‘Zee Justin’ Bonomo reprieve puts him back on the Pokerstars Roster

April 3, 2009

Some of you may remember way back in 2006 there was a particularly high profile incident involving well respected poker pro Zee Justin Bonomo multi accounting on Pokerstars.

He was banned specifically for logging into his 6 accounts and entering the same multi-table tournament with more than one of them. His money was seized and distributed amongst the affected players and he was banned from the poker site with immediate effect.

So circa 3 years down the line he is being welcomed back by Pokerstars. The opinion in the poker forums indicates the majority of players approving of the reprieve, however approximately 33% of them still thought he should be banned from playing in Events like Scoop (Spring Championship of Online Poker). The crux of the argument centres on the fact that what he did was illegal and if he did it live in a casino he would have most likely felt the legal repercussions of that decision. The flip side is that he’s a young man that made a mistake and has been man enough to accept his punishment in the public eye. The question is: do we really need to slog this young man about this whenever cheating or multi accounting is found out in the future?

Like in all competitive arenas people caught cheating are never really revered the way they were before they are caught (Look at drug cheats in Athletics) but most organizations do not give a lifetime ban for a first offense, (again for steroid abuse in athletics it’s a 2 year ban for the first offence) so it would seem overly harsh to throw the book at him forever over this. However, the integrity and security of online poker is paramount in all of this. In order to appease the nay sayers, there must be confidence that the appropriate action is taken against people looking for an unfair advantage over other players.

Since the incident in 2006, Bonomo has let his poker do the talking with a 2^nd placed finish in the £5,000 Mixed Hold’em Event and took 8^th Place in the Borgata Poker classic. He was also part of the winning squad in the first ever Dream Team Poker tournament held late last year.

As well as having people supporting him in discussion rooms about it an influencing factor must have been how openly he spoke of his regrets in an interview with ESPN.

I would also imagine Pokerstars have beefed up their security on this issue considerably since then as well!

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