Chinese Poker Gang Net $587,000 At PokerStars

A gang of Chinese colluders were allegedly able to make $587,000 playing Double or Nothing (DoN) Sit and Go Tournaments on PokerStars, before their scam was eventually discovered.
Apparently, the Chinese gang haled from the sub-provincial city of Hangzhou and would often play the $52 to $104 Don’s with over half the seats occupied by their group.
Consequently, the gang were able to share hand information, and employ a whole range of collusion tricks in order to con their victims out of their buy-ins.
However, it would seem things began to come unstuck for the cheaters after PokerStars players started getting suspicious, especially after groups of 5 or 6 Chinese players would often sit down at the same table together.
It wasn’t long before the site began investigating the complaints leading to a freezing of their accounts. Amazingly, on May 24th one of the gang going by the name of “Jane0123” decided to air his grievance online on the Two Plus Two forum .
In his post he complained that his account had been unfairly frozen with $10,000 in it, but he received no sympathy from Two Plus Two forum members, with one poster replying:
“Ya finally got busted huh? Well it’s about time. I sent about 25 emails complaining about you ****ing clowns.”
A look on online poker data site Sharkscope soon revealed that many of the gang members dominated PokerStars DoN Leaderboard, with ‘wudiyg’ a huge winner to the tune of $96,000. Forum poster “Jane0123” had also clocked up an impressive $56,300 profit playing 11,766 Don’s with an average buy-in of $87.
PokerStars originally agreed to compensate the 4,000+ affected players by creating a $587,000 victim pool, which included a $250,000 added bonus. However, many players were still left feeling violated and also complained that the cheating Chinese gang had generated around $600,000 in rake for PokerStars.
PokerStars have now increased the size of their compensation pool to more than $2 million. Of the $587,000 suspected stolen by the gang, around $85,000 was recovered by the site.
Anyone who believes they may have been a victim of the scam should contact gamesecurity@pokerstars.com.