Collusion — signs and what to report?

gabriel31 · Oct 29, 2025

I suspected that two players were matching online, as they were checking after making other players fold. What are the typical signs and whether it is possible to report them to the site?

fundiver199 · Nov 21, 2025

Yes you can report it, and not going after each other especially in tournaments is one of the major signs.

Mauricio Perrotta · Nov 21, 2025

I wonder if cheating players who do that at a poker table will later feel some guilt. What do you think?

hardongear · Nov 21, 2025

Mauricio Perrotta said:
I wonder if cheating players who do that at a poker table will later feel some guilt. What do you think?

No cheaters never feel quilt or are sorry for cheating. . They're only sorry because they got caught not for the act of cheating itself. Most will in fact double, triple down and try to play the victim and make every excuse in the book for why they cheated.

Collusion is the hardest form of cheating to prove unless the people doing it are complete morons and brain dead.

Cheers!!!

G0930 · Nov 21, 2025

hardongear said:
Collusion is the hardest form of cheating to prove unless the people doing it are complete morons and brain dead.

Cheers!!!

Ooor you get incompetent morons as investigators and accuse you of collusion without any proof ^^

Some sore loser reported me and Sami some years ago. Just because we know our playstyles and made folds we would never do vs a player whose playstyle we don't know.....that sorry twat thought WE are colluding.

Every poker player knows that you adjust your game depending on the opponent.

It was the ultimate nail in the coffin for me with Stars.
I rarely play any game there now .

hardongear · Nov 21, 2025

G0930 said:
Ooor you get incompetent morons as investigators and accuse you of collusion without any proof ^^

Some sore loser reported me and Sami some years ago. Just because we know our playstyles and made folds we would never do vs a player whose playstyle we don't know.....that sorry twat thought WE are colluding.

Every poker player knows that you adjust your game depending on the opponent.

It was the ultimate nail in the coffin for me with Stars.
I rarely play any game there now .

Sorry to hear that. It sucks being accused of something you're not guilty of. I'm 100% sure this has happened more then once too two players who know each others play style inside out. I personally haven't been accused of collusion. Have been accused of being a bot a number of times specially when I first started playing and played a lot. It'd be nothing for me to play a 12-16 hour sessions in my younger days. I'd never chat and always take near the same amount of time between decisions. Perfect bot behavior.

I've seen plenty of good players check it down in MTT's when ITM and it's 3 players to the flop with the short stack all-in and the other 2 players have good sized stacks and end up with meh to middling hands. It's the smart play to check it down and take the pay jump. It's not that their colluding with each other it's simply the smart the play in that situation and both players are good enough to know that's smart to check it down. Adapt to the player and situation.

Cheers!!!

Mario7 · Nov 21, 2025

My bet is, playing micro or freerolls, 99,9% of such suspections of "collussion" is more or less the same quality as accusing sites for being "rigged". Usually some nonsense with no proof. Like - "they do not attack each other" - sorry, but this is ridiculous, hard event to comment...

gus_eva · Nov 21, 2025

I think that in the end everyone who cheats doesn't win

moraeskvmi · Nov 21, 2025

To report it, just send an email to the site's support team, with suspicious hands.

Happy Bobi · Nov 21, 2025

If you have witnessed a situation that appears to be fraudulent, you should probably report it. However, what seems suspicious to you may just be a coincidence.

billibooo · Nov 21, 2025

G0930 said:
Ooor you get incompetent morons as investigators and accuse you of collusion without any proof ^^

Some sore loser reported me and Sami some years ago. Just because we know our playstyles and made folds we would never do vs a player whose playstyle we don't know.....that sorry twat thought WE are colluding.

Every poker player knows that you adjust your game depending on the opponent.

It was the ultimate nail in the coffin for me with Stars.
I rarely play any game there now .

True <3 that was so gross...and made me start hating people who say that with 0 evidence. Just emotionally hurt over the loss of a hand or two. Not looking at themselves as the reason they lost the game. idiots <3

Then the trolls came out when you all talked about it openly as well <3 UGH what a nightmare

Personally I think anyone who says that and it was proven wrong, should get the ban. It has been an over used whine <3

fundiver199 · Nov 21, 2025

Mario7 said:
My bet is, playing micro or freerolls, 99,9% of such suspections of "collussion" is more or less the same quality as accusing sites for being "rigged".

I tend to agree. What might look like collusion is often just poor passive play, which is of course not shocking, if you are playing for free or for very little money. And even if someone are colluding by softplaying each other, how much value did you actually lose in your freeroll or $2 tournament because of this? Unless you see the same two players do it in tournament after tournament, its typically best to just let it go and focus on improving your own game instead.

monkeytilter · Nov 21, 2025

Report any behaviour you think is suspicious, the site/game organisers can decide if the suspicion is warranted and take necessary action.

I think it's best not to compile a list of possible collusion patterns here as it could become a "dummy's guide to colluding" for anyone looking to start colluding and is searching for ideas on how to.

The pattern you mentioned is easy for the site to retrospectively review and decide if passive play by the two "suspects" was reasonable after forcing other players out, though they would unlikely act on just one or two examples that could be put down to poor play/mis-click etc.

It would be interesting if you could post* the hand history of hands where you suspect collusion and see what verdict the court of CC passes on them.
*Remove player names for obvious reasons.
*Don't mention the site name/game name, organisers don't like having their games being brought into disrepute!

hardongear · Nov 21, 2025

Just another thought and point on this topic. The site will have a history on both players that they would look at as well to help decide if it was collusion between the two players. If they have long history of soft playing each other and things that could be considered collusion that would also go a long way in proving a case.

