FT Bot refund rumor.

[CountingMyOuts]

[ QUOTE ]
Because some rakeback offerers run bots themselves.

[/ QUOTE ]

Proof or link, please.

[CountingMyOuts]

[ QUOTE ]
Right now there is no reason for any site or affiliate to do anything to stop bots. There is every incentive to encourage their play, both for the poker site and the affiliate.

[/ QUOTE ]

Again, affiliates are not given access to the type of data necessary to detect whether a player is a bot. Given that, how do you propose that an affiliate detect whether a player is a bot account or not?

[KEW]

[ QUOTE ]
Because some rakeback offerers run bots themselves. If they are they should be held liable by the sites, but that is between the sites and affiliates.

[/ QUOTE ]

This would be a special case and not what OP is talking about...Unless I am mistaken none of the detected bots have been there own affiliate...

If an affiliate is in fact nothing more then a "bot farm" that would be a different issue all together...

How would you like it if your affiliate got shut down because one(or more) of there players turned out to be bots???? As a result you would no longer be receiving your RB...Seems pretty insane to me..

[DeadMoneyDad]

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
Right now there is no reason for any site or affiliate to do anything to stop bots. There is every incentive to encourage their play, both for the poker site and the affiliate.

[/ QUOTE ]

Again, affiliates are not given access to the type of data necessary to detect whether a player is a bot. Given that, how do you propose that an affiliate detect whether a player is a bot account or not?

[/ QUOTE ]

Well both here and in other forums when the issue of problem gamblers comes up, poker operators have claimed that on-line poker has the technology to run filters and review betting habbits to help id such player profiles.

While the affiliates alone do not have the ability to see the same information that the poker sites do, they too have some idea of player accounts suddenly showing up and generating tremendous amounts of rake back.

In the same way that every person working for a good B&M is to some degree trained to spot certain problems, I suggest that every part of the on-line payment system take it's share of blame and responsibility.

In the short run, bots profit poker sites and the affiliates. It is even debatible how much they cost the average player. But in the long run they cost us all by removing confidence in the game we all love.

I have no fancy magic solution. I am just one of the little fish in this game. Six months ago the idea of bots scared me right out of the pond. Now my game and freeroll generated poker bankroll have grown to the point where they don't concern me at all. The whole issue of all the sci-fi computer/software fears did keep me from depositing when I was more than ready to do so.

But there are many players who are much more skilled than I and whom have much more experience who beleive all manner of cheating by poker sites. The Action Flop Theory is currently all the rage in some circles.

IMPO poker sites need to get out front of this issue for the good of the game. For instance I read where Doyle went into his own pocket to re-imburse some players who lost money on a site he did not own but had recomended.

In the same way big banks will make good the losses of a poorly run small bank, and even some large ones to keep the confidence in the over all system as high as possible I suggest the same apporach is needed here.

Those that profit the most from bots bear the most responsibility to pay up when one is discovered, AND should have the most incentive to make sure a system is in place to with the best of their ability prevent any re-occurance.

If the on-line poker community doesn't step up and self regulate better and pro-activly then some idiot in Congress is going to wait for a made for TV moment and do it for them.


D$D

[JPFisher55]

The only scandal about rigging or cheating that concerns me is the Absolute Poker one. But I doubt that any regulation can really prevent this type of cheating. I do agree that it might ease concerns of the average player.
Which is why I am, in general, dubious of regulation. Regulation convinces the average consumer that he is safe. The corporate cheater takes advantage by violating the regulation. Then the average consumer suffers more than if the regulation had never existed and the average consumer was more wary. See Enron, various broker firms etc. corporate scandals. Then more regulation occurs to allegedly make cheating more difficult. This raises the cost of doing business for everyone with little real result.
Thus, I think that the less regulation of online poker the better.

[CountingMyOuts]

[ QUOTE ]
While the affiliates alone do not have the ability to see the same information that the poker sites do, they too have some idea of player accounts suddenly showing up and generating tremendous amounts of rake back.

In the same way that every person working for a good B&M is to some degree trained to spot certain problems, I suggest that every part of the on-line payment system take it's share of blame and responsibility.

Those that profit the most from bots bear the most responsibility to pay up when one is discovered, AND should have the most incentive to make sure a system is in place to with the best of their ability prevent any re-occurance.

[/ QUOTE ]

D$D,

I am not trying to give you a hard time, but I believe that your view that affiliates should be held responsible for bot accounts is misguided.

The fact that an affiliate sees a player account with a lot of generated rakeback is not a sufficient test for whether an account is a bot. There are many, many 2+2ers that play up to 12 tables at once and several hours a day for a living and I can guarantee that they are not bots. I play against them every day and I occasionally chat with some of them. Your test would unfairly put these people into the bot category.

