The fear of cheating in on-line pokers biggest tournaments has always been an issue.

Over the past two years in two separate instances two very highly regarded young tournament pros we’re caught cheating when winning the big Sunday events at party poker for over a 100,000 $ each.

JJpordigy was caught taking over an account he claimed to be his grandmothers after he busted out of a party poker tournament, and Justin Bonomo was caught entering multiple account into the same tournament when he won the party poker 750,000$ guaranteed.

Then for about a year there seemed to be some quiet in the online tournament community cheating front.

Late October all that changed when the winner of the biggest prize in online poker history in Poker Stars WCOOP main event (over 1.3M dollars) was found to be the sister of professional player Mark Teschler.

after an investigation it was concluded that it was in fact Teschler himself playing with both his sister and his own account, his win was taken away and all participants in the tournament were moved up a spot and money was re–distributed accordingly.

Just this week another scandal was unearthed as the winner of Full tilt pokers 1M$ guaranteed tournament had sold his position in the tournament to a professional player in the final stages, the pro went on to win and the two split their money.

Online sites are doing what they can to prevent this type of occurrences however detection is very problematic and often sites are left without sufficient proof to act upon ( A famous case had the aforementioned JJprodigy provide phone assistance to a fellow player) .

The ongoing struggle between the cheaters and the poker sites will go on. Hopefully the strong disciplinary measures taken by the sites (full confiscation of funds and ban from the site) will deter the cheaters and keep the games honest.