Online companies like blackjack and poker rooms have gone on high alert for identity theft after a case where a man named Fouad Mourtada just received a three year jail sentence by the Moroccan Government after he was found guilty of opening a false Facebook profile in the name of the Morroccan Prince, Moular Rachid.

More recently Backgammon Masters Mexico found that several users in their systems had opened up accounts under the name of famous people like Madonna, Tom Cruise and Prince William. They started checking into the activities and locations of the users and found the accounts to be fake.

A spokesperson from Backgammon Masters said, "We've seen a trend in the industry for people to register popular names, as we call them "Gold usernames" such as backgammon king, pokerking, blackjack-king and celebrity names which are just as popular. We see people in game forums even buying and selling these usernames. For these people its status, kind of like having a custom license plate. As long as the Games Are For Fun, we are not concerned."

The players that Backgammon Masters discovered were only playing fun money games such as online poker, blackjack and backgammon. But other companies that are involved in the online gambling industry are keeping a closer eye on those types of accounts after the case that involved a major company such as Facebook.








- 2008-05-13