Simply put, there is no reliable way for an affiliate to be able to perform bot detection. It is totally unreasonable to place that burden on an affiliate.

It's up to the poker site to detect bots, not everyone in the poker site's food chain (affiliate, janitor in the poker site's building, etc.) that benefits from the income a poker site generates.

The fact that you mention the "Action Flop Theory" tells me a lot. If you believe that any of that is true, then why are you playing online at all? That would seem to be a bigger concern than playing against bots.

[DeadMoneyDad]

[ QUOTE ]
It's up to the poker site to detect bots, not everyone in the poker site's food chain (affiliate, janitor in the poker site's building, etc.) that benefits from the income a poker site generates.

The fact that you mention the "Action Flop Theory" tells me a lot. If you believe that any of that is true, then why are you playing online at all? That would seem to be a bigger concern than playing against bots.

[/ QUOTE ]

I never suggested that the affiliates should hold the sole responsibility or even the sole risk for detecting bots. But they should be a player in the game of detection of all manner of cheating.

In this instance they do hold at least the major purse strings. The poker site bank roll is minimal operating expense for bots, bot farms, and even break even multi-tablers. Personally if you are making a living from the rake back and can't play and better than break-even poker I say "FU!" But that is a very unpopular personal opinion.

As I've said before I am old school poker. If you can't do it at a B&M it has no place in poker let alone on-line. I can and have forcasted the doom of on-line poker due in part to hand histories and software assisted computerized sharks.

Again my views have nothing to do with my ability to or not to beat the current crop of on-line players. I'm worried about the long term viability of on-line poker as a whole.

I have spent countless hours arguing against the proponets of the Action Flop Theory. I holds only a passing fancy in a long list of "tin foil hat" theories that I have looked at and personally never found one that passed much scrunity from common sense let alone a little logic. I was a little amazed the otherwise reasonable poker players of some quality actually believe this crap.


D$D


D$D

[Fedorfan]

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
Disguising bot play is easier than writing a bot to play good poker. There is no way sites can keep out all good bots. Players just need to accept that they will be out there. It just means track your opponents and select them carefully.

[/ QUOTE ]

This is silly reasoning. I see the same type of silliness in debates about terrorism FWIW.

So what if the bot makers can do some extra work and thwart the anti-bot measures? The point is to make their life hell, and to make them do that extra work at every step. The point is that if you encourage a site to seize funds whenever they find a bot, the bot-maker has to overcome more of an overhead to become profitable.

[/ QUOTE ]

I agree, the counter measures can really hurt the profitability of a bot, since when caught it loses its funds in the account and now the user has to use fake names and such to resign up for the site.

Also, it would make it less likely that bots would attack the higher games, since they'd have to risk having much more money in the account to be frozen and such.

[Legislurker]

An affiliate CAN provide essential bot detection info. If a bot farmer is using the same RB acct at diff sites, then its a slam dunk. Theres only SO much live cash action you can do.
I can only manage maybe 14 cash tables for 2-3 hrs, if a bot is getting similar RB to that at 2-3 sites in the same month, especially skins at ongame or crypto etc, then its a bot very likely. But what affiliate would turn that in? They are making a killing and can dodge any guilt. I have ZERO doubts the bot farmers have affiliates working with them, if the affiliates themselves arent bot farming. A MILD penalty but one that hurts their profits would be a decent tool. Im half a mind to support that all affiliates only receive a one-off fee for new signups and a tiered payout per month for RB accts that go to players in whole.
Its a scuzzy world with threats, backstabbing, and intimidation omnipresent that should be phased out.

[DeadMoneyDad]

[ QUOTE ]
An affiliate CAN provide essential bot detection info. If a bot farmer is using the same RB acct at diff sites, then its a slam dunk. Theres only SO much live cash action you can do.

But what affiliate would turn that in? They are making a killing and can dodge any guilt. I have ZERO doubts the bot farmers have affiliates working with them, if the affiliates themselves arent bot farming.

A MILD penalty but one that hurts their profits would be a decent tool. Im half a mind to support that all affiliates only receive a one-off fee for new signups and a tiered payout per month for RB accts that go to players in whole.
Its a scuzzy world with threats, backstabbing, and intimidation omnipresent that should be phased out.

[/ QUOTE ]

MILD Penality???

There is already a nice time delay built into the system of rakeback payments of at least two weeks from the end of the month until payment, well at least on FT. Add another week if you want. Sure some would bitch but it's a one time delay, sort of like day-light savings time.

Let the affiliates who are risk adverse send all their questionable accounts back to the poker site for review, and if the poker site clears payment it can't come back to the affiliate. The gambling affiliates can pay off right away if they think their is a profit in the market of rakeback customers. Me I would want one that is more risk adverse as it is more less likely to suffer a major charge back and go under.


D$D