Fact is I can see collusion being very hard to prove if the two players involved are smart enough. I can think of a lot of ways players could collude even when not in the hand against each other. All of them almost impossible to prove.

Cheers!!!

Renolin Sindraj · Nov 21, 2025

Mauricio Perrotta said:
I wonder if cheating players who do that at a poker table will later feel some guilt. What do you think?

I very much doubt it

G0930 · Nov 21, 2025

hardongear said:
Just another thought and point on this topic. The site will have a history on both players that they would look at as well to help decide if it was collusion between the two players. If they have long history of soft playing each other and things that could be considered collusion that would also go a long way in proving a case.

Yes that was exactly the conclusion of these so called investigators. Soft Play
Ofc me and Sami played the same games a lot.
It was the time CC still had freerolls !
The same could have been said about 200-300 other CC members 🙄
Without any possibilty to appeal. We've been banned playing the same game for perpetuity and they insinuated we are lucky they still let us play....

Still bugging me this unfair treatment even If I almost don't play there anymore .
Frankly I only have Stars still installed for the daily spin and their fast withdrawal system for when I get lucky with the freespin win ^^

TeUnit · Nov 21, 2025

I have had mixed results turning players in for collusion sometimes the site ignores it, sometimes they ban the players, and other times they say its not collusion its just players playing poorly.

hardongear · Nov 21, 2025

G0930 said:
Yes that was exactly the conclusion of these so called investigators. Soft Play
Ofc me and Sami played the same games a lot.
It was the time CC still had freerolls !
The same could have been said about 200-300 other CC members 🙄
Without any possibilty to appeal. We've been banned playing the same game for perpetuity and they insinuated we are lucky they still let us play....

Still bugging me this unfair treatment even If I almost don't play there anymore .
Frankly I only have Stars still installed for the daily spin and their fast withdrawal system for when I get lucky with the freespin win ^^

Hey I'd like to have a look at that hand if you wouldn't mind posting here. If you'd rather not post for everyone to see my PM's are open feel to PM me.

Cheers!!!

bowserdon · Nov 21, 2025

doesnt help u that much , hard to prove

machinm19 · Nov 21, 2025

I’ve never encountered it knowingly but I do believe collusion is a big problem both live and online.

Lots of times I have thought maybe some of my opponents are doing this but it could just be bad play so I’m wary of making accusations without some concrete proof.

rhoudini · Nov 21, 2025

Honestly the best thing you can do is treat it like any other weird pattern you see online — note it, collect a couple of concrete examples, and then let the security team sort it out. Sites don’t act on “they seemed friendly” but they do act on repeated soft-play, weird chip-dumping patterns, synchronized folds, etc. You don’t need to prove anything yourself, just provide the HHs and they’ll review the full data behind the scenes.

DarkSage · Nov 22, 2025

Mauricio Perrotta said:
I wonder if cheating players who do that at a poker table will later feel some guilt. What do you think?

If they don't get caught, and they won't, the only thing they'll feel is the rush to do it again.
Welcome every human experience, we cheat and corrupt everything we manage to get our hands at.

fundiver199 · Nov 25, 2025

gabriel31 said:
I suspected that two players were matching online, as they were checking after making other players fold.

rhoudini said:
Sites don’t act on “they seemed friendly” but they do act on repeated soft-play, weird chip-dumping patterns, synchronized folds, etc.

Exactly. "They were checking after making other players fold" is not exactly strong proof of collusion. More information is needed like how many times did this happen, and which hands did they then show down? Is it really that obvious, that they only checked, because they were colluding, or could there also be other totally legitimate reasons?

In this hand, that was shared in the tournament hand analysis section, two players checked down turn and river after making another player (The Hero) fold on the flop. But maybe one guy just decided to give up with K high after stabbing the flop in position. And then the other decided to not bet his top pair for value, because he was trying to induce bluffs or was afraid to get raised on a paired board.

Nobody knows, and its not against the rules to check. So much stronger evidence is needed, before we start accusing someone of cheating. And frankly also waste the time of the security team, especially if we were playing in a freeroll or super low stakes game

fundiver199 · Nov 25, 2025

gabriel31 said:
I suspected that two players were matching online, as they were checking after making other players fold.

rhoudini said:
Sites don’t act on “they seemed friendly” but they do act on repeated soft-play, weird chip-dumping patterns, synchronized folds, etc.

Exactly. "They were checking after making other players fold" is not exactly strong proof of collusion. More information is needed like how many times did this happen, and which hands did they then show down? Is it really that obvious, that they only checked, because they were colluding, or could there also be other totally legitimate reasons?

In this hand, that was shared in the tournament hand analysis section, two players checked down turn and river after making another player (The Hero) fold on the flop. But maybe one guy just decided to give up with K high after stabbing the flop in position. And then the other decided to not bet his top pair for value, because he was trying to induce bluffs or was afraid to get raised. Nobody knows, and its not against the rules to check. So much stronger evidence is needed, before we start accusing someone of cheating.

Poker Orifice · Nov 25, 2025

fundiver199 said:
Exactly. "They were checking after making other players fold" is not exactly strong proof of collusion. More information is needed like how many times did this happen, and which hands did they then show down? Is it really that obvious, that they only checked, because they were colluding, or could there also be other totally legitimate reasons?

In this hand, that was shared in the tournament hand analysis section, two players checked down turn and river after making another player (The Hero) fold on the flop. But maybe one guy just decided to give up with K high after stabbing the flop in position. And then the other decided to not bet his top pair for value, because he was trying to induce bluffs or was afraid to get raised. Nobody knows, and its not against the rules to check. So much stronger evidence is needed, before we start accusing someone of cheating.

Okay okay... we already heard you.

Collusion — signs and what to report?

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