Cheating in Online Poker

[Ansky]

ucla,

What are your thoughts on Pete Rose? What are your thoughts on baseball players who have corked their bats? What are your thoughts on Barry Bonds?

(I am not asking to be a dick-- really curious as to your position on various levels of "cheating")

[linuxrocks]

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Putting the ethical issues aside from knowingly playing against underage players -- ethical issues which are serious; this constitutes a serious problem for the industry as a whole. *If* sites are powerless against preventing underage players from playing, then those who want to prohibit said sites have a powerful argument.

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No i dont think i agree. Perhaps someone that follows internet law better would know more, but i remember hearing a story lately about some site (most likely was porn) not having the responsibility to age verify and that it's something that is a parents responsibility.

If thats actually way off base and the ruling was for the other side, then well i guess poker is [censored], but i dont see underage players being a big issue for poker legalization.

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"Age verification" is one thing for MySpace; it's entirely another for gambling websites. Poker sites' ability to prevent underage players from accessing their games is a huge hurdle that needs to be overcome before legalization becomes palatable in the US.

This is tangential to ucla's OP, but underage players should be treated as the same kind of threat to online poker's viability as multi-accounters are. If we're trying to make the game as ethical and transparent as possible in order to appeal to legislators and the public-at-large, then collectively shrugging our shoulders to under 18s who we know play online is foolhardy at best.

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If you are talking about under-age people accessing poker sites, they can also access porn sites. There's no way to prevent that technically (Side note: I am a CS PhD). There are technical limitations to how you can verify identity online.

[DVaut1]

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If you are talking about under-age people accessing poker sites, they can also access porn sites. There's no way to prevent that technically (Side note: I am a CS PhD). There are technical limitations to how you can verify identity online.

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Yes, I understand under-age people can access porn sites, and I understand the difficulty in preventing underage access to gambling sites. It's also difficult for regular B&M casinos to prevent underage players from playing; it's an empirical reality that sometimes underage players get in and play poker or pit games in B&M casinos. However, none of this really has anything to do with the claims I'm making here.

I don't think there's any reasonable person expects sites to prevent all underage players from playing, but similarly, it's a black eye for the sites if they don't try to proactively prevent it. Think of your local liquor store claiming they won't bother checking IDs anymore (checking ID = procedure to maintain legal standards) because they're sure at some point, someone under 21 will eventually scam them with a fake ID or something. The online gaming industry will never win the US legalization battle by throwing up their hands and claiming they're powerless to stop underage players, even if it's largely true.

From an ethical standpoint, no one should really want to be playing under 18s. But from a purely self-interested stand-point, no one with an interest in making poker a reputable activity should want to be stacking 15 year olds for hundreds or thousands of dollars in cash games, or busting 16 year olds out of the Super Tuesday bought into with Mommy's credit card. That winning, skilled under 18 players like JJprodigy exist shouldn't really be relevant here. If the community wants to self-police to demonstrate how we're not actually a bunch of degenerate low-lifes, not playing with teenagers would be a good start.

[BarryLyndon]

For once, the internet really is serious business [img]/images/graemlins/frown.gif[/img].

Look, UCLA, an article isn't going to do a goddamn thing, and while I hate reading stuff from Adanthar or Evg like "my EV will hurt by change and while I think it's wrong, my EV is looking good as we speak, so...," all a widespread read article accomplishes is this:

1. Some editor will think it's great that something "hot" and morally questionable about online poker is published. That will rile up the only debate the mainstream public has about online poker - "Is it rigged?" and "should it be illegal?" The article will gear more general animus against online poker. We don't need that.

2. PokerStars will publish a statement, which will be [censored]. It will say it does what it can to secure things and blah blah blah. What do you think they are going to do? Actually invest MONEY because there is a general animus? They don't care about the general animus - all they care about is EV dwellers like Adanthar and Evg (or the -EV dwellers), who come by the thousands and pump money
into the site by the day. Some are addicts, and some can handle the small degree of variance hurt by cheaters, and none of them really care about an article. And if they don't care about an article, and they are the one's giving pokerstars $$, then pokerstars really isn't going to care that much either.

There was an article a few weeks ago about how some kid was using a new banking system to play online, and the article ended "he has never tried to take money out of the account yet." Now, what was that vapid [censored] bitch implying by that? Well, I think that it's fairly obvious, and it goes to a greater point - whatever you publish about poker in the public will be, by default, looked at even more negatively than it is now by the general public.

What needs to happen, honestly, is Pokerstars needs a shot in the arm. Good internet players, if they have a problem with Pokerstars in particular, need to take their $$ out of the site and start explaining why to the rest of the poker community. The major money pumpers are around each other live month by month at tournaments and are on 2+2 and pfives etc. Something can be done within the community. A windfall needs to happen WITHIN THE POKER COMMUNITY EXCLUSIVELY - people who care about online poker, respect it, and want it at its best possible level.

Get enough people to stop feeding the site both money and positive publicity within the community exclusively, and it will learn it's lesson and take more action (if they can).

