Stars vs. Party cheater-funds confiscation policy

[betadecay]

[ QUOTE ]
Those examples are not the same. Stars investigated ALL of his play, plus they banned him from the site.

[/ QUOTE ]

I'm not sure what examples you are referring to? The ZJ and WSOP examples? I am trying to illustrate that someone cheating the wsop would face punishment the same as ZJ faced punishment on Party(not stars).

[ QUOTE ]
Aside from the fact that he would face criminal charges (which at present do not exist for online poker)

[/ QUOTE ]

This is why all his stars funds should be confiscated. There is no punishment for cheating online beyond losing your ill gotten gains. Gains that aren't yours to begin with.

[ QUOTE ]
Aside from the fact that he would face criminal charges, it would be quite reasonable for Harrah's and other cardrooms to investigate all of his play, confiscate any additional money that was believed to be the result of cheating, and bar him from all of their properties. (Of course, it would also depend on what type of cheating was involved.)

[/ QUOTE ]

Again, I don't know what harrah's does to cheaters. I'm sure there is litigation involved and players are banned at BnM rooms all over the country. Someone with info on this should probably post it.

[ QUOTE ]
You seem to think it is not a big deal to have money taken away from you and get told that you cannot play anymore. This view makes no sense to me.

[/ QUOTE ]

I aggree it's a big deal to have this happen. However I don't think it is a big enough deal to serve the purposes of detering cheaters from attempting to cheat. This should be stars biggest concern. For now it seems like all they are concerned about is retribution. Which favors the cheaters and not the honest players.

[ QUOTE ]
I still maintain that it is ridiculous to claim he only lost one buy-in, for the reasons already stated repeatedly in this thread.

[/ QUOTE ]

I feel the exact opposite as you do in regards to this. I don't know what reasons you refer too. I saw 2 people make references to money invested in previous attempts at cheating. He lost this money on his own. Stars did not confiscate it. Stars conficated his Buy in, plus the winnings that weren't his. Being banned is not a big deal. As someone already posted, it will be very easy for cheaters to open up new accounts at these sites. ZJ is probably back at party as we speak.

[w_alloy]

I only skimmed this thread, but if this was already mentioned it is worth repeating:

The crimes ZJ commited on the two sites were very different. On party he regularly entered 6 accounts into tournaments and played numerous SnGs on the alt accounts. On stars he just had one extra account the was "rarely" used. There is a huge difference here. Opportunities for more serious cheating increase exponentially with each additional account you enter in a tourny.

I do not know exact policies, but it would not surprise me if what happened on party instead happened on stars, stars would have taken party's actions.

[MicroBob]

Indeed: If he played with 6 accounts regularly on Stars I don't think they would have a problem taking all his money.


I didn't see all the direct info about this (I've stopped reading the other thread).


But lets say he just entered 3 tourneys with both accounts at the same time....and cheated his fellow players out of a total of $15.
Should his entire account balance of $100k be confiscated for this.
I would think not...but others may disagree.

[betadecay]

This is a tough question. Again I think the biggest issue here is establishing a stance on cheating that deters people from attempting it. I don't play much at stars so I am not aware of their T&C's. Party clearly states that all of a cheater's funds are liable to be confiscated when illicit activity is found. If Stars has this in their T&C and the cheating was black and white, then yes, I think all the funds should be taken. The last thing I want as an honest paying customer is to know that the risk/reward for cheating at the site I play at is good. I would feel severely bad for the cheater but this is the best stance to take for the sake of the other players. Unless a site could litigate and cheaters could get jailtime for this, I don't think there is any better way to protect the games.

On a side note, I hope stars does put this in their TnC after all this if it isn't already there.

[soah]

[ QUOTE ]
I feel the exact opposite as you do in regards to this. I don't know what reasons you refer too. I saw 2 people make references to money invested in previous attempts at cheating. He lost this money on his own. Stars did not confiscate it. Stars conficated his Buy in, plus the winnings that weren't his. Being banned is not a big deal. As someone already posted, it will be very easy for cheaters to open up new accounts at these sites. ZJ is probably back at party as we speak.

[/ QUOTE ]

You are completely ignoring the concept of EV, for reasons I cannot imagine. If the tournies were winner-take-all with 1000 entrants ($100 entry fee) and he won the 300th time that he played in it (cheating every time) would you seriously tell me that he only lost one buy-in due to his cheating? You can either look at it as losing $30,000 (by paying that much in entry fees when his ROI was going to be 0 no matter what) or you can look at it as having $100,000 confiscated (the amount taken from his account). It makes the most sense to view it as a $30,000 loss, and it makes no sense to view it as a $100 loss. You simply cannot write off massively -EV investments as irrelevent, and then write off the favorable variance as irrelevent, and then analyze only what remains.

[betadecay]

I'm not writing them off. Like I said he lost that money, and that is obvious. I don't disagree with anyone on that. But I don't include that as part of Stars punishment. That is ZJ's lost investment on his part. Stars did not take any buy-ins from ZJ besides the one included in the 5k win.


I think we are arguing different things here. You are saying he lost more then 1 buy-in. I agree. I'm saying Stars only took 1 buy-in from him. These are different concepts.

[octop]

In NYC the Subway costs 2 dollars. The fine for hopping the turnstyle is around 100. If the fine was 2 dollars, why would anyone ever pay their fare?

[Piers]

If Stars were to confiscate all Zee’s money, what would they do with it? Save it for the staff’s office party?

The 5K they did confiscate is clear, they give it back to the people they have determined were cheated out of it. To confiscate more would open Stars up to accusations of using cheating allegations to steal clients’ money for their own gain.

[gurgeh]

[ QUOTE ]
Restitution and banning alone isn't enough. Punitive punishment is needed as an effective deterrent.

[/ QUOTE ]

Punitive punishment. Well put.

[MicroBob]

[ QUOTE ]
In NYC the Subway costs 2 dollars. The fine for hopping the turnstyle is around 100. If the fine was 2 dollars, why would anyone ever pay their fare?

[/ QUOTE ]


If I get caught jumping the turnstyle will I also never be allowed to ride the subway again.
Will it spark all other modes of transportation to look closely at my past history and decide to never let me drive again if I got speeding once.



I think that getting banned from the site is a reasonable incentive.


I find a way to cheat Party that makes an extra $1.
Party catches me and bans me for life. I can no longer play satellites to the WSOP or Party cruise there. And I have to be constantly worried about the funds in any future account I set up there because if they ever link it to me they will lock that account and take the funds.

Making that extra $1 is NOT +EV in this situation.