Online poker scandals of the past decade: Multi-Accounting then and now part 1

Multi-accounting is when a player opens a second -sometime 3^rd, 4^th, 5^th and more-account on the same online poker site. Multi-accounting is one of the most widespread forms of cheating in online poker for the simple reason that it’s incredibly easy to do, and 90% of people who open multiple accounts do so for reasons other than cheating or gaining an advantage.

Prior to a number of online poker players abusing the system multi-accounting wasn’t explicitly disallowed, and many players used it to gain a rakeback deal, or cash in on multiple deposit bonuses -This is why it’s so odd that the online poker sites hadn’t cracked down on the practice prior to the scandals.

The first taste of multi-accounting that the general public became aware of was when multiple online Poker Pros discovered a loophole where they could create multiple accounts and enter the same tournament under a variety of screen-names. Some of the biggest names in poker at the time were caught, most notably Josh “JJProdigy” Fields and Justin “ZeeJustin” Bonomo. Many feel the practice was far more widespread -Fields gave the “everyone else was doing it” excuse-but the incidents involving the above two players were the most widely known.

JJProdigy was the first player to come under fire for multi-accounting when an unknown player by the name of ‘ABlackCar’ took down the $500k Guaranteed Tournament on Party Poker. However, a number of red flags were raised when Josh Fields was chatting away on the ‘ABlackCar’ account. Perhaps Josh’s short-term memory was on the fritz, because his JJProdigy account was eliminated earlier in the tournament! Obviously Party Poker stripped ‘ABlackCar’ of the win, and that’s when the proverbial fan was hit with something.

Fields’ didn’t do himself any favors when he claimed that the account was for his grandmother, and when she made it deep in the tournament he took over for her -HOW SWEET OF HIM *rolls eyes*– and he was chatting so everyone knew it was him playing the account. The odd thing about this excuse is that it would still be considered cheating under the site’s Terms and Conditions!

Things became even more sordid when JJProdigy finally admitted to setting up the second account, and playing both throughout the tournament. His reasoning being that he had heard of other players doing this and didn’t want to lose an edge: In his own words he called it “+EV”; so is rigging a deck and stealing chips Josh…

Not long after the JJProdigy scandal broke a second young online poker player was caught multi-accounting. Justin Bonomo, known as ZeeJustin, was caught playing some six separate accounts in the same tournament. Bonomo’s reasoning was different, but just as odd as Josh Fields’s: Bonomo claimed that because he multi-tables he doesn’t pay very close attention to the tables, and on the rare occurrences that two of his many accounts were at the same table he would open up even more tables to offset the advantage he would have seeing two sets of hole-cards.

While Bonomo has repented and gone on to have a fabulous poker career, Fields has been barred from three separate poker sites for multi-accounting, most recently in 2009. I was very critical of Bonomo even as late as a year ago, but he truly does seem to have moved on from the whole fiasco, and rebuilt his reputation. He was very young when the incident occurred, and at the time online poker did have a bit of a Wild West feel to it, with players looking for any edge, which often blurred the lines between honest play, unethical play, and outright cheating. Honestly, I have to say that Bonomo has earned a second chance, but should be held to a higher standard, and hopefully he will keep his nose clean.

Once the online poker sites started implementing safeguards to prevent multiple registrations in the same tournament from the same IP address a new breed of multi-accounters was born, and we were introduced to the terms ‘Ghosting’, ‘Account Sharing’, and ‘Regaining Anonymity’, which is where Part 2 of this series will begin.