Quote:
Originally Posted by limon
no. not at all. i honestly can't think of one reason for caring if people on gray market sites are playing against bots. i can't even think of a reason to care if they are being actively cheated. If I go play in a gray market live game hosted by a guy who operates in jurisdictions legally and illegally why on earth would anyone care if i played against a robot or was cheated? the ethics of the game host are obviously "fluid", i should know this going in.
There is nothing wrong with gray market sites compared to regulated sites - provided the sites are taking equal security measures, paying out, and not being total pieces of **** like Full Tilt or Lock Poker etc. ... ACR obviously has some security issues going on and has had for some time, but they've always paid out. Despite the issues, I've managed to win money there. I'd argue a big reason regulated sites aren't experiencing the same kinds of troubles is mostly due to ring fencing ... as we have seen most of the bot operations are based out of a certain part of the world that can't access ring fenced sites (at least as far as anyone seems to know ...)
Honestly, from the outside there is no way to tell exactly how seriously ACR takes these incidents or what if anything they're doing about it. Investigating something like this certainly takes a lot of resources and expertise - except in cases that are totally obvious. I do think it's clear they don't take it seriously enough, especially after removing country names.
A lot of players want or "need" to play online for various reasons. Quotes around need, because I understand pros can get a different job. Government policies generally seem to be getting stricter around the world over time - and in areas with regulation, like the USA, it has been going
very slowly. It's been over a decade now since Nevada regulated online poker and we still only a have a handful of states with online poker. That is ridiculous.
Underground live games seem like a good comparison but really aren't ... they are on a much smaller scale than ACR which can be accessed almost anywhere in the world & who have a reputation to maintain.