Collusion in poker - can it actually acomplish anything?

[gotmarc]

Here’s the thing. My uncle used to play poker “professionally,” as he would say. During the 70’s and 80’s he earned his living playing low-ball. According to him, California did not allow games with any cards turned face up. Therefore he didn't play games such as hold ‘em or seven card stud. Mostly, he played in Northern, CA casinos but occasionally flew to Vegas or the greater Los Angeles area to take down jackpots. They would go so far as to actually have inside team members working with them to introduce cold decks into a game.
Obviously with the new advances in security and the way the deck is shuffled some of these tactics are no longer possible, however my Uncle’s bread and butter was basically collusion. He said they only played the 3-6 games and above which compared to today’s betting structures seem like micro-limits, and he made a low six figure income. Granted he was doing more cheating then this, things were different back then, but asking if collusion has positive EV is like asking if the casino’s rake has a positive expected value. You can’t use the same calculations for drawing out with two cards when your team has six, eight, or ten cards. Play a low limit play money online games and wait for pocket aces. Raise and raise and raise against the un-thiniing field. When no one folds it's more likely that two pair will suck out those rockets. Lee Jones calls this implicit collusion. When people do it intinitonally via signals, they're going to win more often than not.
Now he’s a born again Christian, CPA and drug and alcohol counselor. He says gambling was one of his many addictions at the time. When I brought up the possibility of playing online straight up (on the square as he calls it) He said he thinks it would be to easy for others to cheat. I understand the poker sites have protections in place to avoid such scams. I would imagine they track betting patterns. Then again, such an aggressive game might be easily recognizable as too tough to beat anyway and I could just leave because another table is only a double click away. Is this something to worry about or am I just spooked by ghosts of poker’s past? My guess is some people still try it, and According to my uncle the most important thing to do if you want to play “on the square” is to keep an eye out for the cheaters.