The cheating scandal at UltimateBet and AbsolutePoker just refuses to die down.

After last month’s disclosure by the owners Tokwiro Enterprises ENRG that the Kahnawake Gaming Commission had completed the investigation and that the culprits had been apprehended and that controls were now in place one would have expected that the matter had been laid to rest. However that was not to be.

A comment has been posted on the 2+2 web site by “trambopoline” that has opened the can of worms. He writes, “So I just got off the phone with the CEO and gave him a list of 9 other accounts that they seemed to have ‘missed’ in the investigation. I’m quite sure that every account listed here is a cheating account and would be very surprised to hear otherwise. I was informed that there are still accounts being investigated and that I will be contacted within a week regarding the investigations of the given accounts.” It must be pointed out that the cheating pertains to the earlier period and is not a fresh bout of cheating. But the amounts involved are something.

They range from $82,000 to almost $400,000. The exact names and numbers are – “blueberry101” $373,919; “dannyboy55” $119,195; “h_curtis” $388,475; “broke_in_L_A” $196,604; “twenty 1” $183,194; “wacomaniac” $152,315; “slimpikins2” $82,010 and “tonyspilotro” $99,403.

Being ripped off is bad enough but being ripped off by an insider is horrible. This seems to be the case with the top name in the list – “h_curtis”. Wicked Chops Poker has all but accused Houston Curtis of being the man behind the alias “h_curtis”. Curtis is the Executive Producer of the Ultimate Blackjack Tour and the Ultimate Bet Aruba Poker Classic. He is connected to UltimateBet through Russ Hamilton the founder of Ultimate Blackjack Tour, who is also a co-founder of UltimateBet Poker. Curtis also did the Masters of Poker DVD series for Phil Hellmuth and Annie Duke, both of whom are brand ambassadors for UltimateBet. Whereas these accusations are not backed by proof they appear to be convincing, especially in the light of the fact that it has been established that the cheating scam was an inside job.

The pro online gambling regulation lobby is going to make merry over these new revelations. Already daggers are being drawn and claws are being sharpened. The “60 Minutes” feature on the cheating scandal anchored by Steve Kroft was shot at WSOP 2008. It is believed that participants Linda Johnson and Mike Sexton spoke in favor of government regulation of online gambling. This is will be fodder for the legislators who are trying to shut down the online poker and casino industry.

The cheating scandal is bad news for the players. In the early 1990s the online gambling industry was slow to take off because players did not trust a mechanism that was not visible (as opposed to the physical spinning of the roulette wheel or actual cards being dealt on the table). The felt that computer software can be manipulated by the operators and many of the players from that age will now be saying “I told you so”.