And, UCLA, if you can't get enough members of the community to do this, well, then it's not really a problem to the community yet. And that, as unfortunate as it sounds, says something about today's poker community more than it does about Pokerstars.

Barry

[Double Ice]

I think this thread is a total joke. People keep calling for sites (such as Stars) to do something about the cheating. What [censored] thing can they do? Either ask them to do something specific, or [censored] off. Whining about the "problem" with no solution in hand is [censored] annoying.

[CybrPunk]

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I think this thread is a total joke. People keep calling for sites (such as Stars) to do something about the cheating. What [censored] thing can they do? Either ask them to do something specific, or [censored] off. Whining about the "problem" with no solution in hand is [censored] annoying.

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For starters, how about just making a rule against it? Many justifications are exactly that - there's no rule against it so clearly it's within the rules.

Going further they could look at things such as implementing systems that can verify locations based on IP addresses and not allow people to log on from a location in another part of the world mid-tournament. I have more than one online banking account that can tell when I am logging on from a new PC or a location other than my home. Surely this is part machine hash, part IP recognition since it is capable of detecting both new computers (such as my new desktop) and different logon locations (such as when travelling with a laptop that I've used to logon previously).

[GambleAB]

The problem that comes with trying to police this is that there is no way to tell who is cheating, who is taking a moral low ground, and who is doing something that is ok.

For an example (assume that player A does not enter the tournament):

- Player A buys Player B into a tournament with strict instructions that once Player B reaches the bubble, he will turn control of the account over to Player A for the duration of the tournament.

- Player B buys into a tournament and, once reaching the bubble, gets uncomfortable and contacts Player A asking him to take over for him.

- Player B buys into a tournament and at the bubble has a sudden (legit) emergency come up. In his scramble to leave the house as quick as possible to take care of it, he calls Player A and asks him to take over the tournament for him since his only other option is to blind out.

- Player B buys into a tournament and, atthe bubble, his power goes out. He drives over to Player A's house and uses his internet for the duration of the tournament.

From the poker site's point of view, these all look the exact same. How do you distinguish between things that are perfectly acceptable, things that are innocuous, and things that are deplorable?

[stealthmunk]

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The problem that comes with trying to police this is that there is no way to tell who is cheating, who is taking a moral low ground, and who is doing something that is ok.

For an example (assume that player A does not enter the tournament):

- Player A buys Player B into a tournament with strict instructions that once Player B reaches the bubble, he will turn control of the account over to Player A for the duration of the tournament.

- Player B buys into a tournament and, once reaching the bubble, gets uncomfortable and contacts Player A asking him to take over for him.

- Player B buys into a tournament and at the bubble has a sudden (legit) emergency come up. In his scramble to leave the house as quick as possible to take care of it, he calls Player A and asks him to take over the tournament for him since his only other option is to blind out.

- Player B buys into a tournament and, atthe bubble, his power goes out. He drives over to Player A's house and uses his internet for the duration of the tournament.

From the poker site's point of view, these all look the exact same. How do you distinguish between things that are perfectly acceptable, things that are innocuous, and things that are deplorable?

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you are the smartest person on the internet. and you forgot to mention also that this can all just be done over AIM and have the same effect as a superstar playing, only not clicking the buttons.


jjprodigy can be banned from the poker sites but he can still AIM me and tell me what to do every hand if he wants to and I can find a way to get him his money after that genius wins. And also pokerstars has no problem with this, becasue there is no one player to a hand rule. (see everyone talking to mlaggoo during the mill.) Now obv I would rather make my own money than recieve instructions/coaching, just used it as an example. there are enough broke idiots though that u can essentially "multi-account" without even breaking the rules.

p.s. i don't even play donkaments anymore really and when i do i just lose money just love arguing ethics.

[uclabruinz]

Stealthmunk, that is exactly the ethical corner that Stars has backed itself into, and what drove my frustration with their CSRs to end up in writing this thread and contemplating an article. Because they refuse to have a "one player to a hand rule" their technical ban on multiaccounting really is meaningless. A poker "god" can simply put 8 players in one tournament and then IM them instructions for each hand. Stars' support gave very conflicting opinions on whether this was legal or not. By refusing to take an ethical stance, they have created potential chaos. I have written them over this previously, hashed it out with Lee Jones privately, and am so frustrated over their blind eye toward cheating in general I figured I would write an article about it, and that's what led to this thread (along with my frustration with people who have knowledge about the cheating and refuse to do anything about it).

If Stars response were more specific and logical, I would have felt much less inclined to take the stance that I am taking. However, it appears that online poker truly is on its deathbed. As the pool of dead money continues to shrink, more people will be inclined to cheat. Why do you think people are cheating now despite the whole ZeeJustin saga? Probably because their edge has shrunk considerably and they were having trouble making a decent living. People who depend on online poker for a living are, or will be, under tremendous pressure as the dead money pool continues to diminish.

Anyway, I appreciate all the responses and am considering them.

[uclabruinz]

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I think this thread is a total joke. People keep calling for sites (such as Stars) to do something about the cheating. What [censored] thing can they do? Either ask them to do something specific, or [censored] off. Whining about the "problem" with no solution in hand is [censored] annoying.

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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.