Cheating at WSEX

[D. Andrew]

Recently, I noticed that WSEX was spreading multiple 10/20 games. I made a deposit on Monday, 6/5/06, and began playing whenever I was able to play 3 games. I played on Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday with very mediocre results. I did not play on Thursday, but played 2.5 hours on Friday. I got creamed for a little over 1K. During my play on Friday I noticed something was wrong, but was unable to put a finger on it. There were several games, most were not full, and I was playing in 3 of them. After I played, I went to my PokerTracker database and hand histories and found that players were cheating.

The players were cheating by coming into the game without having to post. They would get into the game (without posting), play till their blind came up and then leave. They would then comeback, doing the same thing over and over again. One player did this for the entire 2.5 hours I played on Friday. But there were quite a few doing it. Looking back at previous day, shows that it was being done in the games I was playing all week. I never noticed.

The players were exploiting a bug in the software. I was NOT able to do it, but these players certainly did. They played hands, they NEVER paid a blind. They would come in at the cutoff and play till the big blind. How could they lose? How could I win?

I was totally taken off-guard by this. I did not know what to do. I gave it a day, then contacted support on Saturday. I told them what was being done, as well as players names that were doing it. I asked that I be returned the net amount lost during the week ($700). They respond that they will look into it and get back to me in 24 hours. I hear nothing from them on Sunday, and I send another email on Monday. Again they tell me they are looking into it. I hear nothing and today (Tuesday) I fire off the following email...

[ QUOTE ]
Four days is long enough. I have described that players are coming into the
games without having to post (utilizing a bug in your system) then playing
till their blinds and leaving. This is then repeated over and over again.
I have given you names of players doing this. Both of the players did this
or 2.5 hours while I played on multiple tables Friday at which time I lost
1058. It should take a total of 5 min. to see this clearly. A cursory
glance at my Poker Tracker database has shown other players doing this
throughout the week I played. I am asking for the 701 that I lost during
the course of the week to be returned, that is all.

Your site does not have the safeguards in place to stop such behavior. Your
site does not monitor the games for shady behaviour. Your site does not
provide the necessary protection to the players. Even after blatant
cheating is found, your site is unwilling to do anything to correct the
situation, help the player being cheated, or make the necessary reparations.
In fact it is even questionable if you have even looked into the situation.
Stall and delay is your only response.

I simply can not let this go on. I will be making a post on the twoplustwo
internet poker forum. You can respond there.


[/ QUOTE ]

Support responds back stating they are having an update at the end of the week to fix software issues. They are aware of the issue. They are having a problem with the issue. The update should correct the issue. After I respond, I receive another email stating I will not be receiving my money back. Basically they have known about it, have done nothing to stop it, and don't care if you lost money due to it.

Players wishing to see if it was done while they were playing simply need to look at the session notes tab in pokertracker. It will be obvious. Also cycling through games in the replayer shows some of the 'longer' sessions that pokertracker groups as a single session.

Cliff Notes: Played at WSEX, found cheating, contacted support, support does nothing.