Here’s the deal folks – I’ve had a few people of late email and ask me what happened with Justin Bonomo and why he was called out for cheating on ESPNs broadcast of his $5k Mixed Event Final Table.
Basically, when the kid was under 21 he was crushing the party poker games, and building a little name for himself. Then a mild scandal occured where he was caught multi-accounting a big multi table tournament (MTT) on party which he ended up winning. His six figure winnings were confiscated by the site, and returned to the prize pool for distribution amongst the others who cashed. I believe his stars account was also shut down for multi-accounting.
Now, he took a lot of heat from the online community especially in the forums. He issued a public apology on his website, addressed issued on the forums, and overall accepted responsibility for his actions.
To me, this level of ‘cheating’ was infinitely milder than some of the recent scandals with UB and Absolute – in which MILLIONS of dollars were stolen out of the poker community. His multi-accounting thing was ethically wrong, but maybe doubled his edge in the thousand player fields to 5-7%…I’m not that good with ICM but someone could tell you its not a huge monetary scam in the poker community. It was just more convenient to witch hunt someone like Bonomo because you could easily place a face with the blame. Especially because he was young and successful.
With the new stuff, it’s harder to pinpoint the exact culprits as multiple people may have been involved, different parent corporations, etc.
It was a low blow from Norman Chad, an off hand remark, taken out of context, and presented to uninformed viewers on national tv. Enough with zeejustin – what about Ultimate Bet???
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