If this can happen for this long on pokerstars without being detected, other sites must be filled with bots since they have a fraction of pokerstars security.

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Though it's going to be a bumpy road with a lot of dead ends, false starts, and learning experiences, problems such as these are something that conscientiously-regulated online poker will help solve.

One reason bot operators feel free to deploy them is that when Stars operates in grey markets, going after them in any capacity is a jurisdictional nightmare. Not to mention, law enforcement in developing countries rarely take an interest in solving e-crimes, due to their complexity. The GCB in Nevada and DGE in NJ have gone to great lengths to codify that cheating an online casino is just as serious and prosecutable offense as cheating a B&M. There are currently few disincentives for bot operators. But in a regulated environment with motivated gaming enforcement divisions -- where the possible repercussions involve lengthy prison terms -- cheating will for the first time have material disincentives.

This is where a critic would come along and point out that black hatters don't give a F, and will always be a step ahead of the authorities. There's no such thing as a PERFECTLY-regulated/policed online gaming environment. There's just isn't. We need to drop "perfection" as the standard to aim for as reasonably achievable. But that doesn't mean that a regulated environment, where operators have SSN's of every player, won't dramatically stem the tide of bot use and other cheating.

Here's hoping.

if poker were regulated, then could people operating these bots be punished legally and have their cashed out winnings confiscated?

fedor is playing as we speak. im sure they(the botters) are monitoring this thread aswell . seems like they dont give a *** , which means that stars has nothing in hands against them.

i quit playing stars until this is solved.

Good post.

Would like to add that websites largely by their own choice have created an environment where the best course of action is to try and minimize the perception that collusion occurs and do everything they can to protect themselves and as a by-product, protect the cheaters.

Why do collusion refund emails state:

We can't tell you who cheated you.
We can't tell you what games you were cheated in.
We can't tell you what date you were cheated on.
We can't tell you our refund policy or why you were given the amount you were given.

This is done by design so websites can pocket money off of colluders.
This is done so players can't argue that their refund is unfair.
This is done so players can't tell other players to check if their refund was fair or if they even got a refund.

This is sold to us that the websites don't have a say in the matter and it's the various gaming commissions who insist on this privacy and non disclosure of any details pertaining to refunds. Who pays these gaming commissions?

And as an afterthought if a player complains that 2 people are cheating proactively the response is that the players are banned and will never play on the site again. Therefore that's a violation of those players privacy if this "law" actually exists.

There's every reason to believe botting is far more ubiquitous than we know, because the people who keep getting caught are so inept at covering their tracks. Most won't be so inept. There's also every reason to believe bots are evolving and will get better and harder to detect.... what we have is a near perfect environment for botters, not poker players asking for perfect protection.

I suppose so. This happened to players running bots on Swedish gov. owned site Svenska Spel.

lets say bots represent 5% of the playerpool. there is no way that 5% worth more than all the brand value stars can lose with that news.

THIS NEWS NEED TO GO VIRAL if you guys want some change. stock market gonna crash.

Have Stars commented on this anywhere?

With bots, huge rake, accounts getting hacked i'm struggling to find a reason why i'd bother depositing.

Schwein (the guy that has been collating the stats of suspected botters) is in contact with them.
From the other thread:
So there is at least an ongoing investigation.

I see, thanks.

It would at least be nice if they made a public statement about this. There's a lot of interest in the topic and obviously a lot of concern. I can't say that they're presently calming people's fears.

hope he is getting paid handsomely for giving them an extremely efficient system to detect bots. most likely they will say thanks and cut staff numbers as they have a new and more efficient system. lol at stars asking for help off him. they are absolutely useless yet proclaim themselves as industry leaders in bot detection/collusion etc

Any rewards program by it's very nature is going to have greater benefits for the most frequent users. This doesn't contradict the fact that high volume winners hit Stars' bottom line negatively. There's a reason why Stars have been shifting their rewards program for some time now, taking from the top and giving to the bottom.

Implying that Porsches are freely handed out is completely inaccurate, as you well know. Choosing to inaccurately portray that as the case doesn't strengthen your belief.

The fact is the rake from winning high volume cash players does not make up for the money they take out of the game, hence why it's ridiculous to suppose that Stars benefit from (or are simply indifferent to) bots.

Watching Sauce play Ziig and Lars atm and obviously they've worked very hard to get where they are but it must be kinda nice to sit in a game where every player (albeit highly skilled) is known for many years and pay 5$ rake on 40k pots. Ofc you'd love some unknown whale to sit but in some ways they have it good that's all I'm saying.

They are usually very good at being transparent especially with HUGE incidents. Just take Jeans/hotel/hack thread and the automated software one recently.

lol, you had me for a second there.

http://youtu.be/d5upxYyeoQ8


Pokerstars, take down this video. It's self promoted propaganda and BS. You were bluffing your players and got snapped.

i think they were talking about captchas, not running a bot seperately from the PC with the pokerstars client

Captchas won't do **** for anything when it comes to advanced bots beating midstakes poker. If you don't want to hire a russian friend for $5/hr to sit at the computer and wait for a captcha to pop up, you can outsource the entire thing across the globe and pay an indian $0.50/hr to do it instead over remote desktop.

I have a couple of good friends who work for sportsnet in Canada a major sports network that has a show, primetime sports, show that Daniel Negreanu has appeared on numerous times. I have forwarded this theead to them. Hopefully this will get on air and be discussed as they have a huge viewing audience. I will personally call the show during open lines and bring it up as the host enjoys talking poker and big stories. This would qualify.

Doesnt need bots to realize that even the best online player alive would have a close to 0% chance of winning long-term vs a completely average guy who knows 2 other players hands at the table.
And yes, the best player would run "below EV" (from his own point of view).

Just look at the math:

The bot could know that his KQJT with a flushdraw is in actuality a 56% FAVOURITE vs your set of Aces on a A92 board!!!
All the bot needs is to know the hands of two other players (who held the right cards of course).
Knowing 8 more cards is so massive when you think about it just a little bit... you dont even need a bot. Just play high enough stakes with 2 friends. Your egde is so massive that it would take a 3 complete morons to lose (even vs very good competition).

Is anyone following the russian forums? What are they saying about this? Any links to interesting threads?

To figure out if someone probably knows more cards than he should, stars could run a simulator that shows them if a suspect is still making a lot of "-EV" calls AND folds AFTER factoring in the dead cards other players held. Obviously it is a bit more complicated, but they make enough money to hire some decent programmers.
Reshuffling the dead cards would help, because even though the bot would still know that the other player CAN NOT hold the formerly dead cards, it still greatly minimizes his ability to out-calculate you, and therefore minimizes the massive edge that such a bot could posess. And we`re not talking about just a couple of % here!

To come back to my previous example of you holding AAxx on a A92 board vs KQJT with a flushdraw:
You think the odds are somewhere like 66 / 33 in your favour.

The actual odds after knowing 8 more cards could be (roughly) anywhere between you being a 44% dog or you being a 91% favourite!!!

Do you really think it takes 3 geniuses to beat ANYONE at ANY STAKES with such an edge?

I didn't want to suggest it as I have no idea. I am wondering if there is any evidence either way. Having a very strong "honest" PLO bot at this point would be quite an achievement from programming point of view, especially if it's 6max that is targeted.