A/C in Action: The AP Case

[foal]

It's about risk vs reward. If the risk for cheating or allowing cheating is small (i.e. the consequences not particularly significant) then the deterrent is also small (scruples not taken into account).

I didn't answer your question, because it made no sense within the context of the discussion.

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Do you honestly think AP doesn't regret this? Really, do you think they're sitting there saying "Ha, well that worked out awesome guys, let's wait it out a little bit and then bust out the super user accounts again!"

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I never claimed AP was happy that they got caught. Nor did anyone else. You're attacking a straw man.

Similarly:

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I don't really see what AP has "gained" from this

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No one is claiming AP gained from this. It's weird that you put "gained" in quotes. Who are you quoting?


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If there's a built in incentive against cheating, even if mild, then there's never a rational reason to cheat.

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[img]/images/graemlins/confused.gif[/img] This is completely false.

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(as long as the bad outweighs the good,)

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Bingo. That's why the incentives against cheating cannot be merely mild, they must be strong enough to outweigh the profits that cheating can bring.

[foal]

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If you looked statically at the current player pool, over infinite time, all but one player is -EV.

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??

[ALawPoker]

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It's about risk vs reward. If the risk for cheating or allowing cheating is small (i.e. the consequences not particularly significant) then the deterrent is also small (scruples not taken into account).

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But if the risk outweighs the reward, to even a small degree, then there IS a deterrant. Cheating is therefore not a rational choice.

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I never claimed AP was happy that they got caught. Nor did anyone else. You're attacking a straw man.

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I know you never claimed it, hence why I asked (rather than assume what your answer would be). So do you think they're happy, or do you think they're regretting their decision. You again have not answered, and again it's telling.

I assume your answer is that they probably regret their decision. What does this tell you?

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No one is claiming AP gained from this. It's weird that you put "gained" in quotes. Who are you quoting?

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I didn't mean to be quoting anyone. I have a habit of using quotes for voice inflection. My point is that I think AP is in worse shape now than before, and so this is evidence that there is some real consequence even in the absence of central planning.

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If there's a built in incentive against cheating, even if mild, then there's never a rational reason to cheat.

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[img]/images/graemlins/confused.gif[/img] This is completely false.

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How is it false? Just because you say so?

If a poker decision has a very small negative equity, it's still never rational to make that play.

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That's why the incentives against cheating cannot be merely mild, they must be strong enough to outweigh the profits that cheating can bring.

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I'm not saying that the consequences themselves are mild. They are very BIG consequences, but they are offset by the fact that you can make a LOT of money when you cheat. My position is that the net sum of all consequence may result in a "mild" effect. 'Consequence' does not necessarily imply only the negative side of the equation. When I use it, I am referring to all of it.

[ALawPoker]

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If you looked statically at the current player pool, over infinite time, all but one player is -EV.

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??

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This wasn't well said; I was in a rush and didn't think that it mattered. Mistake on my part. I meant that if no new money entered the game, eventually one person would win it all. Clearly.

Plenty of players might still be +EV, but what I meant is that if no new money was entering the game, you would expect only 1 winner given infinite time. So my point was that determining the percentage of players who win is probably very complicated.

That said, maybe we should open a new thread somewhere to discuss the rake thing.

[ianlippert]

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Like I pointed out earlier, live casinos "rip off" their customers all the time. Nobody cares, get over it.

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Casino games are -EV, but people know that (or at least they can figure it out if they do the math). That's not even close to the same thing.

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I agree with you, there is definitely a difference between a casino looking at your hole cards and profiting honestly by playing by the set of rules that you already agreed to. Absolutely. (EDIT: No pun intended.)

I think Ianlippert would agree too and change his wording. But, what he was alluding to is critical to the issue here. The clientele is the type of clientele who will not be grossly bothered by what happened (because they're people who are gambling on the internet). I think that's all he meant (but he can speak for himself).

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Ya thanks for clarifying my point. Obviously morally what AP did is immoral and casinos arent. I was just trying to point out that the market for gambling has different expectations than the market for new houses for example.

[ianlippert]

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And seriously, it hasn't been that long. I think it's too early to be freaking out saying "ZOMG! Look they aren't being punished! Market failure!!!!" Even if some govenmental agency was regulating this it would probably take at least a year before any sort of punishment was handed out, then there would probably be apeals or some such nonsense.


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Another point is that the government is regulating this and people still find ways to get out from under the nanny-state. If this is a failure for AC how exactly does the state prevent this considering that the US has 100% ban on online poker?

[ianlippert]

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So your argument is that the online gambling market will not "self-regulate" as well as other markets, because gamblers are typically not very intelligent?


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Gamblers dont mind losing money. For whatever reason, some of them are degenerates some of them suck but limit their play. Gambling is for the majority of people -EV, why would they care if its slightly more -EV.

What are the numbers on this scandal? How much are people actually losing? Whats the percentage chance of me getting scamed and how much do I lose when I get scammed? Give me an EV calculation, I really doubt its all that much.

[ianlippert]

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How'd you get that number? It's not as simple as just factoring the % of rake and then comparing it to peoples' avg profit.


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This is way off topic but there was an article along time ago where someone had interviewed some online site. I think they said something like 7% of their players were in the black at the end of the year. The number of professional players is probably much less.

[AlexM]

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I forget what the % is of players who beat the rake (I think it's less than 20%, maybe as low as 10), but most lose. .

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It's more. Rake effectively eliminate's one winning player at a 10 player table. That still leaves 4. Of course, if all players are equally skilled, then the rake makes them all losers, but this is seldom the case, and the limits where this is the case the rake is extremely tiny compared to the pots.

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How'd you get that number? It's not as simple as just factoring the % of rake and then comparing it to peoples' avg profit.

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True, it's not. When I look at my Poker Tracker stats though, very consistantly it's 35-40% of people who are profitable. Maybe it changes when you've got 100s of millions of hands vs just like 1 million, I dunno. It probably is lower than I realize since 1 pro accounts for a lot of people's losses.

[Money2Burn]

Not sure what stakes you play, but I would guess that there are a lot more people in the red at micro stakes.