Scott Tom Poker
Absolute Poker is no longer an active poker site, but it was once one of the largest around. It was launched in 2003 and quickly attracted a large number of players.
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A subsequent cheating scandal combined with legal complications that arose from the site serving US players would ultimately lead to the demise of the site.
The story of how Absolute Poker got started isn’t entirely clear. The general consensus is that it started from a group of students at the University of Montana.
There’s not a huge amount of verified information known about those involved, but we have provided some details on the Absolute Poker founders on this page.
- Oct 21, 2017 Absolute Poker (AP) co-founder Scott Tom and former US President Bill Clinton have at least one thing in common: neither one of them inhaled.
- Scott Tom and another Absolute Poker executive, Hilt Tatum IV, were both on the flight, along with their wives. They were all on a private jet that was leaving Juan Santamaria International Airport in Costa Rica. The jet blew a tire as the plane was getting ready to take off.
- WPT Career Highlights Value Rank; Career Earnings $ Cashes: Final Tables: Titles.
Scott Tom, founder of UB and Absolute Poker, has finally agreed to face charges in the US stemming from his black-market poker operation. Tom pleaded not guilty in a Manhattan federal court to charges of money laundering and violating internet gambling laws. Scott Tom poker tournament results, including recent cashes, lifetime winnings, WSOP and WPT stats.
Below is the full history of Absolute Poker:
During the late 1990s, a group of students at the University of Montana were bonding as fraternity brothers in Sigma Alpha Epilson.
Included in this group were Scott Tom, Brent Beckley, Garin Gustafson, Pete Barovich, Shane Blackford, and Oscar Hilt Tatum IV. These were the young men who would go on to be involved in the creation Absolute Poker.
Scott Tom and Garin Gustafson were already keen poker players and it’s believed they were watching the fledgling online gambling industry develop with interest. Seeing what the early sites had to offer, they believed they could do better.
Absolute Poker Scott Tom
Scott and Phil Tom
Scott Tom is generally considered to have been the driving force behind the launch of Absolute Poker. Along with the others, he moved to the gambling friendly region of Costa Rica, and it was there that their new company was formed.
According to a number of reports his father, Phil Tom, a portfolio manager by trade, provided some of the required financial backing.
Scott Tom Online Poker
Scott, who was managing the company, and his friends are said to have lived a wild life of luxury as Absolute Poker was an initial success.
It’s also believed that his plan was to take the company public and stage an Initial Price Offering.
However, in 2006 the legal landscape for online poker was changing and allegedly these plans were shelved and Scott instead sold the company to Tokwiro Enterprises.
In 2007, Absolute Poker was hit by a cheating scandal. The poker playing community had begun to suspect that all was not right as the poker site and a number of amateur sleuths started to investigate what was going on.
The unofficial investigations that had taken place managed to link this rogue account to Scott Tom. After a subsequent investigation by Absolute Poker it was announced that Tom had not been involved in the cheating, although the poker community remained skeptical.
The site had previously put out a statement that Tom had not been working at the site for over a year, but it was discovered that he been involved in day to day operations during the cheating scandal.
Following a formal investigation by the Kahnawake Gaming Commission, it was announced that Absolute Poker as a corporate entity wasn’t directly responsible for the cheating and had not benefited from it.
No individuals were named as being specifically responsible for the cheating, although speculation continued that Scott Tom was behind it. There were also rumors that it was in fact a friend of his, A.J. Green.
During the cheating scandal Phil Tom defended his son in many interviews, claiming that his son was being unfairly accused. He also had to deny rumors that surfaced in 2008, suggesting that he had been indicted, along with his son, for his involvement in the cheating scandal.
His son was actually indicted later, in 2011, on charges including bank fraud and money laundering. These charges were related to the operations of Absolute Poker in serving US players.
Scott Tom, to date, hasn’t answered these charges. He’s believed to currently reside in Anitigua, and the Federal Bureau of Investigation considers him “at large”.
Brent Beckley
Another of the Absolute Poker founders, Brent Beckley, was also indicted at the same time as Scott Tom. In December 2011 he pleaded guilty to criminal charges that included conspiracy to commit bank fraud and wire fraud.
He admitted that Absolute Poker had disguised banking transactions to facilitate their operation as a gambling site.
In July 2012 Beckley was given a 14 month prison sentence. It’s believed this relatively light sentence was due to his cooperation with the authorities.
He was released in 2013 after serving around 10 months in prison, and now lives in Toronto, Canada.
In 2013, author Ben Mezrich released his latest book, Straight Flush : The True Story of Six College Friends Who Dealt Their Way to a Billion Dollar Poker Empire and How It All Came Crashing Down.
In this book he tells the tale about Absolute Poker and its founders. The author has received some criticism for not telling the whole story, particularly in relation to the cheating scandal.
One of the biggest stories in the poker world over the past few weeks has been Ben Mezrich’s new book Straight Flush. Mezrich, who’s famous for writing The Accidental Billionaires and Bringing Down the House, took an in-depth look at the rise and fall of Absolute Poker in his latest work. But many poker players don’t believe that Straight Flush does an adequate job of explaining the corruption involved with Absolute.
The famed author largely disagrees with this notion and defended the angle he took with his poker book in an interview with CalvinAyre.com. When asked about TwoPlusTwo forum members bashing how he allegedly skipped over a major cheating incident at Absolute Poker, Mezrich explained the situation with the following:
There’s a group of people who feel that Scott (Tom) is very evil and that the founders of AP are horrible and cheats. And I think the book is a works-in-all tale, although they would disagree. But I think the cheating scandal’s in there, there’s no cover-up, there’s no defense. It tells the story in their words. It’s certainly from their point of view. But I think the rise and fall of AP is told well in this story, and certainly what happened with the UIGEA and what happened with the industry, which I think is what’s important in this story.
Ben Mezrich went on to show some sympathy for those who’d lost money due to the scandal and said that he gets why the book is controversial. However, writing a book completely about the cheating scandal isn’t what he wanted to do. Instead, Mezrich wanted to focus on the rise and fall of Absolute Poker along with how unjust the UIGEA was.
Scott Tom Absolute Poker Net Worth
The author’s recent interview with CalvinAyre is still unlikely to win Mezrich any points with hardcore poker enthusiasts, some of whom lost money when Absolute went offline following Black Friday. However, he does do a good job of defending his position, which has always been writing entertaining, glamorized stories about young college students who build financial empires, only to experience struggles and controversy along the way.
Scott Tom Poker Player
This formula has helped Mezrich’s books be spun into two huge movies in The Social Network (Accidental Billionaires) and 21 (Bringing Down the House). And as he contends in the CalvinAyre interview, it won’t be long before Straight Flush is turned into a major film.