that's fine. i'll be sure to be laughing when the smaller sites who don't care about bots run with your money. i've also stopped giving action to any website that isn't pokerstars, even though the euro sites ssnl games are incredible.

re-koko

the webcam would be to prevent people from using the bot's logic on a separate computer. not to solve the current problem, and that wasn't what i was suggesting but ok call me a troll when you don't even come up with a suggestion. the botting problem as it is now and what it will be in the future are two different things. solving today's problems won't prevent tomorrow's.

So I guess you're beating NL2k ? Oh wait nvm you play low stakes STT

Dear xxxxxx,



Bodog Poker does not allow any type of software that allows players to gain an unfair advantage against other players. Rest assured that we have the available resources and procedures in place to deal with the matter.



If any evidence suggesting these players were using software to gain an unfair advantage, we will take the appropriate action.



Please note that we cannot provide any details on any investigations into this matter due to privacy concerns. We would like to thank you for bringing this to our attention.



Regards,
Bodog Poker Security



poker@bodog.eu
1-866-909-ACES(2237)

Dont really want to post email to them as it discusses sn's and tendencies.

Will post if any more response or see suspected bots stop playing.

I dont play lowstakes STT, I play microstakes STT, and NL25

bump...................................

I scanned about half the thread, and most posts are pure garbage, but this one is great, and completely right. The fact is, there's no real way bots can be stopped, and they're pretty much going to take over online poker at some point, it's inevitable. There's too much money to be made, and there's no real way to make sure someone is really playing or is a bot.

Captchas, etc, are going to fail because there's nothing to stop someone from running a bot across a ton of sites, and just sitting there and acting as if he's playing. I'm sure chatting across 100 tables is not tough when you're not playing, and appearing on webcam, etc, is easy. If someone has a bot that is crushing high stakes, he's going to be willing to put in the time to sit there while it runs, he doesn't need to hire some minimum wage worker to act human while he goes out.

Wouldn't an easy way be to agree to let the sites scan what proccesses you're running on your computer?

They could put that in their TOS. Doesn't mean they'd "see" your screen or whatever people thought FTP was doing, just means they'd be able to see what kind of programs you're running on your comp only while you're playing poker.

Personally I'd be glad to let reputable sites do this if it makes me safe from bots.

edit: I know little about programing/computers, but I don't think it'd be that hard to include a scanning device into the poker client, one that could be updated as need be.

You could have a second computer beside you observing the same table, all you have to do is enter the hole cards and everything else is the same, voila, nothing on your system, but the bot still suggests your moves.

Sites like PokerStars have experts working on more practical solutions, just support them and stay off the questionable networks.

Well if we're talking about a bot giving advice and a human pushing buttons manually 100% of the time, I don't think anything can be done to stop that.
You'd have to make judgement calls based solely on the quality of play, and I just don't see how that's feasible.

in case it haven't been posted.

Wow.. that's as conclusive as it can possibly get.... and we're only in the early stages of bot development. They'll figure out how to make it less apparent.

That's 5M hands played by bots winning at 2-4bb/100. Granted it's micro stakes but it just shows how much damage bots are doing to the games.. now look at the Ongame ones winning 500k+ this year and it's pretty amazing games on ipoker and Ongame still run.

I would never, in a million years, want to play 6-max or FR on those 2 networks.

Would it be impossible to create lets say poker stars software with some sort of a built-in firewall that prevents third party software?? im a complete noob with these kind of therms but someone should get the point.

***** joke stars. Poker stars has a nice little list with 98 different softwares you are allowed to use. hallelulja

here are some examples of softwares that are permitted:
65.PokerObserver HUD
79.SitnGo Wizard (version 1.0.1.163 and newer)
70.PokerStrategy Equilab
90.Telescope by SpadeIt
32.Official Poker Rankings
18.Holdem Manager (including Table Scanner)
11.FreePokerDB (aka FPDB)
6.DonkeyTracker
24.Holy Grail of Poker
33.Omaha Brain

i mean wtf do you expect???


And please no third grade answeres that I use the wrong terms or cant spell perfect english. I want some sort of answere, why my thinking is wrong or whatever!!??

a cool rb deal on top of that.... and invest in a bunch of $300 computers and set up 20 comps running that ****... developing microbots and running them must be way more common than ppl believe. can bots be as many as 10% of all the micro action on bot infested networks?

I mean, the bots is probably flawed as ****, but seems to do fine.

edit: money taken from the natural cashflow of poker, this should worry precisely everyone, since it drains the economy so hard, winning bots drain money by giving the site a bunch of rake, along with a profit for themself that is never ever gonna see its face on higher stakes or something like that. Kill micros, lowstakes will decline in money and eventually stop when regs are tired of facing regs. Midstakes after that...

Make all players play under their real name, linked to their SSN. This would reduce multi-accounting as any extra accounts would need to be assigned to a real person who would be on the hook for tax and legal purposes.

Include harsh penalties for cheating, including fines and jail time.

Randomly audit high volume players, including unannounced home visits. You lose some privacy obviously, but wouldn't affect recreational players and pros would/should be willing to sacrifice.

So much fail in this thread.

What sense does this make? Everyone knows there are bots. People here choose to go play with them. They choose to go play on networks that at best are indifferent to the problem.

2+2 has a TOS. Maybe the government should throw people in jail who don't follow it.

this, bots are a huge problem and even though we'd all like to think not, I'm sure there are breakeven/profitable bots on every site at most limits incl. stars

wtf

...

Yes, random 5:00 am raids by FTP Bailiffs...
With thorough anal cavity probing...
Pros are known to hide Bots in their Butt.

"I'm from FTP... and I'm here to help".

I agree that a law explicitly making bots illegal would probably dramatically reduce the number of botters and would most likely discourage the top botters (academic mathematician types) from the trade. People who are smart enough to develop an unexploitable and optimally exploiting bot at high stakes are not going to risk doing years in federal prison, they'll find something else to put their talent to. There is evidence for this point of view from past legislation, for instance BJ computers. At one time there were many teams and players using BJ computers and even roulette computers before they were outlawed in the US. Now there are practically none and there certainly are not any big money pros doing it who pose a real threat to the casinos bottom line. Why would they break the law with such huge downside risk when they don't have to?

It would have to be done very carefully though. The potential backlash from a poorly written/dumb law like the ones alluded to itt could be severe - as severe as allowing bots to roam the tables unchecked. One or two highly publicized stories of some random player getting dragged out of their house at 3AM, locked up and charged with a 10 year felony because a noob security guy thought they might be a bot could kill recreational poker. That's just an example of course, its impossible to enumerate all the hypothetical scandals that a bad law could cause. I think the risk would need very serious consideration and may even mean that a law against botting could be counterproductive or even harmful.

I don't understand the strong negative response to making bots illegal. If you are playing for money and the understanding is that you are playing against humans and not computers, then anyone who uses a bot would clearly be committing fraud through misrepresentation.

Granted there is the gray area with huds, etc., but that could be clarified easily enough.

This is not totalitarian at all. if you steal my money by cheating at gambling then you are committing a crime.

as for no regulator having such rules have a look at the UK's 2005 gambling Act
http://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/2005/19/contents

Always kinda disturbing when you hear about bots but to see them like that on ptr is just ****ed up man. Really...

Something needs to be ****ing done about all this ****.

Same name types. EXACT same ranges, style, stakes, volume.
Same day started tracking. Same network.

100% bots.

So, how do u catch them if they change their ranges/names/volume and registration dates? That cant be so hard can it?


Looks like we are kinda fked