrassed his highly-trusted, very visible stepfather, Barry Greenstein. Prahlad contradicted his years of populist, anti-corporate activism and turned into the ultimate hypocrite, urging the average Joe to trust one of the sleaziest corporations of all time. Why would Sebok disgrace his family and reputation? Why would Prahlad betray his formerly strong anti-corporate, pro-little-guy values? Yup, once again it's greed.
These people, these organizations, and everyone who continued working with or playing at UB betrayed the poker community. They chose personal gain over making an important statement. They chose to cover up the misdeeds of criminals over exposing them. They chose to lead unsuspecting casual players into the mouth of the beast, instead of warning them away from that path. They did it for the almighty dollar, and insultingly tried to convince us that we were the ones holding needless grudges and being paranoid.
You see, that's the one thing worse than greed -- greed combined with the smug belief that you're also morally in the right with what you're doing. At least Bernie Madoff really knew he was cheating people. I believe that Sebok and Prahlad still believe that they did their due diligence to check out "new UB" before signing. I believe that Cardplayer and Bluff think they covered the scandals well, and shouldn't be blamed for simply accepting advertisements. I believe that the affiliates rationalize that people wanting to play on AP/UB will just use other affiliates to get rakeback, so they weren't actually bringing players to those sites. I believe that the professional grinders think that they were actually hurting UB by beating the site's fish and taking money out of the site's economy, not realizing that their very presence was what made people want to play in the first place.
So for all of you who turned your back on the poker community when it came to giving AP and UB what they deserved, now you are getting what you deserve.
The grinders will probably never get to cash out their funds. If they do, it will be aggravatingly tiny piece by piece, followed by the eventual abrupt shutdown of the site.
The sponsored pros will now live with the scarlet UB on their forehead. Prahlad Friedman is no longer the cool, laid-back, rapping hippie NL stud. He's now the worst kind of limousine liberal, hypocritical sellout. Joe Sebok is no longer the friendly, likable son of the respected Barry Greenstein. He's now a liar, an apologist, and an embarrassment to his stepfather.
The affiliates are about to become fractions of their former selves, with the three biggest sites shut off from American players. Many will probably cease to exist, and the biggest ones will see their multi-million-dollar businesses devalue faster than Las Vegas housing prices.
The poker media, which overextended themselves based upon lucrative advertising contracts with online poker rooms, will have to greatly scale back operations. Many will remember them as greedy and afraid to tackle the most important story in poker history.
A lot of good people will be losing their jobs and livelihoods due to the Department of Justice's recent actions. Feel sorry for those people. For those struggling who once acted as enablers for UB, I say good riddance.
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Originally Posted by Dan Druff
