Cheating in Poker

[Blair Rodman]

I was on a panel yesterday at the World Game Protection Conference. The subject was Cheating in Poker. Anthony Curtis was the moderator and on the panel with me were Sal Piacente, who is an expert in all forms of cheating and who does some amazing card and memory tricks, and Richard Marcus, author of American Roulette and Dirty Poker.

I spent some time the night before at the welcome reception talking to Marcus. He’s not my kind of guy—he’s an unrepentant cheater—but I was interested in what he knows. As I suspected from reading Dirty Poker, Marcus doesn’t know a lot about poker. His specialty was cheating casino games. (American Roulette is a good read). However, he’s tied into the cheating world and knows a lot of poker cheats. My first question was as to how much mechanical cheating is actually going on in card rooms. His answer, which was similar to Sal’s, was that it is pretty rare these days. That made me feel better. However, his contention is that collusion is a major problem, both in cash games and tournaments. This is as I suspected. Collusion is an insidious blight on the poker world. It’s very hard to prove, and there are no real penalties if caught. Marcus’ contention is that there are major collusion teams operating in tournaments, and that some of the biggest names were propelled to their big wins with the help of their teams. I think Marcus overestimates the presence of colluders. I also think most people are blind to the fact that it is a real problem.

The main topic of discussion was; who is responsible for policing the games? My opinion is that when I play in a public card room side game or tournament, my energy and focus is on playing the game. Maintaining that focus is hard enough over a long session without having to spend extra energy looking for cheating. I expect that the money I pay in the form of rake should be sufficient to expect the card room to make a real effort to keep the games clean.

The consensus among the audience, who were mostly from casino surveillance, was that poker is a low priority for surveillance, and that players are pretty much on their own. If there are cameras on the games, their use is generally reactive, not proactive.

A major topic of discussion was the new electronic poker tables, which eliminate the need for cards, chips and dealers. My feeling on this is that they are the wave of the future. They would eradicate virtually all of the mechanical forms of cheating. The number of hands dealt goes up dramatically. They could greatly enhance tournament play. More hands per hour would give the option of either getting tournaments over quicker, or having the option to slow the structure and give more deep stack play. Also, the tournament clock could be kept right in the screen, a big plus. As far as collusion goes, mechanical tables wouldn’t eradicate the problem, but they would provide hand histories to investigate allegations of collusion. Like it or not, I think mechanical tables will be the standard because of the economic benefits for card rooms.

As to the collusion issue, the bottom line is that card rooms are not going to take the lead in fighting it. Steve Forte is probably the world’s leading authority on cheating in gambling. He just put out an excellent new book called Poker Protection. The topics he covered were similar to what Marcus wrote about, although from a different perspective and with less sensationalism. His conclusion is that collusion is a big problem that will probably increase as technology helps stamp out other forms of cheating. Both he and Marcus feel that the education of players is the key. I have to agree. If all poker players would read either or both of these books, they’d have a good idea of what to look for, and collectively, with the help of card room managers following up on legitimate complaints and administering real penalties on perpetrators, could help keep the collusion problem in check. If players stay in the dark on this issue, colluders will continue to extract significant money from the poker economy, and many honest players who might otherwise have succeeded will go broke and disappear from the game.

[GoAheadRiverMe]

Nice post, thanks.

As for the electronic poker rooms God I hope it doesn't happen too soon, too quickly. At that point I may as well stay home and play online. I like to feel the cards, chips and conversation.