Paradise Closed Flat Top's Account

Flat Top needs Sherlock Holmes.....


A not so funny thing happened to me at Paradise. I received the emails below:


************************************************** ************************************************


-----Original Message-----

From: Paradise Poker Support [mailto:support@paradisepoker.com]

Sent: Friday, April 12, 2002 2:46 PM

Subject: Re: Flat Top


Hello Flat Top,


Our Security Department has closed your account effective today based on the hands below. We will be sending a check for your funds shortly.

Regards,


Craig

Paradise Poker Support

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Game #176001064 - $5/$10 Hold'em (1-on-1) - 2002/04/11-15:44:39 (CST)

Table "Yasawa" [4048] (real money) -- Seat 7 is the button

Seat # 4: [] BillyGuy ($386.50 in chips) -- playing

Seat # 7: [] Flat Top ($463.00 in chips) -- playing

Flat Top: Post Small Blind ($2)

BillyGuy: Post Big Blind ($5)

Dealt to BillyGuy [ 4h ]

Dealt to Flat Top [ Qc ]

Dealt to BillyGuy [ Td ]

Dealt to Flat Top [ Ks ]

Flat Top: Raise ($8)

BillyGuy: Raise ($10)

Flat Top: Call ($5)

*** FLOP *** : [ Tc 6s 5d ]

BillyGuy: Bet ($5)

Flat Top: Call ($5)

*** TURN *** : [ Tc 6s 5d ] [ Jc ]

BillyGuy: Bet ($10)

Flat Top: Call ($10)

*** RIVER *** : [ Tc 6s 5d Jc ] [ Kc ]

BillyGuy: Fold

Flat Top: Winner -- doesn't show cards

*** SUMMARY ***

Pot: $59 | Rake: $1

Board: [ Tc 6s 5d Jc Kc ]

BillyGuy lost $30 (folded) [ 4h Td ] (a pair of tens)

Flat Top bet $30, collected $59, net +$29 [ Qc Ks ] (a pair of kings)

************************************************** ************************************************

Game #176002532 - $5/$10 Hold'em (1-on-1) - 2002/04/11-15:50:13 (CST)

Table "Yasawa" [4048] (real money) -- Seat 7 is the button

Seat # 4: [] BillyGuy ($193.00 in chips) -- playing

Seat # 7: [] Flat Top ($648.00 in chips) -- playing

Flat Top: Post Small Blind ($2)

BillyGuy: Post Big Blind ($5)

Dealt to BillyGuy [ 5h ]

Dealt to Flat Top [ Qs ]

Dealt to BillyGuy [ Th ]

Dealt to Flat Top [ Td ]

Flat Top: Raise ($8)

BillyGuy: Raise ($10)

Flat Top: Call ($5)

*** FLOP *** : [ Js 5d 8c ]

BillyGuy: Bet ($5)

Flat Top: Call ($5)

*** TURN *** : [ Js 5d 8c ] [ 7d ]

BillyGuy: Bet ($10)

Flat Top: Call ($10)

*** RIVER *** : [ Js 5d 8c 7d ] [ As ]

BillyGuy: Fold

Flat Top: Winner -- doesn't show cards

*** SUMMARY ***

Pot: $59 | Rake: $1

Board: [ Js 5d 8c 7d As ]

BillyGuy lost $30 (folded) [ 5h Th ] (a pair of fives)

Flat Top bet $30, collected $59, net +$29 [ Qs Td ] (high card ace)

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This was my Reply


Hi Craig,


I'm a little confused about your actions. Why did you close my account? What

do you think I did wrong? What do the two hands you sent to me represent to

you? Personally I'm baffled. I probably play a thousand hands a day? How can two hands be

relevant? Two hands out of a thousand seems like an insignificant sample size.

If I am reading the game below correctly, it appears that BillyGuy folded a pair of tens on the River

without any action. If this is the case then:


A. He hit the wrong button.

B. He knows I have a Pair of Kings.

C. He is trying to play weird. To get you to close my account.


Who is this BillyGuy? How long has he been an active player? I don't remember him. How many hands

did we play together that session?


If another player's action determines your decision. That is a scary thought.


It means if someone knows your policy and they don't like a particular player they can play in a

suspicious fashion in order to can get that player's account closed.


For the life of me I cannot figure out what your Security Department thinks is going on. If you think the guy

is dumping money to me there would be a bet and call on the river.


