An affair involving fraud and embezzlement has led to the heads of Ultimate Bet being fined $1.5 million and ordered to repay the stolen money to their customers.

In addition to the $1.5 million fine Ultimate Bet’s managers must also return almost $6 million to their customers.

This was the judgement delivered by the Canadian regulatory body, the Kahnawake Gaming Commission, on 29 September. The deadline for the online poker site to settle its debts has been set for 3 November. Until then, Ultimate Bet will be under close surveillance and must sack the staff involved in the fraud.

This affair began in 2004 and ended in January 2008. During this period, numerous cases of cheating were revealed by two players assisted by a mathematician.

They discovered that certain Ultimate Bet players were exploiting a weakness in the system in order to see the cards of opponents on their table. It is alleged that they were helped by Russell Hamilton, the winner of the WSOP 1994 and an Ultimate Bet employee.

Joe Norton, the Manager of Ultimate Bet, has already seen a similar website suffer the same fate, as Absolute Poker was fined $500,000 in a similar affair earlier this year.