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Convicted UB.com founder Brent Beckley relayed to Montana Kaimin how he got involved in UB.com/Absolute Poker and ultimately served a prison sentence as a result.
The riveting piece is entitled “Almost Billionaires” and is written by Alexander Deedy. Beckley attended university in Montana. It was there that he and some of his college mates came up with the concept to start what had become one of the world’s largest online poker rooms. In its heyday, UB.com was fronted by two of the biggest names in poker, Phil Hellmuth and Annie Duke.
On April 15, 2011, Beckley and others were indicted for money laundering and bank fraud tied to UB.com and sister site Absolute Poker. Months later the site shut its doors. Customers have yet to see their funds returned.
Beckley talks of how, while in prison, he would pull cologne strips out of magazines and rub them all over his body to “smell less like prison”.
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His story begins:
Brent Beckley woke up at 4 a.m. on October 1, 2012 and kissed his two young boys, a 3-year old and a 7-year old, goodbye while they slept. He pulled on some jeans, comfortable shoes and a sweater. His wife bawled as Beckley stepped out of their home in Highland, Utah, about an hour south of Salt Lake City.
They had been preparing for this day for a long time. It felt like preparing to die.
“No bags?” the cabbie asked when Beckley stepped into his taxi.
“No.”
“Wow. You’re interesting already.”
The cab drove him an hour to Salt Lake City International Airport, where Beckley boarded SkyWest flight 4668 to Denver, scheduled to depart at 6:50 a.m. He didn’t have a return ticket.
One of Beckley’s former fraternity brothers from Sigma Alpha Epsilon picked him up from the airport and drove him the two hours south to Florence, Colo. There Beckley stepped out of the car and surrendered himself in front of a minimum security prison that looked like an elementary school -- tan bricks, brown rocks and no grass.
- Nagesh Rath, Gambling911.com
