Costa Rica Poker Site Caught Bluffing

An online gambling site that operates out of a shopping mall in Costa Rica has been embroiled in a cheating scandal, according to an investigation by the U.S. daily Washington Post and the TV program, 60 Minutes.

AbsolutePoker was forced to refund $1.6 million to cheated players after one gambler grew suspicious of a player who couldn’t seem to lose. After calculating that the man was winning at a rate 15 standard deviations above the mean, the suspicious gambler traced the player’s IP number back to a computer owned by AbsolutePoker.

The cheater was allegedly an inside man.

A subsidiary of AbsolutePoker, UltimateBet is also now accused of cheating about $20 million from its players.

The alleged offenders include UltimateBet employees.

The sites are licensed by the Kahnawá:ke Mohawk reservation, which did not return a request for comment. AbsolutePoker also did not return a request for comment.

–Elizabeth Goodwin