On the heels of the Kahnawake Gaming Commission's decision regarding to the UltimateBet cheating scandal, the current owner of UltimateBet had the opportunity to claim its own small victory. At least it was small in relation to the massive scope of the entire scandal. Tokwiro Enterprises ENRG, the company that owns UB and Absolute Poker, filed a lawsuit and received a settlement from Excapsa Software, the company that sold UB to them with the cheating activities already firmly in place.
Tokwiro filed suit in September 2008 against Excapsa Software, the company that previously claimed ownership of UltimateBet and sold it to Blast-Off Ltd., the Tokwiro owned company that originally purchased UB. The suit sought $75 million for damages associated with the scandal, which were ongoing at the time of the sale. Though no comment was made at the time regarding the exact purpose of the claim, it was assumed to have been for an amount that would cover the money that the perpetrators of the scandal cheated from players, as well as the costs of public relations and software security upgrades that had to be made as a result.
On November 3, 2008, Tokwiro and Excapsa reached a settlement for significantly less than originally sought. They settled for $15 million, which was said to have covered the total amount of reimbursements to be made to players. The suit was settled in the Ontario Superior Court of Justice in Canada and presided over by Justice Sarah Pepall.
Tokwiro's Chief Operating Officer issued a statement that read, in part: "We are pleased that we have finally agreed to a settlement with the previous owners of UltimateBet, and we are happy to announce the completion of the final refunds to players. Together with our regulatory body, the Kahnawake Gaming Commission, we have fought long and hard to hold those responsible accountable for the fraud, to refund players, and to ensure this can never happen again. Now that the main perpetrator [Russ Hamilton] has been named, the settlement with the previous owners is behind us, and players have received refunds, it should now be apparent that Tokwiro had no involvement in this cheating and that we have fought to correct it with every tool at our disposal ... This brings us significantly forward in our search for justice in the aftermath of the cheating scandal."
With the settlement and the statement from Tokwiro along with confirmation from many players who claimed to be cheated on UB during the scandal, all refunds to players had been completed. Though it was clear that Tokwiro did not perform its due diligence in full before purchasing UltimateBet, Excapsa was shown to have accepted some responsibility for selling a company that contained a significant flaw in the form of a cheater by agreeing to the settlement.
Though $15 million acquired may have been a form of vindication for Tokwiro, many obstacles remain for the company to overcome. Not only is the KGC-hired investigator Frank Catania still investigating Tokwiro due to its ownership of two companies involved in cheating scandals, but Tokwiro is still battling the public relations nightmare that has been ongoing as a result. Despite UltimateBet and Absolute Poker having recently moved to a new, more secure software platform named CEREUS, Tokwiro is-and will be-in a fight to regain consumer confidence for some time to come.
Jennifer Newell is a compulsive writer. In addition to Poker Player Newspaper, she writes for numerous publications and blogs at Pokerati.com as California Jen. In her little bit of spare time, she plays poker, too. Contact her at jen3351@msn.com.