If you think he knows what my cards are then why would you close my account?


I have been a good customer. I deserve an explanation.


Flat Top

************************************************** ************************************************

And there reply back to me.

-----Original Message-----

From: Paradise Poker Support [mailto:support@paradisepoker.com]

Sent: Saturday, April 13, 2002 3:17 AM

Subject: Re: Flat Top


Hello,


Our Security Department's policy is not to divulge information that it uses to make account closure decisions.


We will be sending you a check for your balance shortly.

Regards,

Craig

Paradise Poker Support


************************************************** ************************************************


Is there anyone out there that has had a similar experience?

It appears I have been set up. I'm a winning player. I only play heads up games. Could it be that another player is trying to eliminate the competition? Any opinions? Or perhaps a rival Online Casino trying to piss off and irritate the paradise players. If that's the case it worked. Any thoughts would be appreciated.


Note: I replaced my real name with Flat Top where ever it appeared.


Thanks,


Flat Top

This guy must have been terrible. Lost $200 to you in a span of 5 minutes

It does appear that you were set up. I am surprised by the action that Paradise Took. It is a very bad decision to close your account based on Billy Guys actions. It could be that there "team detection" software flags them when a hand is played in an unusual way. And they don't have employees that are sharp enough to realize that Heads Up is a different situation. The person that set you up probabaly was Barred for cheating at Paradise in the past. So he knew how to play his hands to flag them.

If you bet and get called you have to show your cards right. Nice try though.

I guess i should read post more carefully sorry.

I don't get it. Late April Fool's joke? If this actually happened, then Paradise security is a bunch of morons.

This is crazy. There has to be more to this story. I would like to hear some feedback from Paradise.


Enrique

They probably suspect money laundering. Heads up poker is an obvious way to launder money.

If your right don't you think they should have had a larger sample size than a couple of hands. I was playing hundreds of hands a day.

If they're laundering money that was allegedly made by cheating, why not provide evidence of the cheating? That's like arresting someone for drug dealing just because you found them carrying around a bunch of cash.

I agree that this is crazy. You read my emails to them and their responces to me. They did not give me alot of information. I would also like to hear from Paradise.

Are you sure there was nothing more to that? My guess would be that you and another guy used to play from the same computer.

Wouldn't closing your account indicate some suspicion of fraud, collusion..something?...if so, why are they sending you your money? Also, more minor point, why are they revealing what the other player's cards were?..isnt that private information?


This looks like a really bad way of handling the situation..if there is nothing more that youre not telling..you deserve an expalantion, and most likely an apology.

Cheating may have nothing to do with it.


By money laundering I mean taking money that was obtained illegally (drug sales, theft, ....) deposit it into a online poker site like Paradise, perhaps through some offshore bank, then lose that money to another player. The player who won the money can then claim this money as gambling winnings, which is no longer illegal money, at least in countries where online gambling is legal.


Regular B&M casino's have this problem too. In a casino, you don't even have to really bother losing the money to someone. You can just convert it to chips, then pass the chips to another person, who cashes them in and claims them as winnings. Casino's of course are watching for this type of thing.

I suspect it was the folds on the river without a bet from you in a heads up game that set off the security alarms in their software. Perhaps when they looked over all your play they saw enough things to make them wonder and they decided to close your account to be sure.


The fact they are giving you the money from the account means they don't have any solid evidence of cheating or wrong doing. One of the main worries about online gambing is that it could easily be used for money laundering. Heads up poker is an obvious way to do money laundering, so perhaps Paradise is just being extra careful and closing any accounts involved in any suspicious looking hands in heads up games.

What diff does it make if 2 people share a computer in the heads up room.


It is not relevant.


Since by defenition they cannot collude.

Mason what is your take on the way BillyGuy played his hands on the river?

How come $200 is money laundering?

Of course it is relevant. If two players share the same computer that means thay know each other or they are the same person. Then, if they play strangely heads up, it means they transfer money, which is against rules in all rooms.

I don't think the concern is money laundering. I think the concern is the following scam...


A person with credit cards in different names (or a team of two) buys in to Paradise twice (possibly on a 20% bonus day.) He dumps everything from one account to the other in a heads up game. Then he refuses to pay the losing credit card debt, and the debt is unenforcable in the U.S. since it is a gambling debt. Then I'm not sure what the credit card company does to Paradise but cutting them off would cost Paradise millions of dollars ultimately. Maybe PayPal enters into this too.


