Got ripped off by cheaters?

[comradem]

Hi folks. I’m looking into cheating in online poker for a possible radio story. We’re looking for UK-based players who have seen collusion or cheating first-hand and who might be willing to talk about it (no need to name names if you’d like to remain anonymous).
Just to be clear, I’m not interested in blanket conspiracy theories about how all poker is rigged, and I’m not here to do a hatchet job saying all poker is bad. We’re interested in uncovering the devious ways in which cheaters and criminal gangs are taking the money of honest players – and maybe tracking down some of the scam artists themselves. It could be the Ultimate/Absolute scam of a few years back, or the more recent PokerStars Chinese DoN scammers, or perhaps a less well-known case.
If you can help, drop us a line: goldberg@bbc.co.uk. Thanks and good luck.

[tking888]

so you didn't join the forum for the usual reasons? your just going to post this message and be done with it?

[comradem]

well, I might hang around if you let me. thanks.

[scrawnybob]

hi all

just as a heads up comradem is indeed a legit researcher for the BBC - so NOT the usual scammer / survey type poster just on the hawk for business leads and emails

so Im sure members have got some useful contributions they could make to the thread
but they're not interested in the RNG rigged doomswitch nonsense - so please dont spoil a potentially interesting and useful thread with BB bitching and unprovable theories on half a dozen HH ... that isnt what they want to find out about

personally I think the well known and established sites and networks are legit ... yes there are a few rougue operations at the very bottom of the pile

but the biggest problem of is IMHO from player collusion and cheating - however I dont think its totally endemic

Alot of the cheating / collusion as Ive said before is from small groups of ineffective players who think they can shoot the angles but communicating hands via MSN or skype while playing but I think they're easy to spot and for sites to remove if reported

the Chinese group on the DON obviously shows that it can be done in a very organised manner and also just how important forums and players themselves can be on discovering / proving and breaking these cheating circles ...

in both the DON and the previous AB/UB cheating scandals it was players looking at player hand histories who spotted things were amis

however data mining, buying of hand histories and use of software to give players indepth player information on opponents could also be thought of as at least gaining unfair advantage if not so much blantant cheating ... some sites dont allow them but with a perception (rightly or wrongly) that games are tougher more players are using these tools

personally I think these tools should be discouraged and players should only be able to use either manually made player notes or data only mined from their own playing time - but thats another topic

there will always cheating and collusion - however its important that the sites do proactively address this as cheating will probably evolve as fast as detection catches them

I remember speaking to a new recreational poker player who barely knew the rank of hands but had thought he was very clever to have figured out that with the help of 3 or 4 of his mates he could win 5 SNG's in a row to win a substantial additional prize promotion that the network was running ...

their little group were then planning to alternate wins amongst each other so it "wasnt obvious" ... but with a little more thought they would have realised that this was a really really obvious attempt at cheating and sure enough the site picked up on after a couple of times. the accounts were flagged up and they lost their accounts and didnt make a penny

for the most part while some will always be tempted to try to cheat most will happily play a straight game

cheers scrawnybob

[tking888]

why is it only the uk players you are interested in? cheating is universal. thanks for the heads up on comraden.

[scrawnybob]

hi

the BBC is British and so I think this is for a UK radio program - therefore they're looking for UK input I think

cheers SB

[Limey777]

Alot of the cheating / collusion as Ive said before is from small groups of ineffective players who think they can shoot the angles but communicating hands via MSN or skype while playing but I think they're easy to spot and for sites to remove if reported

Well I think that just about summed it up!

Pokerstars tries to combat collusion by tracking player histories, to see if the same people are playing together on the same tables every night, but I would guess that only applies to the Hold 'em tables. There are only a few players that play PLO so it's the norm to see the same crowd every night.
If you had a large enough skype group then you could cycle players through the ring tables making this method of collusion more difficult to spot.
Pokerstars won't ban the use of skype as it's viewed as a "coaching" tool. To be honest there would be no point in banning the use of skype as cheats would only find another method of communication.
I forget the name of the software (shouldn't be too hard to find) but it would allow me to view another persons computer monitor. This isn't banned either as it's considered a "coaching" tool.
The fact is that these "coaching" tools are abused on a daily basis and if the limits are low enough then the cheats are more likely to get away with it.
When I say this I had better point out that I'm taling about FR and SH tables, I'm sure that collusion is easier to spot on SnG's, I'd imagine chip dumping would be the most obvious tell.

[PLAYFUL1]

YIPPPPPPPPPPPPP WAY 2 MUCH CHEATING GOING ON ALL OVER THE PLACE WHOWIEST ME