Online Poker Fraud Revealed

I just finished watching the piece on 60 Minutes about the Absolute and Ultimate Bet poker scandals. As online poker players we need to be very careful when playing these sites. I have heard stories from countless players claiming the hands they play appear to be manipulated. There are chat rooms out there making the players just feel like they play poorly, when in fact if you were one of the victims at Absolute an UB you were just being cheated.

What we need is a real time regulatory body or service that can prove to the players the hand they were just dealt was on the up-n-up and that none of their competitors had an unfair advantage. We need a product like DealGuardian to protect us from internal fraud and scams. But until we unite and demand such a service from the sites we play, they will gladly keep taking our deposits and drain the US economy out of billions of dollars every year.

Looking for a more realistic poker experience on line

I spent a better part of the day yesterday playing $5 SNGs at FTP. I found two things disappointing. First off, some of my opponents appeared to be BOTs and second I have a pretty good idea I was the victim of collusion on more than one occasion.

Do I have any proof of these accusations? Sadly no. There are not any viable technologies to prove them unless the poker room has the proper analytics to track down this behavior. Collusion is a tough one, so I'm going to focus on that another time. Today I'm going to focus on the poker aids employed by many of the on line players, including BOTs.

I would like to sit down at an on line poker table and know that I'm playing against other humans and that they only know what they know about me through playing me. Just like live poker, I want to play human-vs-human. That is where the true skill lies. Playing, remembering and making decisions based on experience, not what the HUD is telling me. For the record, I do not use any of the poker tracking tools available to on line players.

In short, on line poker can have it's BOTs and HUDs because a good number of players use them. What I want is an on line poker room that prevents players from using such tools. That technology is easy to develop and it would be nice when an on line poker site steps up and tries to cater to the traditional player. One who wants to match skill-against-skill, not skill against computer.

How about insiders at the poker site?

Can anyone at the poker site see what your holding? What if they used that information to help another player? Remember UB and Absolute. If it can happen once, it can happen again. What if there was a product that can help stop this type of cheating...would you demand it from your poker site?

Can you see the cards being shuffled on line?

When playing at a live table, you can see the cards being shuffled and dealt. How do you know the cards are being shuffled properly on line? How do you know they are being dealt in order?