Online poker scandals

Given to the exposure to these scandals involving players seeing your hole cards. I wrote a thread about the possiblity of poker being rigged. Ultimate bet and Absolute poker have been exposed in these type of scandals. I said before and still stand by the statement that poker is about money. With money involved it brings out all kinds of scams,cheats, collusion, etc.. these scams are not new to poker. I however believe with my involvement in online poker is on such a micro level it would'nt be worth cheating my low limit ass I HOPE However, all this gives me pause in having any real aspirations to play the higher levels. It gives the industry the TRUE NEED for a INDEPENDENT commision to certify and monitor the sites for fairness. Of course FT and PS are loving the small competitors being in such a mess. How does everybody else feel about this subject ?

Remember protect yourself at all times. Dont cry "its rigged " to cover you bad play. If a game(ring) seems weird join another. Disclaimer I don't believe in blaming the dealer live or online for my bad play or bad luck.

There will always be players trying to cheat the system to profit, on that point you are certainly correct. It's a prevalent issue in any endeavor that involves the possibility of easy profit. casinos are no stranger to cheating and collusion either -- they run hundreds or thousands of folks out every year, and even prosecute some.

That said, I have full confidence in the sites themselves, particularly those like Stars who go out of their way to put a stop to it. I don't for a second believe that these larger sites (Stars, FT, or even Absolute Poker/Ultimatebet) are knowingly and intentionally supporting cheats. My primary complaint with Absolute Poker/Ultimatebet was their less than earnest acceptance of the accusations early on, but the Devil's Advocate in me also understands how big corporations think. The bad PR, possible legal implications, the constant claims of cheating by bad players who refuse to accept their own faults, etc. are going to cause any corporation to be reluctant to accept the notion of rampant, high-stakes cheating without overwhelming evidence and a lot of attention, at least early on.

Many people think Absolute Poker/Ultimatebet were knowingly lying about the presence of the "back door" in their software that allowed their former employees with super-user accounts to see hole-cards. As someone who has worked in software development for 25+ years, the last 14 of which in a large Fortune 500 IS shop of over 500 people, it's not at all uncommon for management, marketing, and the spokespersons of the company to be completely clueless about the technical aspects of their own software. Combine the fact that, IIRC, AP/UB got the software through an acquisition, and didn't write it from scratch themselves, and I can totally understand the possibility of their lack of understanding as to what their software was capable of, until they had the chance for a forensic analysis. A good developer can hide such exploits very well.

Here's an interesting blog written by Richard Marcus, who bills himself as "The World's #1 Casino and Poker Cheating Expert." While I have no clue as to the veracity of his claim, many of you long-time gambling vets may know something about him. Anyway, in his blog he covers cheating among online casinos, poker rooms, and sportsbooks. He rates them based on their "safety" against cheaters.

Online Poker Room Cheat Ratings

Ten Safest Online Sites:

1 Ladbrokes
2 Poker Stars
3 Party Poker
4 Bodog Poker
5 CD Poker
6 Full Tilt
7 Titan Poker
8 Players Only Poker
9 Red Kings Poker
10 Betfair Poker

My rating system is a compilation of the three major forms of online cheating: collusion; bots and hacking. Note that hacking is rare, and it has not happened this month on any of the sites on the list.

Click to expand...

I definitely agree with your post and love the great response. I was suspious of the sites not finding these breaches of trust thru there own security. Real carpet casinos have many cameras etc... to twart any breach of fairness ect.. I expect the sites to do the same its just good business.

I do not play real money poker because i am not good enough. I play freerolls for the fun and the people and hopefully to learn. But there are times when it seems that some people have to be cheating. I have seen so many people going all in with just plain crap cards and it is not just at the beginning of a game, some times it is when there are only 10 or 12 left. They go all in for a big pot with 5-9 or 8-q cards that are not very good and they catch their cards. I watch how the good players play in the league freerolls and they never play that wild. Anyway that is just my opinion.

sigh

All enterprises are subject to attack by unscrupulous insiders. They can be online poker sites, brick and mortar casinos, banks, financial institutions, the town Little League organization, or just about anything else you can imagine. You can't stop someone who's smart and motivated no matter how diligent you are. This also goes for terrorists and the dweebs that provide us with software viruses.

When they get caught, and I suspect that at most do, it's usually because they make a stupid mistake or they get greedy.

Every system has flaws, and it's only a matter of time before the flaws are identified and exploited by the bad guys. All the online poker sites can do is be diligent. The larger and older ones have more resources to audit their systems and identify the culprits in a timely manner.

The bottom line here is that if you are really worried about being cheated, turn all your assets into cash, move to the wilderness, and bury the cash in the ground.