There is a rumor in FT's forum that FT has refunded money seized from to confirmed bot accounts after a lenghty FT investigation.

Those of us thinking of any regulator mix for future on-line poker and those that oppose any regulation might want to consider their response to this issue.

I suggest that if the facts as stated on FT's forum are indeed true FT and it's rakeback affiliates should be held to a higher standard.

Simply refunding the money left in the bot's accounts by the time FT got around to completing their investigation, and suggesting this is fair as "that is all there is to be had" is crap.

I am by no means an expert in affiliate and on-line poker accounting, but I know enough that FT knows exactly how much I've cost them because of my "negative rakeback carry over" ammount.

I say the responsibility for ID'ing and stopping this crap can't end with a simple refund of the remaining balances from the seized accounts. FT knows to the fraction of a cent both their net revenue and the rackback payments made to these accounts.

If a rakeback affiliate can't spot a bot account they should be responsible for looking at bot like accounts. They after all process the payments.



D$D

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.

You have to be kidding.

I guess you're asking for opinions, so I'll share mine. Many people seem to think the government should regulate every industry for every potential problem. IMHO, it's not the federal government's responsibility to decide how poker sites should offer their services. If it were, then why shoudn't they ban Internet gaming to protect us?

Sites should be responsible for meeting their terms and conditions, and the free market can sort out the rest, IMO.

That being said, I'm not opposed to government regulation. I just don't feel it's necessary.

I think the regulation will hve to consider this. Part of FTs probelm was they LIKED the bots. Peopel started to complain about them, and they still didn't take it seriously.
Someone has to force sites to spend $$ combating collusion and bots, because a lot of them won't.

With competition that would exist with some sort of explicitly legal status, players simply would't play sites like FT if they didn't like their bot policies.

Regulation may turn out to be better for us in terms of making sure the fish are willing to play. If regs are +EV, I'm fine with it.

My point exactly. Bots at play a little better than break even poker, and bank the rake back.

With lisencing would come some sort of legal entity. I'm not a lawyer but seems like there would be a responsibility of the sites to run a safe and secure game. From a purely business sense free markets are self correcting but some of the swing and scams can really burn people and sometime like the Louisina Lottery scam set an industry back decades.

No I am not suggesting that a couple of bot accounts is the same as the Louisiana Lotter episode, but how many more would it really take to change on-line poker?

As it is affiliates want standing in court as they are affected parties, since they stood up and in the bots case other than the poker sites profit the most from this type of play it seems the responsibility and the risk should be born by them.

D$D

We're PRETENDING sites are going to step up and go 100% legit.
The free market sucks at a lot of things. Its a lot like steroids in professional sports. The leagues cant control steroids. Bots are liek steroids. No matter how good I am at poker, a competent bot farmer can always make more money than I can at that level. Its an uneven playing field. It [censored] my livelihood. I dont want to comepte against programs. I don't the the average joe does either. Left alone, the sites won't expend $ or effort to root them out.

Why not?

That's why the sites will have to address the issue, especially if there is plenty of competition.

I know Americans have a new tendency to ask for government regulation every time they don't like something, but what you want can be accomplished via the free market.

Agreed. Concentrate on getting online poker "legally" available in the U.S. and there will be enough choices for players and the sites that are bot friendly will be encouraged by marketplace pressures to address the bot issue or reap the benefits of not doing anything.

Also, for others to suggest that affiliates be held responsible for bot accounts is unreasonable. How can an affiliate monitor potential bot accounts? They are not privy to the player data or tools needed to determine if a player is a bot.

I agree bots should be a free- market issue, not a legal or regulatory issue.

There are some "identified" bots of FT (actually the "sweat shop" guys, maybe they are not "bots") who can be easily beaten once you know their game (fold to their big raises PF or re-raise them after the flop - they fold 9 out 10 times if you do).

Bots are not and should not be illegal - they dont "cheat."

But they are no fun to play against that is sure. Their only real advantage is that they dont get bored folding everything but the top 10 hands and can play like that forever.

As a consumer, I too prefer to play against live folks not bots. I am sure that the sites understand this is the overwhelming view. Sites will respond to that or lose customers.

Skallagrim

Sheesh, what's the alternative other than the free market? Does anyone think some D.C. bureaucrat can set up a bot detecting agency? Let me rephrase that. They can set up an agency and collect a lot of taxes but does anyone think they can or will do anything other than waste money?

The only option we have is the power of the purse. As consumers, if there's a site we don't trust we leave and go to a site we can trust.

Don't the sites have some legal responsibility under Tort law to provide straight games? When their security is breached or over come shouldn't their "coverage" of losses extend beyond whatever they manage to seize?

I suggest this responsibility extends in the case of bots to the rake back affiliates. They bear some responsibility because they are the main payment processors and make a good deal from these type of players.

Unless those who profit from the bot accounts existance are made to dip into their own pockets rather than distribute what every scraps are left in the seized accounts, they will only show they are being cheap and attempting to band-aid the problem.

The problem is it is too easy for them to look away and cash in on the volume. They only hate the bots when the players leave or get pissed off. The rest of the time the bots are their best customers.


D$D

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.

When the affiliates cannot stop bot accounts, who are you going to go after next? The janitor in the Full Tilt building or one of the secretaries in the building? They gain from the bot accounts, also.

Does this mean that if I make money off a bot, then I have to give it back? I'm with Skall, I am not sure that using a bot is actually cheating or smart for that matter. The person behind the bot is risking their money on a programmed style of play. I'm not sure that should be considered cheating.

My thinking comes from the fact that a couple of poker site operators have claimed that there exists the technology to spot problem gamblers.

Bot's by their nature exhibit "un-natural" behavior.

If the poker sites are willing in exchange for "legal" access to US markets to run the problem gamblers filters and take some responsibility to stop or help them, then how much more is it to ask for the same commitment against bots?

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.

Setting the "enforcement bar" so low as to only a precentage of the seized proven bot accounts given to players specifically identified as playing against them, after an investigation ALMOST always iniciated by mutiple players is just plain stupid as a poker consumer IMPO!

I feel we are at an important time in the future of on-line poker. We the consumers, the little guys, have some power in this matter. The poker sites need us to lobby congress to get them more players to their game. I want all I can get in return for my efforts.

Asking for the best game in return for me helping getting them more players IMPO is a fair trade.....


D$D

Bots are easy to spot if a site spends time and invests in the tech. New ways to prompt unattended machines should always be being developed. It may not be cheating by the operator so much as fraudulent by the site. You market playing with real people, you need to deliver real people. Who would show up to play a chess prgram rated 200 points above them for $?

How can you hold affiliates responsible for bots and bot detection????

Affiliates are in no position to detect bots...Affiliates only recieve summary data from the site in regards to there players amount of play..

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.

Proof or link, please.

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?

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..

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

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.