The Weekend Roundup: Poker News from the Weekend
by Dougie Goguen | Mar 21 2011
England
29-year-old hacker Ashley Mitchell was sentenced to two years in prison for violating probation and committing four counts of converting criminal property and violating the computer misuse act in relation to his pilfering of $12,000,000 in Zynga poker chips from that site's servers. Because Mitchell was currently on probation for an (unrelated) hacking crime, the judge added an additional 30 weeks to his sentence, meaning that it'll be over two years before he gets to "like" anything ever again on the social media service.
"You used a considerable amount of expertise, through software you bought, to hack into their computer system," Judge Philip Wassal said at the sentencing. "The means by which you gained access through their security showed elaborate research and a lot of persistence. The time you must have spent doing this must have been considerable."
At the end of the sentencing statements, Wassal added: "People rely on computer systems. Anyone who has managed to get into these systems for their own ends should expect a stiff sentence."
This is where we remind you that Bodog's security and player support is among the best in the industry and that we've provided a phone number at our site that you can call any time with questions and concerns you might have about playing poker with us.
Canada
Here in Canada, Vancouver website theProvince.com talked about a story that could come straight from a David Mamet screenplay. Seems there's a group of poker grifters touring the country, bilking anyone they can with a high-stakes "home game" that just happens to occur when a rich person swings by looking to set up a business deal. This time around, it was Alex Tkach, a well-known figure in Vancouver's media and film industry that got stung.
He was contacted by a group of men claiming to look to make a business deal with him: $125,000 was on the line and they'd love if he swung by their offices in Burnaby. When he stops by to talk to them, he encounters a poker game that they swear is "wrapping up soon." One winning hand of 7-card stud later, they had him hooked on playing for a bit.
After winning a tidy $1,000, they set him up. He's holding a full house: three jacks and two sixes. He bets in — big. He lays $9,000 on the line and then, of course loses. Tkach goes to the ATM, gets the money and they cheerfully tell him to come by next week to talk about business.
When Tkach came back to the office to talk about the $125,000 deal that had gotten him to come out in the first place, he discovered an abandoned office. After going to the police, rediscovered they've been doing this regularly - sometimes up to four times a day, and unfortunately, there's no hard evidence that can help the RCMP or lock cops solve the crime.
