While PocketFivers were busy dominating online poker tournaments on Sunday night, the CBS News program “60 Minutes” questioned the legitimacy and legality of the industry as a whole in the United States. In its feature segment entitled “The Cheaters,” which was one of three stories that aired as part of the weekly program, correspondent Steve Kroft (pictured, image courtesy of CBS.com) interviewed several personalities involved in the online poker scandals that unfolded on UltimateBet and its sister site, Absolute Poker. It was the culmination of a four month-long investigation by 60 Minutes and was supplemented by an article that appeared in the Washington Post newspaper on Sunday. The video of the full 60 Minutes segment is available at the bottom of this article.

CBS News began by claiming that online poker, an $18 billion industry, “is illegal in the U.S.” However, it did not state a court case or other legal basis for the claim. Kroft’s narration added, “Unlike land-based casinos, there is almost no official regulation, enforcement, or supervision, but it hasn’t stopped thousands of mostly young men from making this their livelihood.” Several U.S. states, including Washington, have specific laws on the books that make internet gambling problematic. Washington State makes playing online a Class C felony.

One of the main personalities interviewed by 60 Minutes was Todd “Dan Druff” Witteles, who spoke to Kroft about a troublesome opponent he squared off against on Absolute Poker. Witteles stated, “He was playing in a style that was sure to lose, but he was killing the game day after day.” PocketFiver Serge adanthar Ravitch told Kroft, “What I saw did not make any sense. This account was simply winning too much money for the type of game he was playing. He was doing it by never having the worst hand.” Ravitch examined hands using PokerTracker and also posted them in a video online.

Since 60 Minutes caters to an audience that is unfamiliar with online poker, Witteles summed up why the ability to see other players’ hole cards can give a cheater an edge: “If you could see everybody’s cards in poker, you could be the worst poker player in the world up against the best poker player in the world and you’re going to beat him just about every time. We knew for sure there was cheating going on. We just didn’t know who was responsible.”

When the play of Absolute Poker super user account POTRIPPER was questioned by Marco CrazyMarco Johnson, AP officials sent him an Excel spreadsheet with 65,000 lines of data, complete with user names and IP addresses of hands involving the infamous user name. 60 Minutes claimed, “The company was finally forced to acknowledge that a former employee had cracked their software code and cheated online players by looking at their cards. Absolute Poker cut a deal with the cheater to protect his identity in exchange for a full confession of how he did it.”

The Kahnawake Gaming Commission (KGC), according to the news program, is composed of a three man panel. It’s based on an Indian reservation outside of Montreal, Canada. In fact, the owner of Absolute Poker and Ultimate Bet, Joseph Tokwiro Norton, is a former Kahnawake Grand Chief. Michael Delisle, who is the current head of the Kahnawakes, told the Washington Post, "I have had no opportunity [to talk to Norton about the cheating scandals] and honestly I don't think it's any of my business." The Post sourced a Gaming Intelligence Group official who commented that Absolute Poker was at one point pulling in between $150,000 and $200,000 per day in revenue.

The story on online poker was a joint effort between 60 Minutes and the Post. The newspaper article states that the KGC was formed in 1996 and, in 2003, “a number of banks begin to block their customers from using bank-issued credit cards for Internet gambling.” The article also claims that the Unlawful Internet Gambling Enforcement Act “explicitly [outlawed] the transfer of money to online gambling sites.”

Russ Hamilton was identified by the KGC as the main man responsible for the cheating on Ultimate Bet. However, 60 Minutes notes that no charges have been filed and that Hamilton still resides at his Tournament Players Club (TPC) golf course home in Las Vegas. However, the program raised questions as to why no action had been taken against Hamilton, even if affected customers had been repaid.

A statement filed by Tokwiro to the Post explained Hamilton’s connection with the company: “For a brief time in 2007, Mr. Hamilton had a relationship with Tokwiro whereby he would refer players from his corporate website to Ultimate Bet.” Tokwiro purchased the online poker room in 2006 and Hamilton began cheating two years before that.

The discovery of the scandals on the two sites largely unfolded on forums like PocketFives.com. Witteles commented, “The people who did this were very greedy and blatant. The scary thing is, there may be other accounts out there like this, maybe even on other sites, which are not being done with the same sort of recklessness.”

Interestingly, 60 Minutes did not dive into specifics of the Unlawful Internet Gambling Enforcement Act (UIGEA), including what is actually illegal under it. In addition, no mention was made about the attempt by Kentucky Governor Steve Beshear to confiscate 141 internet gambling domain names. An Appeals Court hearing in Louisville, Kentucky will occur on December 12th.

Harrah’s officials and poker pros were among those interviewed by the CBS News program. However, only comments by Witteles, Ravitch, David Paredes, Michael PokerStarsMichaelJ Josem, and Delisle aired. Check out the full video here: