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Transcript of Travis Maker interview, 2/16/2011 DonkDown radio
[30:12]
Micon: Ok. Here’s a 702 number that’s coming in. Caller, DonkDown Radio.
Makar: Ok. Uh, sorry. I just had to switch phones again. You’ve got Travis.
Druff: Ok. So why do you have a 702 number if you live in St. George?
Makar: Uh, a lot of people in St. George have 702 numbers because it’s on the border.
Druff: It is on the border, but I don’t see why. [laughs] I don’t see why you’d have a 702 number. But I’ll leave that alone for right now. So, what’s the name of the…Here’s some questions I was told to ask you. What’s the name of the smoothie shop that you go to there in St. George?
Makar: Orange Peel.
Micon: Mookman, is that correct, Mookman?
Druff: Orange what?
Makar: Orange Peel.
Micon: Alright, we’ll just get some verification here from our heavy hitters.
Druff: Ok, so Mookman is giving the thumbs up. So, we’re going to take a flop here and we’re going to assume that you really are Travis Makar. How did you hear about this show and what made you want to call in?
Makar: Uh, well, google does a notification every time my name pops up, and a couple of weeks ago when you were doing the pranks on Russ, it popped up.
Druff: Ok.
Makar: So I was listening this whole time.
Micon: So you did listen to the pranks on Russ. Funny? Funny or no?
Makar: Oh, yeah. They were funny.
Micon: Alright.
Druff: And did you like the one last week with Phil Hellmuth?
Micon: Where I claimed to be.
Makar: Yeah, you know, I got the same spoof programs and, you know, things like that.
Micon: So, now, now, Travis, you have, what can be considered… I mean, I had never heard your name until the UB, you know, the whole scandal thing came out. So, now, what was you’re… I know you said you also wanted to respond to some of these recent charges on the road rage incident. And of course…
Makar: Well, you were saying I was out and I got arrested for road rage and stuff like that.
Druff: Well, that’s what we read in the article.
Micon: That was the report.
Druff: That you got arrested for impersonating a police officer when some punk kids were messing with you on the road.
Makar: No, that’s not, not what happened at all.
Druff: Ok, so what really happened?
Makar: Some guys were chasing my son in a vehicle, him and his friend. And they were afraid, and they didn’t know what was going on. They called me and says we don’t know what to do. And one of the kids, my friend’s kid, actually his father was a cop. They called him, he didn’t answer, they called me. I blocked the kids off from chasing my kid and because I blocked them, blocked their access, that’s considered kidnapping.
Druff: So you never actually put them in your car or anything like that?
Makar: No. I never even seen them. I never even…uh, they never even got out of their car.
Druff: So you blocked them to what? From leaving the area or blocked them from getting towards your kid?
Makar: I blocked them from being able to… I blocked them from being able to chase my son. My son made a left, they tried to make a left. I went straight to block them off so they couldn’t go left. They pulled over to the right, and that’s about where it ended.
Druff: Ok. So, I mean, I’ll tell you honestly. I don’t care that much about this.
Makar: I was arrested. I was arrested.
Druff: Yeah, so why were you arrested for this if all you did was separating these people from harassing your kid. I can’t see you being arrested for that sort of thing.
Makar: That’s, well, that’s what my lawyer is doing right now. They arrested me, I posted my bail, and, uh, got my lawyer. And the lawyer came down here. And, you know, same thing. We’re going to file charges against them for the same thing.
Micon: Well, Druff, this is a minor incident. And, obviously, Travis, the way that we work on this show, you can feel to speak. You know, if there’s stuff you want to get out there then this show is very much for that. To give you time.
Makar: Well, within reason. Like I said, I have a, you know, pending case going with that. And I have a pending lawsuit going right now, you know, with a few people that are part of the scandal. I can’t name names, but they know who they are. Names that have never been brought out. There’s…
Druff: Oh, so, now you’re talking about, now you’re on the UB topic.
[34:11]
Micon: Well, and that’s what I want to discuss, Travis. Wicked Chops came out with a report basically saying that you were Russ’s sort of right hand man. You owned a computer shop. That you would be the one that he might turn to for… Now, this is, again, according to Wicked Chops. So, is there anything you can say as to that?
Makar: Um. Yeah. Russ and I actually were very, very close friends. I owned a computer store for several years. I basically serviced computers for most of the top players out there. Um, you know, and, again, as I said, you know, I serviced computers for Phil, Annie. I’ve serviced them for Freddy Deeb. I’ve serviced them for Scotty. I mean, I serviced computers for everybody. And that’s pretty much what I did.
Druff: But did you ever have, did you ever actually work for UB?
Makar: Never. Not once. Not, not…never made a penny from them. Never worked for them.
Druff: Ok, so this is what everybody is so interested in regarding you and your family in relation to Russ Hamiltion is that your name…
Makar: I know and that’s…
Druff: Your name and your wife’s name and your Mom’s name were all attached to cheating accounts that were used and…
Makar: Yes, I understand that.
Druff: That were used. I’m sorry, go on.
Makar: Well, for some reason, UB decided to do that, but even… Not that I’m defending Russ. But they had never even made a phone call to me to ask me anything. They never even called me to say what’s going on. As a matter of fact, they still send me e-mails on updates of that’s going on with their site.
Micon: [laughs]
Druff: Well [laughs]
Micon: To be fair, they haven’t been playing great in a very long time.
Druff: Yeah, I mean, there’s a lot of incompetence going on over there.
Micon: Ok, so now Travis.
Makar: I’m sorry, what?
Micon: There’s just a lot of incompetence. Like, they released Prahlad Friedman’s name a few weeks before. Thumb’s up their asses.
Makar: They released what they wanted to release. Because there was other scandals that were going on that they wanted to cover up. There was so much other cheating going on that they didn’t want that out there.
[36:25]
Micon: So you’re saying that the Russ Hamilton, or the quote Russ Hamilton cheating on UB is only the tip of the iceberg? That there were others going on?
Makar: Aw, jeez, yeah. Yeah. You know, like I said, Russ and I were close friends. We’re not anymore. Um, I was close friends with a lot of other people at UB, but, you know, it got to the point where it was a joke. The people that mostly did the scam walked away from this. Their names were never mentioned, never brought out. They didn’t face any charges. Nobody’s faced charges. Um, hand histories that were missing, I know where those are.
Micon: Really?
Druff: Really?
Micon: Really? Do you have them?
Makar: I got so much documentation because these guys were such idiots they, even after all this happened, they left things so wide open for people to go in and get it.
Micon: So, Travis…
[Druff and Micon talking over each other]
Micon: No, Druff, me first, me first, me first. Do you have the hand histories? Or could you access them? Could you get them for us? And by us I mean, you know, the poker world?
Makar: Well, my lawyer has them. I even have recordings of, uh, all these people in our offices sitting there coming up with…
Micon: Whooooaaa. One time, could we get some of that. Oh, one time, Druff.
Druff: Well, it doesn’t sound like he’s handing this to us right now.
Makar: No, no, I can hand them to you.
Druff: Oh, you can?
Micon: Yes, yes! Today. We’ll post it instantly.
Makar: It’s actually a federal case so it’s not like, you know, I can just turn over that kind of stuff. I’m talking about, you know, recordings, text messages, e-mails, the programs itself that were used.
Micon: Is there any of this that you could give us?
Makar: No. Sorry.
Micon: We would love to show the public what this is. And, really, the poker public, I mean could you imagine…
Druff: I think he just said no, I’m sorry. So let’s move on to some questions, here, instead of trying…
Makar: You’re talking about a federal case, though, involved here, not just…
Micon: What case? Cause like you said, no charges…
[38:36]
Druff: Micon, Micon, hang on here. I have some questions. Russ Hamilton, was he fully guilty, not guilty or somewhat guilty but not as bad as they’re portraying it?
Makar: I’m going to put not as bad as they are portraying it.
Druff: Ok. And, uh, so, what about you? You and your wife and your mother had… your accounts were used for the cheating and I assume for cashouts too.
Makar: Ok. My mother. I don’t even know how they came up with her name. She has never taken a dime from anybody. Matter of fact, she still has an account on Ultimate Bet that she’s played with from probably since the day Ultimate Bet started. She occasionally plays on there. My wife’s account, um. There was a handful of accounts that were used for, like when pros would come into town and somebody would say, hey, I need money transferred into my account. And, you know, that was back then kind of the standard, you know, money would be transferred around to players.
Druff: But why would your wife need to do that?
Makar: Because she had created the account. She was at home, I called her up and said, you know, can you create me a couple of accounts? And they would just transfer the money around and, you know, unfortunately. It’s like the iliketowin account, I believe, if I’m not mistaken, that was under her name, but that was my, that’s been my screen name, forever. I used that on Ultimate Bet, I used it on Bet 21, and I used it on Ultimate Blackjack Tour.
Druff: But, what I’m not understanding is that if people needed to trade money around and you had your own account, why didn’t you do it? Why’d you have to get your wife involved?
Makar: It wasn’t…She, she played on the site too. So, she would create accounts and, in the beginning, she’d create accounts. You know, they always encouraged all of us to create accounts and play to keep the rooms going.
Micon: Oh, ok, I see. So you’re telling me…
Makar: Accounts were created and then at some point somebody would say, oh, well, she has an account, we’ll just transfer the money to that account and then you can do what you want with it, you know, transfer it to this person. I’m talking about people high up.
Micon: They were encouraging…
Druff: So, were you a prop player?
Makar: No. Just as a favor, you know. I serviced the computers and stuff like that. And they were trying, in the beginning, they were trying to get as many people to keep the rooms busy. So, it’d be like, you know, get your family, get your friends, get everybody on there.
[41:12]
Micon: Travis, the major allegation here is that. Let me just ask you a question. The major allegation here at least that came out was that Russ Hamilton sells a house to either your mother or wife or something. Is that true? Is that totally made up? Because I believe somebody accessed the property records.
Makar: The house idea was, um, uh, the house on Glenview. I originally bought the house, and I had rented it. This is when, God, I don’t even know the year now. This was back when I think things were really starting to go with UB, and Russ didn’t want to have a bunch of properties in his name. And I says, hey, I’ll buy this house if you agree to rent it from me for 3 years. So, I bought the house, he rented it for 3 years. Later on down the line, I no longer wanted to keep the house. I wanted to sell it. He wanted to keep it. So, he bought it from me.
Micon: Hmmm.
[42:17]
Druff: So when did your friendship with him end?
Makar: Uh, I’d say probably about a year ago, year and a half ago. I just got fed up with things.
Druff: And what were you fed up with?
Makar: Um, him covering for people that I don’t know why… that he’s letting them slam him. And when he gets slammed, I get slammed.
Druff: Yeah, that’s what I was wondering. I’m wondering why is everybody’s name who was involved in this covered up, except for Russ. Why is he the only one named and why doesn’t he come forward and say…
Makar: I honestly couldn’t tell you. I honestly couldn’t tell you why he wouldn’t come forward. Some kind of loyalty, something. Um, like I said, I just know the people that got away with the big bucks, they still have it. Um…
Micon: Who would those people be?
Makar: All these companies, these shell companies that they shuffled stuff around. Even with knowing the truth, is so hard to follow, it’s virtually impossible to follow it even when you know the facts. As far as how they shuffled companies and businesses around.
Druff: I’ve already seen some evidence of that. But, um, about you. Did you ever cash out with your account with any money Russ shipped you?
Makar: Did I cash out money that Russ shipped me?
Druff: Yeah, because this is what it appears. What it appears is that…
Makar: I’m sure I cashed out some money. I mean, you know, not that I cashed out the money and kept the money for myself. But, but, you know, people cashed out money all the time.
Druff: The thing is, like, 20 something million dollars at least got cashed out at UB. And Russ didn’t do this all himself. He shipped it around to various accounts and those people cashed out.
Makar: No, no. That isn’t how, that isn’t even how it worked. You know, all these other sites too that claim to be so innocent . You know, money was transferred, or traded between companies too. UB money was traded for other sites’ money, which I’m not going to say their sites and have them jump all over me. But, you know, they traded money back and forth all the time. So, it’s not just money that’s cashed out, it’s money that was transferred, it’s money that was used to grow the business, it was money that was used to start other businesses, you know, that people still have, own them.
Micon: Sure. Club UBT for instance?
Makar: No, well, not Club UBT. I actually invested in Club UBT. Now, get this. I also bought shares in Ultimate Bet when it went public and they did that friends and family thing. I bought shares in it, and, um, you know, just as an investment, stock. And, uh, just out of the blue they decided to remove my name off the shareholder list.
Druff: Yeah, I heard about that. Didn’t that also happen to Annie Duke?
Micon: Did you have Excapsa shares?
Makar: Uh. Whether her name was removed or she chose to have it removed, I don’t know.
Druff: Are you talking about Excapsa? Is that the shares you’re talking about?
Makar: Yeah, yeah.
Druff: So they cancelled your shares.
Micon: And for those of you who are having trouble following that is one of the shell companies that owned UB, and it has been owned by I want to say five, at least different companies since Excapsa.
Makar: Yeah. And the real owners, you know, from the beginning have owned it as well. And even up until the very end where they said there’s new ownership in there, that’s not true.
[45:59]
Druff: So, Jim. What about Jim?
Makar: Even with AP.
Druff: It’s being said in the chat room that…
Makar: My brother?
Druff: Yeah. It’s being claimed that [he said] you were very much involved in this whole thing.
Makar: My brother is – this is my oldest brother we’re referring to – he is, in my opinion, the biggest lowlife scumbag in the world.
Micon: Fair enough.
Makar: He got… We have been… We haven’t spoken in 10 years maybe. I don’t know how many year, but it seems like forever. But, basically the story with him was my mother had gotten a very large inheritance from a close friend of hers. And, at the time, my brother owned a house that my mom pretty much paid for already anyways. And he hadn’t worked a day in his life. Because he was dodging child support, and, you know, Minnesota was coming after him for unpaid child support. So, he couldn’t go out and get a job so he did ebay. That was his only income other than my parents gave him money, and my Mom had even given his wife a job. And he decided - when my mom got this inheritance, he got a small inheritance from it too - that he wanted a small house. He wanted her to buy his house at top price, and then he says I also need another $100,000 so I can pay my new house off so I don’t have a house payment. Well, I usually handle the finances for my family, and I said no, that I would not do that, that that money belongs to my mother. It’s not going to go to pay your house off so that you can just live free of charge. And he got mad and, when he sold his house, he moved to Ohio, and he’s bad mouthed me ever since. Matter of fact, I won’t speak to their family because his wife, I found out later on... Our oldest son died 3 years ago, and I found out that his wife was doing drugs with my oldest son.
Druff: Well, that’s some story there. So, you’re saying he’s just completely lying about you because the guy isn’t a good person?
Makar: His own wife had an account on UB. His wife, Lisa, had an account on UB.
Druff: That doesn’t really say that he’s lying here. That just says he had an account on UB. I’m just asking…
Makar: Oh, I’m sorry. Maybe I…
Druff: I’m just asking why would he claim that you were a very big part of the scandal? Is he just making it up?
Makar: Just to be a jerk. I haven’t spoken or heard from him in forever until all of a sudden on, I don’t even know what site it was, 2+2 or something like that, somebody started posting that they had spoke to my brother, and he was saying this about my mother. I mean, even my mother doesn’t speak to him.
Micon: You’re basically just saying that he would be willing to talk shit about you if somebody contacted him asking for information about you?
Makar: Oh, yeah. He’ll say anything, yeah.
Micon: Ok, alright.
[49:14]
Druff: Ok, so something else here. Are you saying here that you and your mom and your wife did not cash out large sums of money on behalf of Russ Hamilton? Because that’s what everybody seems to be most concerned with.
Makar: Um, I’m not exactly sure how to answer that.
Druff: I’m not talking about like $10,000. I mean, like, over $20 million, even if not all of it got cashed out from the site, a large sum of money was cashed out of the site from the cheating and someone had to do it. And it was accused that you guys were the ones who did a lot of it.
Makar: If you’re talking about large amounts of money, then no. We had nothing to do with that.
Micon: Webster’s dictionary defines money laundering as funneling a large sum of money through an intermediary. So, you’re saying that you were not that intermediary or at least you were not that main source, that main intermediary.
Makar: Nope. Nope. No, but I know who was, and I even have the hand hist, or the histories, the cashout histories from the site.
[50:16]
Micon: Now, Travis, I have a couple of questions about this. It’s well known that Russ, he’s playing poker in Florida. That’s where we like to prank him, which I think obviously we’ll try to do tonight. You can stay on the phone if you want when we prank him too.
Druff: [laughs]
Makar: No, my lawsuit states that I can’t speak to him.
Micon: Sure. So there’s a, there’s a…you said that you can’t give us that information because of charges that have been brought, but then, well Russ, of course, it doesn’t appear that any charges have been filed on this matter, though.
Makar: The problem is is that with certain documentation that I have, it falls under federal laws and they are determining whether or not they want to go federal with it and I would then, you know, be liable to testify because I have the evidence. And how I obtained the evidence. So, it’s, it’s…again I can’t get into too much detail. That’s, you know, really between me and my attorney, it’s just I finally got fed up with it. I went to the attorneys, talked to them, showed them what I had. Um, and, again, like I said, these people that are so smart, that were able to do all of this stuff, were just dumb. They left evidence laying all over the place. I mean, there’s people in Costa Rica that were scamming the company. There’s, you know... It just goes on and on and on.
[51:47]
Druff: Well, it’s interesting you mention that. So, first of all, how much do you know about the connection to Absolute Poker? Uh, like, uh, guys like Scott Tom, Phil Tom, Oscar Hilt Tatum. Do you know those guys?
Makar: I have, I have. No, I don’t. I’ve never met them. Um, I have a very large file on them, but I’ve never met them. And, again, I’m not in the poker industry type thing so a lot of these files, I really don’t even know what they actually mean.
Druff: And do you think that the AP scandal, the one that occurred on there with Greycat and all of those other names, was that a separate scandal from the UB scandal happening separately or was, was…were they in on the whole thing together the whole way? Or you don’t know?
Makar: Um, I don’t really know. My understanding is it was the same program that was used.
Micon: Really?
Makar: So, other than that, I don’t really know, as far as… Like I said, I never met those people, I never even met, like, uh, uh, I don’t know what his name is. Joe Norton and this Joe Sebok that released stuff saying that…
Druff: Well, Joe Sebok just came on in the last year or so. So he wasn’t part of the cheating.
Micon: Yeah, he really took the hard line. He really took the hard line or at least tried to.
Makar: I’m just saying as far as releases, like press releases he did, where he mentioned my name. You know, these people never even bothered to try to call me or e-mail me. I still have the original e-mail.
Micon: So, are you suing for slander in this matter? And also, there’s one other question…
Makar: No, I can’t sue for slander. The statute of limitations is up for slander.
[53:28]
Micon: One of our devoted UB/AP, u, one of the guys who has been very vigilant in trying to dig up all he can on this matter asks, did you own the UB account 21?
Makar: [Pause] Yes.
Micon: Ok.
Druff: Ok. I don’t know what else to follow up with that, but that’s what the person asked. What about Greg Pierson, did you know him?
Makar: That’s because 21 was, you know, one of the names used for cashing out money. Now, because I owned it didn’t mean I used it.
Druff: But, ok, if it was used to cash out money, wouldn’t the money be coming into your bank account or your name?
Micon: But, I think he’s saying, and, tell me, Travis, if I’m right or not, it might have your name on the account but it’s not always under your direct control. You might not always even have the password. Is this, is this right?
Makar: Very close, yes.
[54:23]
Druff: Ok. What about Greg Pierson?
Makar: What about him?
Druff: Do you know him?
Makar: Yes.
Druff: How well did you know him?
Makar: Fairly well.
Druff: Ok. Are you able to comment on what you feel his role was in this whole thing?
Makar: Um, I know exactly what his role was, but I can’t comment on it.
Druff: Ok, because he’s been one of the accused and, uh, there’s been other names thrown around. And I’ll give one for example. Like Freddy Deeb. He has never been formally accused, but…
Makar: No.
Druff: So you’re saying he’s innocent, Freddy Deeb?
Makar: If the worst thing Freddy Deeb probably has done is, probably somebody probably transferred money to his account and asked him to pay somebody. That’s probably… But, again, you’re talking about way back in ’05, ’06 where it was pretty well common practice for somebody to transfer money to another player and say, hey can you do me a favor, can you cash this out and pay so and so.
[55:23]
Druff: What about KrazyKanuk? Did you know him pretty well or not?
Makar: Yes, I did. Him and Monica, I knew them too.
Micon: Yeah. Monica. The blackjack tour. Blackjack Monica. Big ups.
Makar: [laughs]
Micon: She had a real set of, uh, a real set of personality.
Makar: Yeah, I knew them. I’ve been to Aruba all the time with most of the tournament stuff cause I was always taken down there for the computer stuff. Like I said, I did, you know, most of the big name players, I serviced their computers in one way or another.
Micon: But, you’re saying you did not hole card, you did not cheat, you did not benefit from the cheating?
Makar: Nope. And I could tell you 100% I never used the program that was used for this. Never used it once.
Druff: Well, I don’t think that’s what really being accused, though. I don’t think people believe that you were, at least, I think most of the people.
Micon: They believe that you benefitted from it.
Druff: They don’t think you actually did the cheating. They think that after Russ and others cheated, they needed somebody to cash out money and got people who hadn’t otherwise been doing anything wrong, to cash out for him.
Micon: Funnel money, through an intermediary…
Makar: If I cashed out any money as… At one point, like I said, I had my own store, I made a good living and towards the end I actually went to work for Russ and then went to work for UBT, which was the Ultimate Blackjack Tour. I actually invested $250,000 of my own money in that company that I lost.
Micon: Oh, hold on, we have a…
Makar: I went to work for UBT. And basically did everything for Russ.
[bad decision clip from NBA Jams is played]
Makar: I handled everything. I’m sorry, what was that?
Micon: I’m sorry, it was…
Druff: It was a little sound bite.
[bad decision clip from NBA Jams is played]
Micon: It was a bad decision from NBA Jams that we play.
Makar: Oh. I mean, I handled everything. I paid bills for him, I, you know. I was basically like an assistant to him. So… and, again, he wasn’t very good on a computer either so he needed a full time tech.
[57:29]
Micon: So, you never saw this thing in action? You never saw the cheating program? The quote..
Druff: Yeah, did you ever know it was, did you even know this was happening? When did you become aware that Russ was cheating?
Makar: No, I did not know it was happening and that’s part of the lawsuit is how they got me involved in it. Um, yes, I’ve seen it. Um, no, I did not know what they were doing with it.
Druff: Hmmm.
Micon: Alright.
Makar: Sorry, I can’t make it more clear. Yes, I’ve seen it used. I’ve seen, you know, how it was used, but didn’t know what it was being used for. I didn’t know. Again, it’s just like, I could say, like, say Annie Duke said she knew there was a superuser program out there. But it was used for, uh, fraud prevention.
[58:26]
Druff: Ok, here’s a question from someone in the chat room, and I’ve wondered this myself. I’m mainly a limit hold ‘em player, and I played a lot of limit hold ‘em at the high limits on UB and so did one of our users here krose. And I don’t know about krose’s results, but I always just got slaughtered in these limit hold ‘em games on there frequently against accounts - I didn’t play a lot of heads up on there - but frequently people I’d never seen before were there and didn’t seem very good at all, and I’d get crushed against them. And when it came down to supposedly calculating the refunds due I was given very little, like $2,000. And I did the worst on UB by far of any site. So…
Makar: Half the stuff you just said lost me because, again, I’m not a poker player, and I actually don’t even like to gamble. Um, I did play on the Bet 21 and, you know, the Ultimate Blackjack thing because that was something I was capable of playing, but as far as, like, your question about the refunds, there’s a lot of names out there that were never released. User names.
Druff: So, but you don’t even know the types of games that were being cheating early on, like limit hold ‘em, no limit hold ‘em, tournaments?
Makar: No.
Druff: Oh, ok, you don’t know. Ok.
[59:36]
Makar: At that time, I couldn’t even tell you the difference between limit and no limit, so, you know, no. But I can tell you that the amount of names that were released that were supposedly cheating names is just a fraction of what really was out there.
Druff: And is that the reason they are holding back the 10% of hand histories? Is because that will reveal more names?
Makar: Um, I don’t think they’re going to release any more names. A lot of data was deleted and removed. A lot of data was removed from backup systems.
Druff: But is that the reason that they removed it, is to cover up the additional names?
Makar: Um, I would assume they removed it to cover their self, their own ass. But, again, I…
Druff: So, the question is why are they willing to give out 90% of the hand histories and not the other 10%? What do the other 10% show that they don’t want to be seen?
Makar: Well, the other 10% from the recordings that I listened to when these people were in there talking to their lawyers, um, they were busy deleting a big part of those hand histories so that they couldn’t get caught.
Druff: So you think they were already deleted a long time ago?
Makar: Oh, I know for a fact that one person was in the system deleting, um…
Micon: They deletin’ everybody out there.
Makar: …all trails, you know. So they were sure it couldn’t come back on them.
Micon: But do you have it? But you have a lot of this and can prove a lot of this?
[61:11]
Makar: Yeah, I have all the actual auditor re…See, this is, this is a really interesting part here. I guess I can probably go for this. I may get bitched out by my lawyer, but we’ll see. Um, one of the things that Russ had did was Russ had went into a meeting with several people – I’m not going to name who it was – several attorneys as well as several higher ups in the companies. And they proceeded to sit down and talk about how they were going to solve this problem after, uh, Brainwashdodo released a handful of documents.
Druff: Yeah, that’s interesting. I was going to ask about Brainwashdodo, but go on.
Makar: Yeah, I know who he is. But after they released a handful of documents, they started panicking because originally they weren’t going to release any of this stuff. They were just going to shuffle this off just like AP did. So, they were going to come up with a way of getting around it and then when this Brainwashdodo released some stuff they kinda got screwed. They went into a meeting. Russ decided that he was going to record this meeting to protect himself. Well, again, at that time, I was still dealing with Russ, and I was still working on his computers so he downloaded the recordings that he taped down to his computer. So, I was able to copy those off and listen to them. And they’re, you know, 6 hour long recordings of their meetings where they’re talking about what they’re doing, how they’re going to do this, who was involved, you know, how to cover this up, how to cover that up.
Druff: Interesting. And Mookman5 in our chat is saying that, uh, one of the UB’s first press releases, that they were going to pin it on you and your family mostly. Were you aware of that?
Makar: Yeah, actually it was in the recording.
Druff: It was in the recording. Ok. And, uh…
Micon: Why you? Why’d they choose you?
Druff: And Brainwashdodo, for those of you…for the users who don’t know, he was someone who showed up on 2+2 with a Costa Rican IP address and didn’t speak that good English, but spoke good enough English – or wrote good enough English – to reveal a whole lot of company internal stuff for UB to where that…
Makar: He released a little bit of stuff, and I have everything he has.
[63:35]
Druff: Yeah, so what was his deal? Why did he do this? Who was Brainwashdodo? You don’t have to name him, but…
Makar: He worked for them. He got passed up for management. He was pissed off. He decided to, he didn’t even know who half the people were so he just went and logged in and started typing in, like, look up players by money amounts, you know, that had been in their accounts, copied out of the data, he started e-mailing it to himself, the screen shots to himself. And he first started to bribe, uh, uh, what was his name back then? Uh, who was the guy…
Micon: Paul Legett.
Makar: who was running UB at the time? Uh…down in Costa Rica.
Micon: Not Paul Legett. Mookman will have this.
Makar: After Jim Ryan. Um. I can’t think of the guy’s name. The guy was actually…
Micon: After Jim Ryan, Mookman.
Micon: He said after Jim Ryan is Paul Legett.
Makar: Yeah, yeah, Paul Legett. That’s it. Yeah, Paul Legett. So, basically, um, Mook, or uh – I’m sorry Mookman, uh, he – I was going to say the guy’s real name even too – um, Brainwashdodo basically was blackmailing Paul Legett, and Paul Legett would only agree to pay a certain amount of money to keep the data quiet.
Druff: [inaudible]
Makar: I’m sorry, what?
Druff: No, go on, tell the story. I’ll ask the questions later.
Micon: Well, they probably got the deal done.
Makar: He then at that point decided that wasn’t enough money and he didn’t really know who to contact so he just put some of the information out there on the internet figuring he’d grab some attention. And when he grabbed enough people’s attention, some of the highers up, then, you know, paid attention and contacted him.
Micon: According to Haley Hintz, it was, Brainwashdodo was paid $80,000, according to Haley Hintz.
Makar: No. Uh, that was what he was offered from Paul. I got that e-mail too.
Druff: So he got more than $80,000?
Micon: Oh my god.
Makar: Oh, yeah, yeah. A lot more. He was given, he… Paul offered him $80,000, which I have the actual e-mail that he sent to Brainwashdodo offering him the $80,000. It wasn’t enough. He wanted more.
Micon: So, Travis, you have the treasure trove of UB. You have the Holy Grail of like e-mails and…
Makar: I even have the machines.
Micon: [laughs]
Makar: I have the machines that were used to do this.
Druff: [laughs]
[66:22]
Micon: Can you at least promise us or tell us, I mean, cause if this ends up not having a legal settlement, can you at least release this stuff, you know?
Makar: If I know that I’m protected and my family is protected, and, yes, then stuff will be released. But, you know if, um, if you need some kind of actual proof I would probably even arrange just to meet with say you personally and just…
Micon: Sure. Sure. Throw us a nugget.
Makar: And you could look at it but not copy it.
Micon: Sure. Or maybe just like throw us some kind of a nugget, you know what I’m saying. Something that we can at least put up to say, look at this. I mean, not like the actual information.
Makar: Well, no, I can’t give you anything you could copy and put up, but I could let you just actually look and see what it is so you could then be able to report back that, yes, it’s definitely true.
Druff: Yeah. Yeah.
Makar: You would be able to look at the stuff and see it.
Micon: Anything like that we’d be willing to do. We’d be willing to work with you on that.
[67:30]
Makar: My thing is, I just got fed up. I got fed up with these people in Costa Rica, got fed up with all these other people that have gotten away with this and have continued to let my name go out there and be slammed. And stupid things, like, where they said my Mom was a porn star and my Mom married a pedophile. You know, these are all just made up stuff, none of it’s even true. You know, I’m still with my wife here, and we’ve been married for…how long?
[female in background – “24 years”]
Makar: 24 years. But, you know, you gotta remember too, 3 years ago, 4 years ago, when a lot of this started to come down, my son was killed.
Micon: That’s awful.
Makar: And my wife had a breakdown and, you know, I wasn’t going to deal with any of this stuff. And, you know, there actually was death threats at our house. People were threatening, people were actually peeking over the walls of our house and…
Druff: Who was threatening you? Was it people associated with UB or was it angry people who got cheated?
Makar: Uh, actually, I really couldn’t tell you. Could be both. Could be either / or. So, you know, we started having people following us, following us in our cars. And then there’s stuff out there about bankruptcy, how, you know, I was able to keep these cars and my Hummer and how I owed this much on my Hummer. Even that’s not correct. My Hummer is paid off in full. The Roadster is the car I bought for my mother, and I paid cash for that and gave it to her. So, you know, there’s just so many things that are, like, misprinted and people run with these stories, you know. Just like I’ve seen about this guy who now lives in St. George that played on one of the other sites that lost millions or whatever.
Druff: Yeah.
Makar: I don’t know if you know the guy I’m referring to.
Druff: I know who you’re talking, yes, yes.
Makar: Yeah. It’s not that he moved out here. He’s lived out here forever. He’s voted, like, uh in Mormon country, he’s voted, like number 4 of the top 10 most influential people in Utah.
Druff: Well, it was said this guy was running a lot of kind of credit card scams where he…
Makar: Yeah, I don’t know if he was or wasn’t. But I’m just saying that people starting posting stuff about, you know, he moved to St. George so we could launder money together.
Druff: Oh, I see. So you were linked to him is what you’re saying. Even though you had nothing to do with it.
Makar: Yeah, yeah. And it starts it up again. And just like people posted that I owned a check cashing company. It’s because they typed in an address for a business I owned and next door was a check cashing company. I never owned it.
[70:14]
Druff: Yeah, I know, there’s always mistakes in these types of things. But, now Russ Hamilton, do you know if he got a lot of threats from people? What was his lifestyle like during the time you were friends with him after this all broke?
Micon: Slash how can he be running around playing golf and poker?
Makar: The best, my understanding is, and, like I said, again, I don’t know, there could be money offshore, there could be money… I know some of the other people that, uh, you know, that are the higher ups, definitely have money offshore stashed away, but as far as his money situation I believe that he’s getting close to being pretty well broke.
Micon: Oh, really?
Druff: Well, where did that money go? He made a lot of money on the scandal, didn’t he?
Makar: I couldn’t tell you how much he actually made and how much…
Druff: Someone made a lot of money.
Makar: …was given to somebody else.
Micon: Ok, so now you think Russ might be under somewhat of a financial squeeze here. That’s why maybe he’s going to Gulfstream playing in the 10-20, you know the 5-10, 10-20 games. You think that’s…
Makar: Oh, yeah. My understanding from what I hear about rumors and stuff is that he was going down there because… of course, he still plays golf with people that I’ve known, and they tell me he goes down there to play. And then he started getting harassed and he was actually just going down there to make a living. But, again, I don’t know if that’s really 100% true. I could tell you, you know, you could look up public records and find out he’s got loans against all his properties. You know, this is a person who had so many properties that were all paid for and now they all got loans against them.
Druff: Well, you know that may be true. In fact, I know Barry Greenstein said Russ is broke. But all this money went somewhere and I’m wondering…unless Russ made a lot of bad investments with the money. You can lose any sum of money if you’re dumb enough with it.
Micon: A lot of large sports bets or something.
Makar: Oh, yeah. There’s no doubt in my mind, and I know he lent a lot of money out to people and was never paid back. A lot of people, a lot of the…I’m not going to sit there and specifically say their names.
Micon: I’ve heard Annie Duke. I’ve heard Annie Duke was loaned.
Makar: What?
Micon: I heard he loaned Annie Duke a large cash number that was just never paid back by her after the whole scandal broke.
Makar: Yes. Yes, that’s absolutely true.
Druff: Really? So Annie Duke needed a loan?
Micon: I heard it. It was before…
Makar: She borrowed the money to buy a house in LA.
Micon: Right. That’s what I heard.
Makar: And she decided that she’s not going to pay it back. And there was stuff, like, even when she was on that Apprentice show. You know, money was being funneled around to people on that show.
Micon: Hmmm. Wow.
Makar: So it wasn’t her talent, and it wasn’t her personality that kept her on that show.
Druff: [laughs] Interesting.
Makar: And, again, you know, Phil Hellmuth, I think he’s a great guy. I mean, I’ve gone down and dropped off money to him because he was playing in these, like, after dark poker shows, and I was asked to, you know, run an errand. And he would take my son and show him around the set and stuff. He was always great. So, [inaudible].
[73:27]
Druff: So, do you think of those two, do you think either were involved in the cheating?
Makar: Um…no, I don’t really think they were involved in the cheating. I think they, I would say they probably got… one of them probably benefitted more than the other from it because, you know, saying I’ll keep my mouth shut but I’m going to benefit, you know.
Druff: Do you think either of them knew the cheating was going on before it was made public?
Makar: Um… [pause] Uh. I really don’t know. That I couldn’t say really either way because, again the cheating was so easily done and the other cheating that was going on even after the scandal thing broke was just blatant that nobody’s ever even caught it yet. It still hasn’t been caught.
Druff: What do you mean by that?
Makar: Well, um, some of the management, you know, in Costa Rica, were cheating customers out of all kinds of money and that was never brought out. Nobody talked about it. Nobody paid back refunds to people.
Druff: How were they cheating? Were they doing like the superuser program?
Makar: Nope.
Druff: Or were they just taking money out of accounts?
Makar: Nope. They had a whole other way of doing it.
Druff: Hmmm. Can you tell us how it happened?
Micon: Or if you can’t, can you just tell us the nature of it? Like, is it a poker cheat? Is it uh…credit card processing?
Makar: No. It was more of a hole that was found. It was a hole that was found, and they shut down the hole but never made mention of it to anybody, and I have the records of the hole and everything that was discovered.
Micon: Somebody could just add money to their UB account?
Druff: What we’re asking is when you cheat somebody on a poker site, it can either happen one of two ways. Either you’re playing poker against them and cheating some way at the poker game or it’s something having to do with taking money out of their account without them knowing.
