Account Selling in Online Poker Tournaments
Account Selling is the new cheating phenomena happening in big online poker tournaments.
The huge prize pools occurring in online poker tournaments have created a new form of cheating known as Account Selling, where a player who is deep in a tournament sells their account to an experienced player for the remainder of the tournament. The more experienced player finishes the tournament and is compensated a percentage of the money that is won or a flat fee. Account Selling is becoming increasingly popular in the big Sunday tournaments where million dollar prize pools are normal and the difference between finish 1st and 9th could be $250,000 or more.
Account Selling was brought to the attention of the online poker world when Sorel Mizzi known better by his online poker name Imper1um bought the account of Bluff Magazine Managing Editor, Chris Vaughn, who was deep in the Full Tilt Poker Sunday Million Dollar Guarantee. Buying the account with about 24 players left and better then average chips, Imper1um went on to win the tournament and the $197,000 first place prize. Imper1um was a well known online poker pro who was ranked in the top 5 for 2007 tournament rankings by Bluff Magazine and Pocket Fives. Chris Vaughn breakthrough performance was followed with another huge win the very next Sunday in the Pokerstars Million for $240,000 using the name "SlippyJacks". After a Full Tilt Poker investigation, Vaughn was disqualified and the money removed from the account and given to the other tournament finishers as if they had finished one spot higher. While both players have been banned from the Full Tilt Poker for life, a Pokerstars investigation into the next week's tournament revealed no evidence of wrongdoing. This Account Selling scandal was also a form of multi-accounting because Imper1um had been knocked out of the same tournament earlier.
The good news about account sales is that it is easier to catch. A player will have to log off their account and sign in on a different computer. This log off and log on and the IP addresses are recorded and can be used as evidence of this type of cheating occurring.
Selling your online poker account is 100% unethical and violates the terms of service of every online poker room. As more cheaters get caught and suffer the public embarrassment of being exposed the negative risk of account selling will become a strong deterrent. Online poker rooms must continue outing these cheaters as well to deter others. Imper1um had a shot at becoming the player of the year, but after being banned from Full Tilt Poker his chance of winning was over.
