Internet Poker... doomed from Day 1

[jb9]

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Internet poker, due to the acceptance of such foreign devices such as Tracker or Miner, is becoming more and more a computer based game and not a human based game. Soon, every internet player will be arming themselves with every possible device from card mappers, to bots, to trackers, to miners. If we do not take a stand somewhere, we can only allow ALL devices to be used. We must ban all devices or allow all of them to be used.

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This *could* have been an interesting discussion, but once you mudsling Pokertracker all discussion is over...

There are 2 points you raise that I find interesting:

1. The extent to which online poker can and should mimic live play and whether or not it has to achieve a certain level of similarity to be viable.

2. Whether or not practical enforcement can be accomplished online without having such invasive security procedures that recreational players will be discouraged from playing.

I'm not sure how much like live poker online poker needs to be, but I probably need to play a lot more live poker before I could have any real understanding of the issues. I do think that once you allow players to multitable you have changed the game in a fundamental way that may or may not justify the use of additional tools or aids.

I disagree that the use or banning of software tools needs to be considered as an "all or nothing" issue. I think it should be practical to say "X is allowed, Y is not," but so far none of the sites have been very successful in defining these issues let alone enforcing compliance.

B&M casinos are very heavily regulated by government and spend a small fortune on security. Without the regulation and serious security efforts, it would be nearly impossible to keep the games reasonably honest (meaning that casual players do not fear being robbed in large enough numbers to ruin the industry).

Eventually online gaming sites will have to provide the same level of "reasonably honest" gameplay, but it does not seem to be a primary concern of the industry right now (grabbing market share and immediate profits seems to be the primary concern).