After uproar from players, Ultimate Poker, the first regulated real money online poker site in Nevada, ceased working with Iovation, a company with ties to the former Ultimate Bet. Greg Pierson, who founded Ultimate Bet in 2000, is also a co-founder and current member of the Board for Iovation, leaving many in the poker community unsettled when it came to playing on Ultimate Poker. Now, Nevada gaming officials are investigating how the relationship came to pass in the first place.

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According to an article that appeared in the Las Vegas Review-Journalon Monday, Gaming Control Board Chairman A.G. Burnett is quoted as saying, “This is in the category of where the ultimate responsibility rests upon the licensee (Ultimate Gaming), and I know that they are addressing the issue. We, in turn, will analyze what we received back from Ultimate, and then decide how to proceed from here.”

Iovation itself wasn’t licensed in Nevada, according to the Review-Journal: “Iovation was not a registered service provider with Nevada, but the company’s services were utilized by CAMS, an Nevada-approved service provider.” Iovation’s software included the now infamous “god mode” that allowed the cheats at Ultimate Bet to view players’ hole cards and extract millions of dollars.

Ultimate Poker said it was cutting the cord with Iovation because “there were concerns among some of our customers; we hope this makes our players feel more comfortable.” The reaction to that news on PocketFives was mixed, with one poster saying, “They didn’t need leaked tapes to know Iovation’s founder also founded UB.” Another poster questioned, “They dropped Iovation on 5/9/13, but they waited until 5/11/13 to inform the players on the forums. I wonder why the delay.”

Ultimate Poker accepts players located within the confines of Nevada and was using Iovation for verification purposes. According to the traffic watchdog site PokerScout, Ultimate Poker reached a peak of 347 real money ring game players logged in on May 8. It originally launched on April 30 and has a seven-day running average of 158 cash game players, which is good for 37th worldwide.

Upon learning that Ultimate Poker was utilizing the services of Iovation, posters on Two Plus Two and elsewhere set out to alert the public, e-mailing Nevada media outlets and publishing articles on websites trolled by Google News.

The UB tapes were publicized over the weekend and allegedly feature Russ Hamilton and others plotting to cover up and mitigate the cheating scandal at the now defunct online poker site. Former UB pros Annie Duke and Phil Hellmuth are among those whose names were mentioned in the tapes and who have responded to the news. You can read their retorts in the “Related Articles” section below.

Related Articles:
Annie Duke: “Sad, A Few Folks Making Accusations and Assumptions”
Ultimate Poker Severs Ties with Iovation
Phil Hellmuth: “Horrible Read About My Relationship with Ultimate Bet”
Players React to Recorded UB Meeting Involving Russ Hamilton

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