Cheating in Online Poker

[uclabruinz]

Let me be clear, before the outrage begins, that this is not what I am suggesting at this point, and this is not, at this point, the kind of article I would write if I were to write one. HOWEVER, people better pay attention to what is going on because this IS where things are heading if people don't get off their asses and do something about all this cheating that is apparently going on (and that means YOU, PokerStars, Full Tilt, and UltimateBet, as well as regular poker players in general).

[uclabruinz]

I am probably going to (at least for now) abandon my idea of writing an article because a friend of mine has an idea that I think has excellent potential and is infinitely better then my article idea. I don't want to steal his thunder, because it's a terrific idea so hopefully he will be around to discuss it in the near future.

[aaronbeen]

I dunno guys I'm pretty happy with the status quo. I know that if two players at my table share information or collude in any way PokerStars will do their absolute best to ban the cheaters and take their money. And I think their absolute best enforcement is pretty effective. The fact that the way multiple accounts play against me might be influenced by a single player over the course of a tournament just doesn't make me lose any sleep. Uclabruinz et al: your passion for activism is remarkable but wouldn't it be better directed toward making online poker legal, making customer support better, and preventing bots?

[uclabruinz]

Aaronbeen, I would have agreed but for Adanthar's statements on the severity of the problem.

[Todd Terry]

Counting on the sites to police themselves and do what's best for the game is naive for multiple reasons. First, they are operating on the fringes of the law to begin with. When a company worth hundreds of millions or billions tells me that in order to wire money to them I have to send it to some random dude in Quezon City, Phillipines, I lose any hope that they have any integrity whatsoever. They are also running a complete fraud by advertising free .net sites as a way to learn how to play poker, when anyone who has played poker for more than 30 seconds knows that poker requires something to be at stake for it to be played. I'm not a tax expert, but even assuming online poker is not illegal, the sites are failing to pay taxes on the gazillions of dollars they are making doing business in the United States every year. Second, their business would be crippled if cheating were found to be prevalent, therefore they will never, ever discover prevalent cheating. For this reason, no industry has ever succeeded in policing itself.

Nor do I think that problems in implementation and enforcement warrant not even trying. If it is the nature of online poker that many forms of outright cheating cannot possibly be stopped (and it undoubtedly is -- collusion with someone sitting at your table simply cannot be stopped), then perhaps the solution is for online poker to cease to exist. Or for consumers to be adequately warned of all the risks prior to playing. I think anyone who plays high stakes cash games on the Net against multiple opponents is taking a huge, huge risk (as is anyone who travels to a casino only to play high stakes cash games in someone's hotel room). At least in tournaments with random seating the risks of collusion are lessened, but not eliminated.

There are multiple issues you could address that are not prohibited and exist in both online and live poker that IMO need to be addressed, such as staking of large numbers of players in the same tournament by the same staker, and playing against players you have a stake in. I'm fairly sure this could be stopped or at least minimized live if anyone cared, it's impossible to stop online.

I don't know if you wanted to address anything about the rumors regarding potential cheating by the sites themselves such as whether the cards are rigged, but that would be an interesting topic to explore. Is anyone aware of any statistical study that has attempted to ascertain whether online poker is rigged?

[KneeCo]

[ QUOTE ]
Well, this will go over really well, but if this is true then perhaps Congress needs to just outright ban online poker? That is a really depressing thought for me, but my life would go on. But, the two main themes I have seen come up are (1) cheating is a huge problem (see Adanthar and ActionJeff) and (2) there is little if anything that can be done about it. If that is the case, if both of those are true, then Congress should just outright ban online poker completely until a method can be set up to ensure the legitimacy of the game.

[/ QUOTE ]

Wow ucla, you are doing a really, really, really, really horrible job in this thread.

Were you one of those people who swelled with pride in their government while they investigated steroids in baseball? Did you think 'yea, this is the job of my elected representatives, especially during a time when the country was losing massive casualties in a war entered into under suspicious pretext; this is their job, this is what congress is supposed to do'?

Honestly, I believe your intentions are in the right place, but the way you are going about this, attacking the integrity of some non-cheating posters, while implying the ZeeJustin has hurt our game worse than Bill Frist, wow.

