Edit: My girlfriend has just pointed out to me that, as a self-styled poker journalist, Sebok might well be held to a standard of journalistic ethics as well. In that light, endorsing a particular internet poker site might not be appropriate. But that’s beyond the scope of this article, as I mean to look more broadly about the ethics of any professional poker accepting sponsorship from them.
Joe Sebok, CEO of Poker Road Radio and step-son of Barry Greenstein, is the latest poker pro to sign with Ultimate Bet/Absolute Poker since the full extent of the cheating on those sites came to light. The company, ostensibly under new ownership, has conducted a major blitz to refurbish its image, signing well-known players like Cliff “JohnnyBax” Josephy, Adam “Roothlus” Levy (who told me, when I gave him a hard time about his UB patch during the 2008 WSOP, that after learning more about the situation he was having second thoughts about what was then a very minor affiliation with them), and briefly, Eric “Rizen” Lynch. It’s also credibly rumored that during the 2009 WSOP, they were offering considerably more than any other site to players willing to wear their logo at a TV table.
Needless to say, Sebok has caught a lot of flak for this decision on 2+2 and probably elsewhere as well. Many people view this as selling out, compromising his personal integrity for the sake of a lucrative sponsorship. In Sebok’s defense, he claims that his involvement was conditional on two things:
1) They always allowed me to speak my mind 100%. I would never be a P.R. spinning machine for them and they shouldn’t expect that. If something were to go down at Ub while I am there, I will be the first to blow the whistle and force the company to be accountable, not the last. 2) They also agreed to create a role for me within Ub that was more than just sponsored player. I would never be comfortable with Ub’s history unless I could have a direct impact on making sure that it never happened again. With that said, I will also still be running PokerRoad obviously, but will also be taking part in reviewing their processes and adding my opinions as a formal consultant with the team over there as the “Media & Operations Consultant”
Having given myself the title “Poker Philosopher”, I’m going to follow after one of my favorite non-poker blogs and consider the ethics of endorsing UB/AP.
First off, a professional poker player endorsing UB/AP is qualitatively different from a random actor, athelete, or other celebrity endorsing, say, an insurance company or a soft drink. The latter is a relatively transparent financial transaction, and at least in our media savvy culture, most people understand that Britney Spears might not actually be as excited about Pepsi as she seems to be in their commercials. Though she might be able to coo some sugary lyrics, no one expects her to be an expert on sugary beverages. It is understood that she is lending her celebrity, not her expertise, to the product when she endorses it.
This doesn’t mean she is entirely off the hook ethically. If Pepsi were proven to contain a carcinogen or to employ child labor, Ms. Spears might reasonably be taken to task for endorsing it. In fact, such a strategy was employed when activists suspected that a line of clothing bearing Kathy Lee Gifford’s name was manufactured using sweat shop labor.
When a celebrity lends his or her name to a product closely related to his or her field of expertise, that celebrity must be held to a higher standard. We expect the Air Jordan to be not only free of grievous defect and grossly abusive factory conditions but also to be generally excellent athletic footwear. Michael Jordan has a responsibility to understand why Nike seeks his endorsement and how the general public will perceive it.
Similarly, a professional poker player has a responsibility to understand why UB/AP is so much more generous and aggressive than the other sites in recruiting sponsored players. They are trying to repair a tarnished image, and they are looking for players well-respected in the poker community to lend them credibility.
These players have an obligation to understand that by signing with UB/AP, they are endorsing the site as a safe place to play. There are many people, or at least UB/AP hopes there are many people, who will decide it is safe to play there because a trusted poker celebrity represents them. Intentional or not (and Sebok at least certainly seems to understand this), any player who accepts sponsorship from UB/AP is saying that is safe to play there. He (or she- I’m looking at you, Annie Duke) must be held to the same standard of truth as if s/he were literally saying this.
This means that Sebok or any other player has an obligation not only to ask about security measures but to establish affirmatively, to his own satisfaction, that there is no further cheating going on and that the past issues have been 100% resolved. If the company cannot provide him with proof of both of these things, then he cannot ethically endorse them or accept their sponsorship.
Sebok seems to understand this as well and certainly has been far more proactive in addressing these matters than have UB’s other sponsored players. If he really has done due diligence in verifying the current security of the games and the satisfactory resolution of the past issues, then ethically he is in the clear.
So has he? Some new information has emerged this week, including a (supposedly) comprehensive list of all of the superuser accounts. Sebok’s claims to the contrary, it does not seem that affected players have received full histories of their play that they can review for themselves, and there certainly seems to be insufficient transparency regarding the oversight that will be provided by the “regulatory authority” of the Kahnawake Gaming Commission. Nor is there sufficient transparency about who currently owns UB/AP and what happened to the “old owners” who are supposedly solely responsible for the cheating that occurred.
If Sebok has good reason to believe that his involvement with UB/AP can produce all of this information, then his decision to endorse them is an ethical one. But I have my doubts.
The last argument I want to address is one that’s come up a lot on 2+2, not only from random trolls but from some pretty good and well-known players. As an example, here’s an excerpt from a recent post by Jason “JP OSU” Potter, who incidentally was the victim of far-more direct theft himself:
“Not to mention all these nvgtards trashing for someone for taking a lucrative financial opportunity that would never be possible for them. It’s really easy to get on your high horse and bash someone from behind your keyboard, but what it comes down to is the fact that playing tournament poker for a living is really ****ing hard, not to mention at the same time attempting to swing a flailing business into profitability at the same time. How could any of you (save a very select few) ever know what your decision would be in that scenario when you’re getting paid an exorbitant sum of money to wear a ****ing patch?”
In other words, tournament poker is a rough way to make a living (or, in an alternate formulation, sponsorship is an essential part of making a living on the live poker circuit), and therefore a player cannot be judged for looking out for his own financial interests first. For what it’s worth, I dispute both that poker is a particularly difficult or demanding profession and that sponsorship is a necessity. But that’s beside the point.
Financial hardship is not an excuse for unethical behavior. And if one’s career necessitates unethical behavior, then that proves only that one has chosen an unethical career. Being a mobster is not an easy way to make a living, and it definitely requires whacking people when the boss gives the order, but does not excuse murder-for-hire.
Who are we to judge? We, the community of online poker players, are the ones at whom Sebok’s sponsorship is aimed. We are the ones to whom he is making a claim about the safety of the games at UB/AP. If it turns out that he has not verified their integrity, then he is, if not outright lying to us, at least risking the possiblity of lying to us by not verifying the accuracy of his claims. Many people, including some professionals, will be making significant financial decisions based in part on Sebok’s endorsement. He has an obligation not to abuse that trust, and we have every right to evaluate whether he is meeting this obligation in accepting sponsorship from UB/AP.