Micon: Or, Druff, what if they could just add money to their UB balance?
Makar: Ok, let’s say for instance I log into your account when you’re not there. Not playing. And I go and I play against a bunch of people online and I win $10,000. Then I transfer that money out of your account, and if you’re a high enough roller, you’re not going to notice that money.
Micon: And what if you lose?
Makar: So I’m playing under your name and you don’t even know it.
Druff: Yeah, what if you lose?
Makar: Again, if you’re a high enough roller, you’re not going to notice it.
Druff: So, you’re saying they gained access to other people’s accounts and played and if they lost, then oh well, and if they won, they transferred out the winnings and the person came on with the same balance?
Makar: Um, for the most part. As far I know, not a single person ever noticed any money missing.
Druff: Interesting. But that’s what was going on? They were accessing other people’s accounts is what was happening?
Makar: Yes. Yes. Through a hole that was discovered by just some low, not even a tech person, just some random person that found a hole and, you know, they had their whole call center down there in Costa Rica and I can only imagine that if one person down there knew about it, several people knew about it. You know, cause, again, you’re talking about Costa Rica.
Micon: Tight community.
Makar: You know. [laughs] It’s not the most honest place.
[77:12]
Druff: Yeah. And is Brainwashdodo, is he worried, do you know, about any kind of retaliation for extorting money out of the UB people?
Makar: Well, what would he have to worry about? He’s in Costa Rica.
Druff: Well, that’s what I mean. Is he worried that someone in Costa Rica is going to come kill him?
Micon: Yeah, he might have something to worry about.
Makar: He already had, Paul Legett already had a couple of his bodyguards go and park in front of his house and sit there. And, you know, to make sure he knew that, you know, Paul Legett was watching him.
Micon: Paul Legget’s watching ya!
Makar: He didn’t seen intimidated by it.
Micon: So you’re saying that Brainwashdodo still lives, basically, a normal life and is not looking over his shoulder at the filthy UB / AP guys trying to get him?
Makar: Yep. It’s my understanding that he got a divorce from his wife, I understand, or separated from his wife, and he was supposed to be starting up some kind of company down there that somebody else was paying him to start up some other company, or a company , but yeah. He may. You know, I kind of wonder myself if he took money from multiple sources, but that I don’t know. I do know of at least one or two sources that he got money from, and I even have the wire transfer papers for that where he was being transferred money to.
Micon: Boy, I wish. Travis…
Druff: Was this guy a Costa Rican or was he an American living in Costa Rica?
Makar: No, he’s I think he’s actually, uh, um, he’s from another country. I believe he’s from…his family is all from another country, but I believe he’s a Costa Rican citizen. But he’s from, like, Denmark or something like that. I couldn’t tell you for sure.
Druff: Ok. But the bad English thing wasn’t an act, that’s really how he speaks?
Makar: It’s actually how he speaks, yeah. Very broken English.
Micon: Travis, this is a lot to take in right now. I just want to say if you, if there’s stuff that can be released, if there’s things that you have that we could know about or parts that we could verify, I’d be willing to, you know, call up all the boys, you know, the Wicked Chops people and Haley and Mookman and just everybody that’s been diligent about this. I’d love to sort of go over all of this with a fine tooth comb. Maybe talk to your lawyer and see what you could or could not give us or show us or show us to report if not giving us the document just so we could…We would love to work with you cause, you know, this story it’s been evolving over the last couple of years.
Druff: And if you could meet with Micon and show him things or whatever in confidence and we could report that, you know, Micon saw it and it’s been verified, etc. we’d be very happy to do that as well.
Micon: Sure.
Makar: Alright. No problem. Like I said, I’ll talk to my lawyer and, besides this stuff, you know, I got the criminal charges going on right now that I’m working on. So. You know, the ones that were for the supposed road rage.
Druff: Yeah, we don’t really…the truth is if that’s what got you to call, we’re glad we mentioned it, but we don’t really care too much about that. That’s just stuff in your personal life and people have stuff like that in their personal life all the time and we don’t report on it. It’s just that, um, obviously we were interested in the UB stuff and I personally…I don’t know if you saw the TV specials on 60 Minutes or the CNBC thing, but I appeared on both of those because I was a victim of the scandals on both sites.
Makar: Actually, I don’t even know what you look like so I wouldn’t really know.
Micon: He’s a bracelet winner, Travis. He’s a bracelet winner.
Makar: But they didn’t even ask me if there was anything I wanted to say about anything.
Druff: Yeah, well.
Makar: Probably 3 years ago, I probably would have been able to say something, but now that I’ve waited on and sat on this stuff for so long, that’s where I run into the problem. I guess there’s a law out there that states that if you have federal documents as far as a federal case and you hold, sit on those documents, you could get in trouble for it or something like that. I don’t know. My lawyer tried to explain it. [inaudible]
[81:35]
Druff: Do you think that Russ is facing any kind of criminal action against him at any point for this or do you think he’s going to get away with it?
Makar: No. I think everybody is going to completely get away with it. There’s not going to be any legal action taken. Um…
Micon: That’s why we need your golden documents.
Makar: In the recordings, they sit there and they laugh about how the Kahnawake tribe is doing this and how they turned it over to the authorities. Well, the authorities were they turned it over to one of the family members whose one of the, like, police officers on the tribe or something. You know, it’s just all show. It’s all show.
Druff: Well, there’s no doubt that the Kahnawake’s are a joke. That that quote investigation was BS, and obviously they weren’t looking to uncover anything. So that was clear from the start.
Makar: No, they were never going to do anything and from my understanding from the recordings, they weren’t even going to bring up Russ’s name, that was going to be completely kept quiet and then somehow another it came out and this Brainwashdodo dumped some data out there that made it look like me and they just kind of ran with it.
Micon: So, Travis, so I can also clear something up here. You do believe that Russ Hamilton did hole card, like for instance, Mike Matusow in that he was on the phone and he was like hey, Mike, let’s play heads up, transfer me on FullTilt…
Makar: That I don’t know. You know, I don’t know if he called somebody up and said…
Micon: You do know that he hole carded, though?
Makar: I would have to be with him the whole time to tell you that.
Micon: Do you or do you not believe that Russ Hamilton hole carded on Ultimate Bet for substantial profit for himself and others?
