Joe Sebok Signs With Ultimate Bet

Joe Sebok has shocked the poker world by signing as a sponsored pro and consultant for Ultimate Bet. He has made a pledge to ensure that all hand histories will be available to the players affecting or believing they were affected by the super-user scandal and that the names of the 31 people associated with Russ Hamilton during the scandal will be revealed. These pledges are not guaranteed and it is surprising to many people in the community why he would sign before knowing for sure whether or not these wishes will be fulfilled.

Sebok said that the decision to become the new Media and Operations Consultant was not taken lightly and that he agonised over the decision for some time. He said that he visited Costa Rica for a tour and had lengthy discussions with Paul Leggat the CEO of Tokwiro Enterprises before agreeing to become part of the team. The discussions have been going on for four months and Sebok says he is satisfied that all parties are on the same page on fixing the mistakes that were made in the past.

This created an immediate backlash on the forums over Sebok’s involvement with the site. He was accused of selling out to Ultimate Bet who has admitted cheating players out of a reported $22 million. Certainly he is taking a risk by associating himself with a site that as yet has not delivered on any of the promises to do with hand histories and failing to reassure the public their moves after the scandal are anything more than damage limitation.

Should Ultimate Bet fail to deliver then Sebok is left in a difficult situation. He has publicly pledged not to act in the way Phil Hellmuth and Annie Duke did during the scandal by refusing to discuss it or acknowledge it. Hellmuth in particular is a huge talker on the poker table and in the media but he was surprisingly quiet about the affair almost never going on the record.

After the Kahnawake Gaming Commission released the list of super user account names in their report it turns out that Sebok was instrumental in getting the list added to the report. One of the conditions of his signing with Ultimate Bet was that they move towards transparency and end the culture of hiding information from the public. Obviously there will be certainly internal business decisions that do not enable the public to get to know everything but we hope that with the addition of Sebok to the team of pros it will add some credibility to their site when they badly need it. By becoming part of the sponsored pro team and a consultant Ultimate Bet are perhaps acknowledging that their current stable of pros have not come out looking great and they need a player of Sebok’s stature in the poker world to give them some credibility.

So how much of a risk is this to Sebok? He has revealed his role entirely as both a sponsored pro and a consultant to their operations. This puts him at the cusp of activity for this site and a figure to blame should their conduct not improve. But signing such a respected player suggests that the site is committed to turning the corner and can be viewed as a statement of intent to improve their image. Sebok would not have signed for the site had he not been given fairly solid assurances that this would not be a decision he may live to regret. Unfortunately for Sebok if they fail to live up to their promises as they have done previously then he will suffer a major loss of credibility.

Time will tell whether this is a genuine milestone for the site or whether their signing of a young poker pro is simply buying them time in what is becoming a very damaging scandal for Ultimate Bet. My own personal recommendation for players is to play poker at bwin.com, a site that has never stolen money from their players.

Zimbler World Record Update

Paul Zimbler broke the world record for continuous heads up play by playing 183 games of heads up poker in 74 hours 20 minutes. He amazingly won 102 of these heads up matches raising more than £35,000 for the Make-A-Wish Foundation. Such was the challenge he had to be carried from the table. Don’t try this at home!

By Malcolm Clarke

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Tags: joe sebok, sebok, ultimate bet