Faced with the 'facts' as presented, I have no problem believing it happened. Kudo's to all the folks who investigated, prodded, and exposed these wrongdoings.
That said, this may end up being one of the better incidents that could have happened in the wide world of online poker. Even for Absolute!
Should Absolute survive the next 3 months, what site could you point to and feel sure was the safest to play at. Absolute will have to go through the most rigorous self examination, as well as finding, patching, and preventing all future problem areas.
Do you really believe it hasn't happened, or can not happen again, at any site? Suppose for a moment that a similar incident happened at
pokerstars, if they handle it slightly different from the very beginning, they avoid the public scrutiny, and embarrassment and hopefully improve their site, and our security in these frequent site updates.
For the accusations to be directed at Absolute, one must show that Absolute and or the current management was behind all of this. Rather I think that perhaps Absolute was the unwitting dupe used in this scheme. As old employees are often brought on as consultants, it is not out of the question that the consultant mentioned was the old CEO.
The fact that the whole poker community worldwide is involved in this fiasco, even if it is only on the informational side, is a good thing, not a scandal that threatens the sport. It will probably pave the way to a unified method for regulating all interested online gaming concerns.
Again, special kudos to those tenacious few who persevered in their investigation and brought to the forefront this example of a problem we as online players must deal with.