GGPoker Gives Thumbs Down to Moneytaker69 After Hack
Author:
Roy Brindley
GGPoker, the world’s biggest online poker site, has experienced a hack that cost its customers tens of thousands of dollars. The Dublin-based operator may pay a heavy price for the breach. With its credibility called into question, a player drop-off could now follow.
A December 28 posting on the popular TwoPlusTwo poker forum highlighted the latest cheating scandal. It outlined details of a highly suspicious player account using the alias ‘Moneytaker69’.
Moneymaker69 could not see opponents’ hole cards but did know his probability of winning a hand and used that advantage to win big – and frequently.
The posting supported its theory with simulations of results expected by any player using the same strategy as the suspicious account – most notably, playing 53 percent VPIP (voluntarily puts money in pot). It should be a suicide strategy, but a 9,200-hand sample showed a win rate of 83.9 big blinds per 100.
Money Taker Raked It In
The following day, GGPoker issued a statement that acknowledged its software had been hacked and that Moneytaker69 was playing with a distinct information advantage. The term ‘Superuser’ – which came into existence in 2007 following the revelation that a handful of players on the now obsolete Absolute Poker website could see rival’s cards – was quickly bounded around by an absorbed online poker community.
“GGPoker recently spotted unusual game patterns and abnormal game client packets from a user nicknamed ‘Moneytaker69’,” the statement read. “Our technical security team investigated the issue, identified a client-side vulnerability, and fixed what caused these unusual circumstances. We have banned the user and confiscated the unfair winnings, equating to $29,795.”
The site, which hosted a $200 million guaranteed ‘GGPoker World Festival’ best online poker sites series in May 2023, then outlined details of how the person behind the ‘Moneytaker69’ account exploited the system to gain an unfair advantage.
“Under a specific set of circumstances related to the ‘Thumbs Up/Down Table Reaction’ feature, which involves de-compilation of our Windows game client, interception of network traffic, and alterations of our game packets, Moneytaker69 was able to customize his own game client.”
“These customizations could only be made to our Windows desktop game client since part of our desktop client leverages the Adobe Air framework, which has attack vectors that other frameworks do not. At no point was the user able to access our servers or server data, including others’ hole cards.”
“Through this customized game client, he was able to deduce all-in equity by exploiting a client-side data leak vector. Our engineers detected this vulnerability and issued an emergency update on December 16 to disable the Thumbs up/down table reactions.”
“However, the user was already in possession of the customized game client, which he blocked from receiving further updates, and was able to continue to accumulate the data leak during the flop and turn. Through this accumulated data, he could guess his win probability with reasonable assurance.”
“We have since issued security patches to prevent further client-side data leaks of this kind and have added solutions that will detect and prevent players from customizing the game client to their benefit. We will refund $29,795 to the affected players and also reconcile the payout for the impacted tournaments in the next 24 hours.”
Is There Fair Winnings?
For the most part,?GGPoker has been praised for issuing a statement so quickly, acknowledging the hack, and apologizing. However, questions have been raised regarding the $29,795 it intends to return to affected players.
In December, the ‘Moneytaker69’ account ‘won’ a $150 GGMasters Sunday tournament, netting $47,586.80. With cash game activity considered, the $29,795 figure appears short of the money defrauded from players. Therefore, the phrase’ unfair winnings of $29,795′ would benefit from some explanation.
Countless Tweets and forum posts have questioned the likelihood of more than one account holder being aware of the data leak and how to exploit it. One read: “Moneytaker69 was one of many. It’s almost a certainty he would have shared it with a team. It’s a bad look to simply pretend the one player the public caught is the only cheater.”
