interesting

Facts tend to require supporting evidence for them to be believed.

First, prove that players are using Teamviewer to "play" on Stars while in the US.
Second, prove that Stars is turning a blind eye.

In 2013 I played on Full Tilt and Pokerstars from the US for many months using a VPN. Neither the companies, or any US government agency had any idea and the reason is simple: because no one is asking them to look. The government has much better things to with their time than going after kids playing games on the internet. The poker sites don't care because it doesn't hurt them and it would cost them extra money hiring more IT people.

They do not care very much, if it all. On several occasions I forgot to turn on my VPN and I logged in, realized my mistake and then re-logged in using my VPN. If they cared to look, they would see that I logged in from Toronto 2 minutes after logging in from Los Angeles. But, I never got any problems, because they are not looking. If someone accused me of cheating or some other special circumstance, they would probably realize what's going on and shut me down, but that's unlikely.

This has no affect on the future of internet poker in the U.S., unless the government tells pokerstars that they must look for this. As of yet, there is no information out there to suggest this is the case. Nobody should be bothered by this as it is a completely victimless crime.

This is your ultimate point? That the people doing this are generally good and generally not bad. That is your point?

And you want someone to do something more about it because you don't like the ratio, yes?

Playing via a VPN is pretty stupid... though I'll submit some still do it... few who do it are technically savvy enough to do it right, so that disconnections won't result in packets going through to the host outside of the VPN.

The smart guys do it by using TeamView/VNC/whatever screen sharing program, with the client actually running on a computer in the appropriate country. Since they are just virtually controlling a computer, it's pretty difficult to detect... and there are legit uses for these screen sharing programs, so they can't just ban them (even if they could detect them all).

I'd say it's no so much turning a blind eye, and more just that it's a nearly impossible problem to completely lock down. The resources it would take would be fairly massive, and even then it would simply be an arms race without anywhere near 100% detection.

Nevada sites (WSOP, UP) don't allow you to log in if VNC is running in the background. How difficult would it be for PS to implement the same restrictions?

When you permit these types of programs to run, the possibility also exists that one person is controlling multiple accounts, all at the same time.

FWIW team viewer or other remote desktop applications should be just as detectable as banned third party programs, but ofc ppl who know what they are doing can mask it.

Okay, so you run Windows in a VM, and do your screen sharing outside of the VM. Now what? There's nothing to detect, from the POV of the Windows VM, you're not running any VNC software at all.

Agreed, but make it as difficult as possible.

Letting these programs run makes it easy as hell for people to cheat. Ex: Fish goes deep in major tourney. Tourney pro with huge database finds fish's contact info via google or however, & makes an offer to fish to buy the account for the remainder of the tourney, all fish has to do is download teamviewer/VNC & let pro control the account for the rest of the tourney.

Anybody that thinks or claims this type stuff doesn't happen is either outright lying to protect people doing it, or is delusional.

Point taken but the sites need to make it as difficult as possible, as said before. I'm not real big on VM's, but a short google search indicates that there's ways to detect if somebody is running a VM. Check for known VM drivers, known VM extensions, etc. I doubt it will be foolproof, but the more difficult you make it, the less likely it is to occur. If somebody wants to buy an account or use somebody elses computer (for daily use, tourney use, whatever), but the target machine has to set up Virtual Machines, or go through a bunch of extra steps, I'd guess it will be less likely to occur.

so whats stopping row players from playing the same sngs on 2 or more computers right next to each other that are teamviewing other accounts that are half way across the world, clearly this is ****ed

Nothing at all. It has happened before and almost certainly is still happening.

Funny how the people with location murrica getting mad and telling op to mind his own business. It is known that a lot of them are using team viewer. Get over it.
Team viewer is probably running with half the highstakes players and stars knows but they cant ban half the players in hsmtts.

OP obviously supports out of control draconian US government decision to shut down poker so that he can have softer fields. It's great that you somehow benefit from a terrible decision that bars people from doing what they want in their own homes, with their own money. Finally, you have your edge you stupid nit.

Predictions:

-OP totally terrible at poker.
-OP has ABI of <$25.
-OP does not personally know a single person that plays via these means.
-OP cannot support his statement with facts.
-OP would support ban of Canada and any other country he doesn't live in.
-OP has no understanding of the poker economy, at all.
-OP thinks he is on some sort of moral high ground.
-OP hates HUDs.
-OP has never actually read Pokerstars TOS regarding team viewer.
-OP does not understand OUTRIGHT cheating is a reality game, live or online.



(On cheating: historically PS and FTP have done a pretty good job of sussing out blatant SnG chating and players have gotten back vast sums of money when they figure it out. The poker community obviously has done a great job historically with uncovering long term cheating. If you can't understand and accept that cheating is a reality both live and online, gtfo the game.)

Unreal that OP actually is mad that people have not had money taken from them.

OP can say whatever he wants about "not caring" and what his "intentions" are supposed to be but if you read this thread it's obvious he is grinding an ax and would rather see people outed and broke than some how overcoming black friday.

Poker is struggling enough without people like you: the .00001% who essentially side with Black Friday by wanting to see it enforced to the absolute max.

SUPPORT YOUR ORIGINAL THESIS WITH FACT/EVIDENCE OR GTFO.

Delete this negativity.

yeah, this.

So players in the US can't legally play on Stars, because their government decided they needed the FREEDOM of being told how to spend their own money. We all agree that this prohibition is inconsistent, unfair and an invasive violation of basic civil liberty. And yet, rather than supporting the right of US players to play online poker like the rest of the free world, some choose to complain that a number of good players are circumventing this stupid law because they'd prefer not to have to compete with these guys.

Of course we all miss the US fish, and of course it sucks that the only US players still grinding these days are the good ones. But that's the fault of the US administration, and any player who's successfully getting round their disgusting, ******ed legislation should have the support of the whole community. They certainly have mine! glglgl USA USA USA

Why would anyone not want to play on US serving sites? Alll of the good players moved abroad or are using vpns. Amirite?

You don't have to be tech savy to click the button that says don't connect to the internet if the VPN loses connection. VPN'ing 101

OP why are you so mad? Aren't you a high stakes regular at the bellagio? Don't think we didn't notice you name drop Gus.

OP has started 3 threads. All 3 threads this guy has started are tattle tale threads.

OP, you are a codified tattle tale. Why?

This thread is too funny.

It would probably not have been taken very seriously had all the posts expressing outrage not brought so much attention to the fact that OP is presumably on the money.

If so many posters are so upset, then presumably it must be true. lol

If we get another Black Friday then it affects ROW players with funds on Stars in a serious way .. so of course this is a valid topic for discussion.

Free99 is not that intelligent. Obvious that op plays online from US and wanted to see what others were thinking about how safe it was and etc..
They same people on two plus two constantly beat every thread down. Discouraging.

Poker is banned in the USF now too?

Smart people who play high stakes poker just pay competent IT professionals to hook them up with a bullet-proof setup. Definitely can and does happen... and very little Stars can do about it.

The draconian measures they might have to take to accomplish this would also put an undue burden on their regular "law abiding" customers. And it's not their job to be the Poker Police. That's Jimmy Fricke's job.

OP is talking about the University of South Florida.