Makar: Um, I would probably say yes. Yeah. I mean, he definitely profited from it, but as far as how much substantial means, compared to everybody else, I don’t know.
Micon: Ok.
[83:42]
Druff: About the other names, do you think they’re ever going to come out?
Makar: Um, I really don’t know. I just don’t understand why they haven’t came out yet because they’re like right out there in front of everybody and they just, nothing happens.
Druff: Well, couldn’t you release them at some point when you’re allowed to?
Makar: Yes, if and when I’m allowed to, yeah. You know, that’s one of the reasons I actually called your show is I just…I actually had my family here the other day and we were talking about this stuff and the pranks you did on Russ and you know it was just…you know, I get irritated when I think about it. Here, I left Vegas. I left everybody I know behind. My wife’s family won’t even talk to her because they believe the stuff they read on the internet so they don’t speak to her because they think she’s some kind of cheat online and, you know, it’s ridiculous. It’s irritating. My wife gets stressed out when she reads stuff on the internet that’s not true and is made up. It’s not like I was ever supposed to be a public figure here, you know, in this, and somehow I got drug into it and it upsets her. And it upsets my son. You know, I have a 17 year old still and it upsets him too because people do contact him, you know, online. They come across him and make comments at school. Say stuff about oh, your father’s a cheat and this and that. So, when we in Vegas and all this started to happen, other kids would approach him and say oh, your Dad stole all this money. So how do you think that would make me feel as a father?
Micon: Sure. Sure.
Druff: Yeah, well. Yeah, we’d definitely like to see as soon as you can…
Micon: I took your number down.
Makar: Well, I called this number last week several times, but…
Druff: [laughs]
Micon: Oh, please don’t say that, Travis. Now you’re fucking my game up.
Druff: Oh, boy. Yeah, Micon has some trouble answering the phone. But I’m glad you called back. So, how did you find out about this? Was it from the google alert? Or was it actually someone who told you we were talking to him?
Makar: Yeah, yeah. I have the google alert thing set up. I have my name typed in there and of course it notifies me when my name is brought up, and it wasn’t probably no more than 5 minutes past your first show it popped up there.
Micon: What alert came up? Something from, like, 2+2, about the site that can’t be mentioned?
Druff: No, we were talking about Travis Makar when we did that prank call. That’s probably what made it come up.
Micon: Did we type that in anywhere?
Druff: Yeah, probably.
Micon: Ok. Fair enough.
Makar: Yeah, it came up and said something about… Again every time Russ’s name is mentioned, my name gets mentioned along with it somehow. Um, you know, so yeah, it just pops up.
Druff: Micon, when Travis was trying to call last week, we were probably taking One Step calls.
Micon: Yeah, well I apologize for not answering last week. I’m going to send you a text from my personal cell phone here, Travis. Definitely want to stay in touch and find out anything you could show me. Anything you could show me so that I could verify. Or if there’s anything we could report.
Makar: What state are you in?
Micon: I’m local here in Vegas.
Makar: Ok. I’m actually going to be down in Vegas for my son’s birthday so maybe I’ll give you a call, maybe I’ll meet up with you, maybe let you glance at a couple of the documents.
Micon: Yeah. I’d love to. Again, you sort of understand how this site works. You know, me and Druff obviously…you have our word, our poker honor word, that anything you release to us cannot be, you know, we will respect your privacy in that matter. And anything you can, we’d love to see. Anything we can report on, we’d love to report on.
Makar: Ok. Sounds good.
Micon: Ok, well, thank you very much, Travis.
Druff: Thank you for calling the show and telling us what you can. This has been a very informative segment and we’re glad you chose this site to reveal it to. And, of course, everything on this site, we don’t censor anything over here. This is the one site that doesn’t do that at all.
Micon: Yeah, we don’t care. There’s no motivation. Trust me, we have many times passed up money in order to just, you know, get the real truth out there. And we do not promote Ultimate Bet.
Makar: Oh, there’s so many people who have cashed out on this deal it’s unbelievable. You guys and us are probably the only ones who haven’t. Oh, my wife wanted me to say something about… To say thank you to Mookman and Rollo Tomasi that she’s I guess on here typing to them or something.
Druff: Yeah, she’s in the chat room. For those of you in the chat, the person who’s been chatting as Travis in the chat is actually his wife for those of you who don’t know.
Micon: Yeah, they’re just interacting with our users during the show in our little chat thing.
Makar: Oh, yeah, she just told me to say that so I’m just repeating it.
Micon: And thank you to your wife.
Makar: Like I say, why is an account created under her name. I mean, we’ve been married this many years, who cares what spouse it’s created in. So, like nobody’s going to create accounts under, you know, Paypal. Like, I use her Paypal account. So, just because it’s convenient.
Druff: Ok. Well, thank you for calling in and telling your side of the story. We’re always happy to hear from anybody that…
Makar: Ok.
Druff: And we’ll be happy to hear from you in the future and maybe you can meet up with Micon and show him some things and we’ll definitely be keeping up with this story.
Makar: Ok, yeah, well text me so I’ll know how to get a hold of somebody privately and like I said I’m going to be down there next week so, actually this weekend, so if I can I’ll see what I can show. I know for sure I can’t let you copy anything but I can let you see at it least and look at it.
Micon: You have an iphone, don’t you?
Makar: Yes.
Micon: No, it’s cause his number is almost exactly like my number.
Druff: [laughs] No, I see his number is very similar to yours, Micon. Interesting.
Micon: Ok, I’m just sending you a text that says Micon right now.
Makar: I had to get rid of my original number which was the best number in the world. I had to get rid of it because so many people calling and harassing. And we had 7777, so.
Micon: Awww.
Druff: Oh, man. That really hurts.
Micon: Druff, you’re talking to…that really hits home with Druff.
Druff: That hurts. I’m a big lover of easy phone numbers…
Makar: We got rid of all of ours. We lucked out. We had 7777, 5555 and 0123.
Druff: Oh, man.
Micon: You’re giving my co-host here a small woody here so…
Druff: [laughs]
Makar: [laughs]
Micon: Ok, well, we’ll be in touch, Travis.
Makar: Alright. No problem. Best of luck. Bye bye.
Micon: Bye.
