try hitting her

ty, sent link there

GL

So 4M+ got stolen and all we go is nothing?
What about UK regulators? Richas said they know about the scandal...

They know.

I am due to meet with them again shortly on a number of things including bots and operator compensation for cheated players. August is a tough time to get people together or to make progress.

There has been a little movement by them lately, more signs of encouragement for a nag like me than anything hugely substantial but they have started to do a few things that I have been lobbying for. Nothing hugely exciting and not press release ready stuff but I'm hoping that the ball has (at last) started to move a bit, just in time for the new UKGC CEO taking over 1st October to have actual poker activities to review.

Obviously they cannot and will not share any information on a live investigation but they are aware of this case. As I explained a while back in the thread the timescales for us to get to closure on this are months not weeks.

PokerStars are better placed to provide an update than their regulator.

Ty very much Richas for the update

#2

thanks mate

i said this 2 months ago

Why should we not assume that NLHE MTT bots are not prevalent in the games now?

You want a cookie /kgb voice

Sad to see this topic die. Hope you guys get adequate refunds for this ****ery.

Refunds will be for less than 1% of the damage.

Fwiw I think I've found another bot playing plo100-500. The style is a bit more tight preflop, but very similar postflop. Overall 21/26 stats are within a 5% interval and a postflop-stats within 2-3%.

Have mailed Stars and Schwein.

It's pretty ridiculous that nobody recieved any refund by now. I did not expect a huge refund, but they should at least give the money to us that was still in the bot's accounts. I can't imagine they are still investigating this matter but I could be wrong?

I would guess there is a lot of work and bureaucracy to get to the "refund" part after the investigation is finished. They have to get it "right" given their standards and ways of doing things.
Not their standard piece of cheating, a very complex matter with many people involved on every corner.

It is also made more complex/sensitive as the regulator has asked for explanations of how the compensation is calculated.

In the past compensation has been given without any accountability re the amount or the calculation. That's no longer the case, it will need to be explained to the regulator and that means that it has to have some sensible rationale behind it not just a simple division of seized funds (maybe with a top up) based on say loss to those players or total hands played against them - distributed as the end of the process, closing the case. it needs to be explained/justified now.

TBF I am not sure what a "fair" distribution would be, especially as some will have beaten them, others lost big to them. Any player that beat them is adding to the net losses total of other players so if we say $4m net win, if winning players are say another $1m then the losing total is $5m - but is full compensation of all loses appropriate? Just seized funds and rake?

It's likely losing players lose anyway so what proportion of losses vs a bot is "fair"? Maybe "winning" players vs the bots would have won more vs humans, maybe they won more vs the bot than human opposition?

If you distribute an amount per hand then winning players get compensated, is that right? Remember some of the compensation pot might be from rake paid by opponents some from seized funds and potentially some as a Stars top up.

I doubt there is a simple compensation formula that is fair to all (including Stars).

Plus we have the problem of compensation funds now vs potential in future. Darren Woods related compensation included (basically was) £1m seized by the courts from Woods. That came years later, after a prosecution. Now here I doubt there would be much to be got but if the authorities got slick at these things then they might be able to seize assets/bank accounts from the offenders beyond what is left in the Stars account, that might take years to seize rathe than just freeze so it might be that there could be more than one round of compensation. If so how does that affect what should be paid in round 1?

It is not a simple question.

Sorry if my nagging the UKGC to get visibility of compensation calculations/amounts is slowing it down but long term I think it is healthy for us all - including Stars.

Nice work Richas it sounds like things are on the right track.

I wish. We are a million miles from where we should be and any slight improvement is horribly slow.

This is a solid post Richas

I just meant it seems like progress if Stars are having to account for refunds rather than just doing what they feel?

Yeah, I may be overselling it though, it's more like the regulators are showing an interest in compensation arrangements, we are a long way from any regulator guidance never mind requirements being imposed.

Even if the regulator did produce some guidance or rules a lot of care would be needed to avoid unintended consequences (deterring investigation, raising evidence threshold to seize funds/trigger compensation, bankrupting small operators, cost burden raising rake/reducing rewards........)

The only number that makes sense is the total of what they took out of the game, net winnings + rake. I can't see why the amount in their account would have any relation to what gets refunded. If a site has rules that bots are prohibited, it's their responsibility to uphold that and provide a playing field that follows their rules to their players.

Forget regulators. They are not smart people, and definitely not problem solvers. It's just another layer of people who will need to be paid off aka rake increase.

However, if people knew which type of people work in the "game integrity" or "security" department, you will not be surprised by anything.

The simple fact is that the bots + their creators are really smart people who have a huge financial incentive to do what they do with 0 downside (get caught, no jail time).

The people i had the "pleasure" to interact with made the impression of people whose intelligence is far below average and quite naive. It's hard to believe that these type of people will outsmart the bot-makers.

You will need some serious brains (former hackers, financial fraudsters etc... ) aka nasty people to create a system where botting is not morally reprehensible , but financially impossible.

I'm longterm positive that stars/online poker will solve the problem, while understanding that they might need to learn it the hard way first

+1. Someone needs to get Stars to comment on this particular point, if they don't agree with it they need to say why.

Looks like some highstakes PLO regs are using similar software already.

http://forumserver.twoplustwo.com/29...tware-1557602/

Bet you tweeted the nonsense too.