Quote:
Originally Posted by TimTamBiscuit
The main thing I'm trying to bring to the attention of readers of this thread is that Pokerstars document is useless. Don't be fooled by its length. It achieves nothing because everything it restricts is easy to bypass in terms of what it allows.
I would encourage all to find a different site to play on as Pokerstars management is clearly incompetent.
Enforcement is clearly an issue. Here Stars are looking to work with software suppliers and developers, to get them to comply with their rules in order to get listed as legal software. There s considerable mileage in that - the main suppliers will want to comply and be approved. That is the vast majority of software actually being used.
Then there are those that already supply banned products. It's not a new issue but getting the majority on board and compliant works to some extent. What Stars says or does in terms of drawing lines makes no difference to these suppliers of banned services/software, they will carry on anyway and detection/enforcement is difficult.
Every site has the same issues, the rest are just less clear re their policy, in part because they don't even have the small stick of prohibition from the near monopoly site.
Today Stars only sanction on suppliers is whether they list the product as allowed or not. Their hand is relatively weak - Better enforcement means including the regulator and the law. That way suppliers and users of illegal/banned software would face additional sanctions.
That legal framework already exists in the UK - all that is needed is for the regulator to insist that suppliers of remote gambling softwae to consumers need to be licenced in the same way as software suppliers to remote gambling operators are required to be.
Then just buying illegal software/services from an illegal unlicenced supplier would carry a big fine and potential prison for those supplying the cheat software (including bots).
DIY tweaks or s/w only used by the player developer would not be covered by the law but anyone selling software or services (including data) would be.
Criminalising supply of unlicenced software makes enforcement a lot easier, it increases deterrents too - it also means legal suppliers would have to meet regulator set technical standards which could easily include not just declaring the software to operators so that we can have differentiation/choice on what is allowed by site or table.
For me, crucially, it could mean that operators would be enabled to check the data being used within s/w that is legit using own data but banned if using illegal data. It would be part of the remote technical standards that apply to licenced software.
Here Stars (Rational) is acting as a quasi regulator, setting standards that would in practice apply to the whle industry but they are doing it without th powers of a real regulator. They need to talk to the real regulator and get them to use their powers to back up the sites on enforcement.