Josh Fields aka JJProdigy Poker Cheater

Josh Fields aka JJProdigy, the 16 year old kid who shocked the online poker world with his cheating was probably the most well noted online poker cheater and is responsible for bringing online poker cheating into the forefront. This was due to his notoriety as a strong and well known online tournament player before the scandal broke.

It originally started when JJProdigy was caught multi-accounting in the big buy-in tournaments at Party Poker. It was found out that an account at party poker called “ablackcar” was being used by JJ Prodigy along with his own account in large buy-in tournments. After “ablackcar” won the Party Poker 500k guaranteed tournament, it was discovered that JJprodgy was signed in from the same location as ablackcar.

The first excuse JJprodigy offered was that his Grandma was playing in the other room and he just took over her account in the late stages of the tournament. However, an investigation by Party Poker showed that there was a history of ablackcar only playing in the same tournaments as JJProdigy, and from the same computer as well.

Party Poker announces that not only have they banned the “ablackcar” account and confiscated the 140k winnings, but they also banned the JJProdigy account, and confiscated 40k. Everyone who placed in the money in the Party 500k Guaranteed was bumped up a spot, and the 140k was redistributed.

Poker Stars also banned his accounts for the same infractions, their investigation was spurred on by the entire scandal. It was also at this time it was leaked that JJprodigy was only 16.

After being exposed, JJProdigy fessed up and admitted that he was knowingly cheating online poker. Making statements like:

To pull it off, it is quite simple. Sites can detect two things: ip addresses and the computer used. As long as you have different ip addresses and different computers, it is an easy stunt to pull off. For the different ip addresses, I simply used Verizon Wiresless cards.

One of the problems I soon began to realize was getting money into accounts. Inter account transfers are the easiest and most logical decision, but that makes links to your accounts which is one of the first suspicions. Near the end, I tried to get different deposit methods with each account, whether it be Visa check cards or ePassporte

Despite his ban from the major online poker rooms, and the fact he was underage, JJprodigy continued to cheat online poker at the other sites, he says:

I couldn’t leave the game, there was just no way. I had to be playing, I had to be involved. I don’t think you could call it an obsession, as much as a passion. I loved the game so deeply that I would play it at any cost. I’d use screen names of people I hardly knew, which ended up in me getting screwed over multiple times. For some reason, I never cared. The money never mattered to me; I was just in love with the game.

After many heartfelt apologies, people were ready to forgive jjprodigy, willing to give a 16 year old kid the benefit of the doubt. He was even allowed to play on Cake Poker legitimately when he turned 18, but he was soon banned again for letting another player use his account. Cake Poker felt he was “tying to deceive” other players.

This seems to be the final straw, he was given numerous chances but still reverts to the same dishonest behaviour as many of the other poker cheats here. As for his future, he may no longer be able to play online poker legitimately. Many have claimed that JJprodigy is “banned from online poker” because no site in their right mind would accept his business.