Proving your innocence will not be easy, because you have to prove it beyond a reasonable doubt. Paradise stands to make $10,000 a year from you if you are innocent or to lose $10,000,000 per year if you are guilty.


Note that in the first hand you had the best hand, so it's actually counterproductive for your alleged dumping account to muck a pair on the river. So, Paradise is down to one hand to convict you on.


The O.J. defense ("but I was set up!") is a scary one to try. You should instead protest that it's likely Paradise's interface that is to blame. There are three ways the interface could be to blame...


1. Perhaps twice the guy hit fold on the river when he meant to check, then got confused by the yes/no warning box (perhaps he does not speak English well or is a newbie) and selected to fold when he meant to check. Even native English speakers are likely to hit the wrong yes/no at least once when first starting to play Paradise. This is the fault of Paradise's interface design, not the players.


2. It's also possible to advance fold out on the river by checking the advance fold box on the turn. I've seen players bet or raise or call on one round and then their cards go flying into the muck instantly when first to act on the next round. That's because they acted and then hit the advance fold small box, in the mistaken belief that the program would not be so retarded as to fold their cards if they don't face a bet! Again, most players have done this at least once, and only by being bitten do they learn that the program is ill-designed in this aspect. I was bitten myself.


3. One thing Paradise probably doesn't even realize is that show/don't-show on one hand can morph into an advance fold (small box) if you have connection problems, and that small box won't show a check mark either so what you see is your cards flying into the muck for no reason. I assure you and Paradise that this is true. The only place I know it occurs is in the small blind preflop, but it's possible this bug could be responsible for BillyGuy's behavior.


With three possible sources of this behavior from Paradise's own implementation glitches, I find the defendant not guilty. I find Paradise guilty of reckless endangerment through negligent interface design and award BillyGuy $30 in damages. Next case.

Clearly $200 is not significant money laundering.


Paradies might suspect that all or most of Flat Top's winnings were because of money laundering, and these two hands (and those between) were only one small very obvious example. Because of Paradies daily, weekly deposit limits, you can not do very large scale money laundering from one account. You would have to have many small accounts.


Without being able to look at the whole record, its hard to tell, but BillyGuy's play looks "suspicious".

A week or so ago I was watching a game in action. There were a few players chatting with each other. D@m@3rd Eric123 Ballstreet, and a few others I can't recall. Any way Eric123 was saying that because of Paradise High Rake. The game was not worth playing anymore because of the good players play strong enough so that great players can't beat the rake. Ballstreet complained about the games also and of the players. (they mentioned a few, your name included) Then Ballstreet kept asking D@m@m3rd and Eric123 for there Email address saying he had an idea to make the games better.Or something to that effect. But he had to discuss it in private. Im not accusing anyone of setting you up. Im just telling you the facts.

I thought it was weird at the time. And now this happens.

I am not accusing Fred of anything, but an additional possibility is that this looks like just disguised money transfers.


Say you were running an internal terrorist organization, and you had to regularly transfer a few thousand dollars to operatives in the field. Online heads up poker would be an efficient and difficult to trace way to do this. Fund a number of donor accounts from where ever in the world you have your funds. When operatives in the field need money, you could arrange games by email, and they could cash their winning out by Paypal straight into their checking accounts.


I think it is highly unlikely anyone would really try to do this. People would have to know something about poker to not make this completely obvious. It would be much easier to do this by selling fake items that are never delivered on online auction sites.

You sure seem to know alot about this!!!

On the brighter note -- At least they didn't keep your money.

You can just transfer money from one account to another. I gave my dad $2,000 a few days ago. We use the same computer. What difference does it make?

transfer by asking support is not the same as dumping chips.

I guess I didn't fully understand the money laundering thing... and I've even watched "Office Space" four or five times! I'm such a geek.

further to Abdul's comments, that sort of thing was supposedly happening to Planet. One guy would buy in for a whack of cash, dump it to his buddy, buddy cashes out, then the guy has the original purchases reversed.


my guess is that Paradise is on the constant lookout for this kind of thing. The hands that were provided are quite suspicious looking. Not sure of Flat Top's track record at Paradise, but if he's a winning player, my guess is that they put 2 and 2 together.

I was set up also by those bastards at paradise the same day by the same guy. I just read your post and my emails from paradise were exactly the same. Its all a bunch of b.s from paradise and there gonna pay large for this.


PLAYBOY