Bettor Wins $1.3 Million; Net casino Won’t Pay
In the highest-stakes dispute of its kind in the short history of Internet gambling, an American bettor and a Costa Rica-based Internet casino are engaged in a running battle over $1.3 million that the player says he won fair and square and the house claims was amassed using a banned “robot” software program.
The big-money feud pits the gambler known as “Pirateofc21” against Hamptoncasino.com and, by proxy, Realtime Gaming of Atlanta, the software company that developed and licensed the “Caribbean 21” game that yielded the disputed windfall.
The battle has been raging for more than two months on Internet gambling forums, with “Pirate” and Hampton officials regularly trading accusations, and has become the soap opera of choice for online gambling aficionados.
The experts have further enlivened the discussion by weighing in with theories as to whether the gambler used a “robot” — an automatic play program that maximizes the player’s odds by eliminating mistakes — or otherwise cheated the game or was simply the victim of an unscrupulous casino operator.
“Pirate” declined to comment on the dispute when contacted by MSNBC.com, citing ongoing settlement negotiations. Hampton officials did not respond to repeated interview requests.
“Pirate,” an out-of-work computer programmer whose real name is Brian Donahue, took the dispute public in January when he posted on the public forum on “online casino watchdog” Casinomeister.com, complaining that his accounts at Hamptoncasino.com and other online casinos using Realtime Gaming software had been frozen.
“Pirate” said the action was taken after he ran the balance of his account at Hampton up from an initial deposit of $1,000 to an astounding $1.3 million after persuading casino operators to raise the betting limit in the game — a volatile variation of blackjack — to $10,000 a hand.
He also said that he had been denied access to “about $96,000” that he had built up at Delanocasino.com, another Realtime Gaming licensee, playing the same game.
After talking to officials at Realtime Gaming (RTG), Casinomeister Webmaster Bryan Bailey counseled “Pirate” to be patient, saying that the company had pulled the game from public play so that it could check for possible software glitches.
“I just got off the phone with RTG and they assured me that they are looking into this diligently and carefully,” Bailey wrote in a Jan. 5 e-mail to “Pirate” that he later posted in a Casinomeister forum in a timeline for the dispute. “There is a lot of money at stake and this understandably warrants their checking your game play and looking at their software/payout tables. Hopefully, in a couple of days this should be resolved.”
Two days later, the dispute boiled over in a now-infamous phone conversation between “Pirate” and Hampton’s Lewin — a heated discussion that was surreptitiously recorded by both parties.
In the taped conversation Lewin told “Pirate” that the company had brought in “outside help” to review the playing logs and developed evidence that he had used a robot program to automatically play his hands, a violation of the site’s terms of service agreement.
“I want you to remember the $1.3 million,” Lewin told the player at one point. “You’re never going to see a penny of it. … You cheated, you’re not getting paid. End of story.”
“Pirate” initially reacted with outrage to the accusation, repeatedly stating that he had not used a robot program or otherwise cheated. But Lewin continued to hammer away, at one point offering to pay “Pirate” $300,000 if he would turn over the robot program and in another instance offering to “go partners” so they could use the software to beat other casinos running the RTG game.
Nearly 30 minutes into the conversation, “Pirate” finally changed his tune. “I wrote it myself,” he said quietly, adding that it had taken him a month to create the program.
Scott Owens, marketing director for the BreakawayCasino.com in Costa Rica, told MSNBC.com this week that his company had paid “Pirate” about $40,000 in winnings on the game since last summer despite suspicions that something wasn’t on the up-and-up.
“People win sometimes and people win a lot of money sometimes,” he said. “But normally people win a lot of money on a big jackpot game. When people win a lot of money at a table game over a period of time, that’s very unusual.”
As the controversy continues to simmer, there are indications that a settlement of the case could be near.
Realtime Gaming President Michael Staw told MSNBC.com on Friday that a settlement had been reached and that he expected it to be finalized shortly.
He said an unidentified third-party had agreed to purchase Hamptoncasino.com from its current owner and had reached an agreement to pay “Pirate,” though it was not clear whether such a settlement would involve the full amount.
But Bruce Holway, a gambler from California who says he has previously had success persuading reluctant RTG casinos to pay off and is advising “Pirate” in the negotiations, said Friday that the third-party had not yet put a dollar amount on the settlement offer.
“A deal can’t very well be imminent if we don’t know the figures,” he said.
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