Clearly you feel strongly about this, which is fine, but you still need to chill and use reason if you're going to get anywhere.

[odellthurman]

[ QUOTE ]
His intentions are good, but it is a witch hunt because it is impossible to PROVE anything.(thus analogous to a witch hunt, because how can u prove someone is a witch without ridiculous measures like they did back then. It just leads to more chaos.)

[/ QUOTE ]

I think many arguments in favor of doing nothing to prevent cheating are based on an overly restrictive, narrow view of what constitutes "proof". People frequently are convicted and go to jail for minor and serious crimes based on such things as eyewitness testimony and statements made by persons accused of a crime. Everyone in jail isn't there b/c of fiber analysis or DNA testing like you see on television.

Potential example of proof of cheating in online poker: High profile 2+2er hears from multiple sources that online player JohnDoe is multiaccounting on Stars under 3 different usernames. 2+2er reports what he has heard to Stars. Stars investigates and finds evidence of collusion between the players and transfers of money and takes action. Of course, more devious online players may be more careful and avoiding leaving an easily discoverable trail. Stars won't catch everyone. But I don't think we should throw up our hands and fail to report suspected cheating based on the assumption that proof would be impossible in every instance.

[uclabruinz]

KneeCo, you obviously missed the tone of my posts, which is probably due to the way I conveyed my point. The last thing I want to see is Congress ban poker outright, but do you see why Adanthar + Gobbo = BAN? (I use their names to represent the two idea: (1) there's a HUGE problem and (2) there's NOTHING anyone can do about it.

[LuckyLloyd]

So far in this thread there is argument around the possible extent of cheating and unethical practices; and whether it could ever be practically possible to identify all instances of cheating and prove them beyond a reasonable doubt.

Unfortunately, I think such discussions will probably go around in circles. Those that do know something seem to have no interest in coming forth to share what they know or have heard. And the full extent of policing that the online pokerooms are capable and willing to undertake is probably only known by a limited number of employees.


What we could be sure of is the views of those who play online poker professionally or to a high recreational standard in relation to cheating or unethical behaviour. Some may say "I have no idea of it's extent" or "I have no clue how to police it"; but they can also say "I find it to be a bad thing". Or they can say: "I don't give a [censored] how people make their money online. I'm profitable. Let's Rock."

Because what I would love to know, is what the highstakes community honestly thinks about all forms of unethical behaviour. And I think it is something that can be realistically researched and put toghether in an article. And I don't think that people could question the usefulness of such an article.

All those putting out negative vibes against UCLA's position in this thread: Do you honestly care about anything other than the effect on your bottom line?

The general non - poker playing public of the Western world will be aware of a whole range of negative stereotypes about poker. Shady characters, rigged games, degenerate gamblers played out beyond the law in smoky underground clubs. Those people vote.

I have felt that was never the case with a game that I consider to be a challenging emotional and mental pursuit - where the winners over the long haul are those who master the maths and excercise the will to win. A game of skill, not luck - and not underhanded cheating.

The impression I'm getting from this thread is that the public may not be way off the mark. And if your bottom line is to be achievable and is to be improved upon over the long term, big picture type scenario - you need to completely remove the oxygen from the lungs of that old stereotype.

And if there is a real will for a clean game, for a complete eradication of unethical behaviour; if every cheater is madea pariah of the poker community - there will surely be a way to stop this.

[Cat]

[ QUOTE ]
When we're talking about a problem that affects less than 1% of online poker players being brought to light and potentially hurting the entire industry , this is just wrong.

I'm all about cleaning up whoever does this cheating in online poker. That doesn't include supporting writing an article that will only serve to scare those this doesn't affect into not depositing, and further bringing a negative light to online poker via those who aren't involved in the industry, including congress as well as my family and non-poker friends.

[/ QUOTE ]

QFT.

Oh and lawl at ppl being surprised at Bodog signing ZeeJustin, when they had Jamie 'Lawsuit' Gold and still have Evelyn 'Never Won Anything' Ng and Josh 'Total D-Bag' Arieh as their sponsored pro's. It's almost like they're trying to make themselves look bad [img]/images/graemlins/confused.gif[/img]