PokerScout.com’s Extortion Attempt

Bill Beatty
Bill Beatty
September 27, 2011
18 Comments

pokerscout-dan-stewart-dr-evil-2It’s a shame that after proclaiming to take the highroad in a statement released on their website, PokerScout.com owner Dan Stewart descended into arrogance and glossed over his ethical chicanery.

Stewart proclaimed his site is largely unaffected by Bodog Poker’s attempt to stop him from stealing and profiting off their poker data. He announced he will continue to provide “complete and unbiased data on the entire online poker market” despite requests to halt his unethical and potentially criminal behaviour.

Stewart proclamation of unbiased data falls apart in his very next statement.  As he admits that “the Bodog numbers are projections.” He tells his readers that, “if it becomes necessary (read Bodog’s blocking techniques work) they will publish estimates of Bodog’s traffic as they do with other untracked companies already on their website.”

We have to ask, if the numbers are fictional and not based on real data, why leave Bodog Poker or any other falsified data on the list. If the numbers are straight from Dan Stewart’s brain, why post them for his readers as an accurate reflection of a poker room’s data.

Stewart’s attempt to take the “High Road” continues as he discusses Bodog’s original request to be removed from the rankings.

“Bodog asked to be completely removed from the PokerScout.com website shortly after Black Friday. This caused a dilemma, because we try to keep a cordial relationship with all online poker operators, but in the end we had no choice but to deny their request. Our duty to our readers to provide neutral and complete coverage of the market necessarily took precedence over the wishes of a single operator.”

It sounds nice, really nice but it’s all bullshit.

After speaking with Bodog executives there’s more to the story than Danny boy is telling his readers.

There were a couple reasons Bodog asked for their removal from PokerScout.com after Black Friday. First was their commitment to targeting recreational poker players, they didn’t want to be listed on a site that bum hunters use to seek out the recreation poker players that Bodog attracts. We’ve discussed several reasons why this is good for the poker eco-system.

The second reason was the US Department of Justice had just indicted the top 3 poker sites listed in the PokerScout.com rankings.

It wasn’t a time where poker companies wanted to raise their profile. It might have been putting a huge target on their chests.  Potentially if Stars, Tilt and AP/UB had not been sitting at the top of these ranking sites, who knows if the DOJ would have had such a hard on to take them down.

Bodog approached Dan Stewart to be removed from the listings. Dan Stewart thought about the request and offered to take Bodog off his site BUT only if they paid Stewart a seven figure extortion payment.

This is an old school extortion racket by Stewart. He steals your data and uses it against your better interests in a money making scheme and if you don’t like it he needs over a million dollars to make your problem go away.

It’s like a bootlegger telling Steven Spielberg that he’ll stop selling illegal DVDs but only after Spielberg agreed to pay for the DVDs plus a big premium.

Bodog refused to make the extortion payment Stewart requested as they know he is taking their data without implicit permission and directly profiting from it.

Stewarts attempt to take the high road falls apart when we know that he asked for an extortion payment to take Bodog off their site.

In summary PokerScout.com have, in fact, undermined their own business model by making “projections” rather than pure data and as for taking the “High Road”, well, the request for cash in return for removal makes it the lowest of low roads.

On this evidence other operators may follow suit for moral reasons as well as practical ones, time will tell. Meantime the industry can enjoy working out which data is real and which is “projected”.

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Tags: Article, dan stewart, extortion, poker data mining, pokerscout.com
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  • usernamed

    Oh dear – this one will run and run & I can’t see how that can help PokerScout at all

  • Compncards

    My question is, if this is the case, why not publish the “extortion attempt?”  Is there any evidence to back this up? 

    • http://calvinayre.com Bill

      I trust my sources on this. We’ll have more details as things go along.

      • http://www.facebook.com/calvinayre Calvin Ayre

        I heard this personally directly from the guy who Dan asked for money. 

  • Ryan Murton

    Trying to take on Bodog… Silly man.

    • http://www.facebook.com/calvinayre Calvin Ayre

      this is not really a bodog issue, its a ethics issue though.   We are reporting what happened.  

      • http://twitter.com/HowardBiggs Howard Biggs

        “standards that our industry demands” – what standards are you talking about exactly? 

        • http://www.facebook.com/calvinayre Calvin Ayre

          Hi howard and thanks for reading our site.  This is easy to explain.  Just because some in this industry are doing things that are unethical does not mean that the others who are operating ethical should be beaten with their misdeeds.  I am the only online gaming industry analyst who has founded and run an online gaming company and as such feel its my duty to call out ethical conduct that is hurting the industry.  Bad ethics will be used to over regulate the industry to the detriment of all, mostly consumers. 

          I do not consider sites letting Turkish, American or German residents as an example,  play on their product an ethical issue, this should be the decision of the residents only.  Anyone who is making this argument is mixing up different concepts.   But any business models that have an element of fraud in them of any sort needs to be be called out.   

          Basically as the largest media company covering the online gaming industry globally we have a duty to call our ethical violations as we spot them and try to keep the religion of over regulation at bay for the ultimate benefit of consumers.   Once again thanks for reading and contributing to this discussion.  

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  • http://www.facebook.com/calvinayre Calvin Ayre

    Just to close this out.  We are locking this thread as there are too many posts that are not relevant.  It is not an issue who loves Poker Scout.  The only issue is that Bodog has said they want off and Dan has decided to try to extort money instead of complying.  I have already confirmed the source.  It was the guy Dan was talking to at bodog poker and his direct superior.  I have known about this personally for months directly from them both but choose not to publish this until I saw his ridiculous recent statement.    We stand by all the facts in this article and the opinions on said facts.  This will play itself out over the next year and I am confident many in the industry are going to follow this and we will track it one way or the other.  

    Thanks for reading our site and thanks for the passion about the industry we all love.

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