Online poker has come a long way since the “POTRIPPER” superuser scandal in 2007, and yet…
GGPoker issued a high-profile announcement today that a player named “Moneytaker69” has been banned and nearly $30,000 in unfair winnings confiscated. Details of the scandal came to light after a Post in the 2+2 poker forums.
“We sincerely apologize for the incident,” GGPoker said. “This has led many poker players to worry about the integrity of the game and undermined their trust in GGPoker to provide the best poker experience.”
“We take this incident very seriously and continue to work hard to ensure we do not disappoint poker players.”
The Smoking Gun?
“We take this incident very seriously and continue to work hard to ensure we do not disappoint poker players.”
On Thursday, December 28th, a user named “GGSuperUser” posted on the 2+2 forums that user “Moneytaker69” had been superusing on GGPoker.
A superuser is a commonly used term for a player with access to special privileges or tools within a poker client that allow them to gain an advantage over their opponents, often by seeing their opponents’ hole cards.
The post outlined and examined “Moneytaker69’s” stats, as well as posts from several suspicious hand histories. “Moneytaker69” won with 90bb/100 over a sample of 8,900 hands in December alone, with a VPIP (Voluntarily Put In Pot) of 53 and a PFR (Pre Flop Raise) of 17.
VPIP (voluntarily placed in the pot): The percentage of all hands in which a player voluntarily (when not in the blinds) decides to put money into the pot.
PFR (Pre-Flop Raise): The percentage of all hands a poker player receives a raise before the flop.
According to the original poster, a player who would normally play in this VPIP/PFR range would be in the -50bb/100 range. Outside of the cash game tables, “Moneytaker69” also won a $150 GGMasters Sunday MTT in December for $47,586.80.
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Answer from GGPoker
The original poster mentioned that GGPoker had privately acknowledged the situation and was preparing to address it. And 15 hours later a declaration was made on X, formerly known as Twitter.
In the statement, GGPoker says that “Moneytaker69” was able to use the “Thumbs Up/Down Table Reaction” feature to customize the game client, modify game packages, and intercept network traffic. “Moneytaker69” was then able to use this information to derive the all-in equity by leveraging what GGPoker called a “client-side data leak vector.”
GGPoker says its engineers discovered this vulnerability and issued an emergency update on December 16 to disable the feature.
However, since the customized game client was already in the hands of “Moneytaker69,” the user was still able to use the exploit. According to GGPoker, “Moneytaker69” was able to estimate his probability of winning “with sufficient certainty” based on the data collected.
What next?
GGPoker stated that the client-side vulnerability has now been fixed. “Moneytaker69” was also banned and $29,795 in unfair winnings confiscated. They have also said that payouts for all affected tournaments, particularly the $150 GGMasters Sunday MTT won by “Moneytaker69,” will be reconciled in the next 24 hours.
“We can assure you that the security and integrity of our games is our top priority so that we can offer safe and enjoyable games to all of our players,” GGPoker said in a follow-up post. “We have and will always do everything in our power to prevent fraud in any form.”
This is not the first time GGPoker has taken steps to combat online poker cheats. In September 2020, the site claimed to have suspended 40 accounts for RTA use and confiscated $1,175,305 from 13 of those accounts.
A month earlier, in August 2020, they had banned German poker players Tobias Duthweiler for “pen hunting and predatory behavior.”
Want Shillibier
European Editor-in-Chief
Will Shillibier is the European Editor-in-Chief of PokerNews and lives in the UK. He began working for PokerNews as a live freelance reporter in 2015 and joined the full-time team in 2019. In 2017 he graduated from the University of Kent with a BA in German. He also holds an NCTJ diploma in sports journalism.
