This 1v1 guy who bumped this thread seems like he is short AYA stock. Every single post he has made since joining a few days ago has been to bash Pokerstars.

The "1v1 guy" is in this thread as you point out - so why not have the good manners & decency to address him/her in the first person?

Incidentally it is due to people like "1v1" that we have this PokerStars announcement today [source PokerFuse]:

In response to a complaint that Spin & Gos are being datamined to provide some players with an advantage, PokerStars has announced that it is “taking steps” to prevent the practice.

PokerStars’ Ring Game Manager Baard Dahl said that he hoped the solution would be rolled out in Q1 of 2016, “though it is possible we will have to revise that date.” Dahl explained that the poker room has already dealt with the issue at the fast-fold Zoom

Correction to my previous post admonishing you. The announcement by PokerStars' Baard Dahl was yesterday in another 2p2 thread as follows:

Gold

No, this account was not to bash anyone in anyway, as it seems yours was created in the opposite manner. Your futile attempt to vilify, and discredit me is unwarranted. If, in fact you are as you have appeared from the get go, someone with serious vested interest in Amaya/Pokerstars, you should take a good hard serious look at the content of my posts, and the history that surrounds them. They not only represent a serious ON GOING PROBLEM on the tables, but a severely flawed structure of enforcement/lack thereof. To think millions of dollars can be won by bots, while these "professionals" whose supposed "JOB" is to detect these things, goes undetected for years yet is detected by a guy sitting at home at a desk while watching Xhamster is not only disappointing in the context of " we could have done more", it's down right suspicious. There is MILLIONS of dollars at stake and this is happening and it's justified by a 5 second PR statement.
The same bs is taking place with datamining. And now, the weak statement made by Baard is being trolled about with a urgent twist via twitter, via the Pokerstars spam accounts as something Pokerstars is taking very seriously which is just sheer nonsense in every respect.
Datamining has gone on for years, a thread was opened on July 3rd of this year and quickly closed after great posts on July 9. There, it was suggested that all that needs to be done is turn off the tournament search feature. We are told Pokerstars are "working hard" to stop this. That is 110% bull OR as also suggested in this article, Pokerstars needs to overhaul the inept security department because they truly are useless. OR, maybe those advertised amazing detection methods aren't so amazing after all. Anyway you slice it this smells like absolute funky drawers.

http://forumserver.twoplustwo.com/28...stars-1543880/



Very interesting to go back and read all the posts in this thread and see the current post by Baard stating they are working really hard, and than watch the pokerstars video on it.

This was released on November 25th 2014
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d5upxYyeoQ8

This was found/made on June 6/2015
http://forumserver.twoplustwo.com/15...-them-1537778/


I understand it's the job of the PR department to sugar coat EVERYTHING and make current and potential customers feel safe, however this whole situation in relation to those BOTS, how they were caught, who they were caught by and how much if any of that money was redistributed to the victims has been silenced by Pokerstars. This is now a publicly traded company and this is a SERIOUS flaw in game integrity and player protection. This is MILLIONS OF DOLLARS and should be lionked with the serious datamining problem that is also taking a TON of money out of the economy. I hope its not as easy as disabling the search feature

Pokerstars, are you going to issue refunds to the victims of the bot scandal? Are you going to issue refunds to all the players currently being cheated at spin and goes?

I didn't multi_quote this because it deserves a separate response.

It is totally unbelievable and a sad reflection of the online poker industry, and some people in this forum that people who are fed up with being cheated and want a fair game are called out.
Whats worse, is that article you found via pokerfuse is just a sad reiteration of the sad response given by the sad pr department. Now it's spammed by the PR bots to unsuspecting players who may have little to no insight on how bad the problem has been and how long it's been going on and getting worse. The whole thing is ONE BIG JOKE.

This is purely speculation... I wonder if there's a licensing obstacle we are unaware of to simply turning off the search feature in some/all games & that's why Rational Group can't just do a simple fix in their server & user interface software.

Perhaps it violates the oversight conditions imposed by one or more of the licensing governing bodies in some jurisdictions & so any software change of this type requires negotiation to adjust [some of] the license T&C's

Just a thought. It could be total rubbish - I have no idea if these governing bodies really care just so long as they get their annual licence fees

MY BIG GRIPE with PokerStars:
The canned responses that don't explain the mechanics & reasons behind their decisions. PokerStars don't seem to realise that short, vague responses look instantly suspicious - they look like [and probably are I think] evasions

It is clear they are not interested in 'working with' players to improve the player experience for every customer from the nanostakes all the way up. Given that Rational Group employees aren't allowed to play real money poker on PokerStars it's pretty obvious they need customer input to keep it real.

Small amounts of compensation were paid to some affected PLO players. These were tiny compared to the losses to the bot accounts and crucially the rake paid on those corrupted games.

Whilst Stars have not explained how the compensation was calculated it seems clear from the amounts paid that the $2m or so of rake on these games was not refunded, just the balances seized from the cheating accounts.

The UKGC have asked all poker sites how they compensate regarding collusion and bot scandals, the amounts, the calculation, the amounts paid out vs the amounts lost. They should offer some update on this "scoping exercise" in January when they should also be discussing possible new rules or a consultation for poker sites on the Licence Conditions and Code of Practice (LCCP) that set the rules for remote gambling sires and the Remote Technical Standards that deal with the technology used.

Richas, if they know that the Spin&Go is being datamined, is it legal for them to offer it in the UK, or do they have to suspend it? Thinking about the "fair game" obligation.

For anyone in contact with the UKGC I have access to emails from at least 2014 if not further back, I will have to check that shows they were well aware and told numerous times and pretty much gave the same responses Baard gave about working hard bla bla bla. It's lip service and nothing more.

What I want to know is are we going to get refunds for spin and go games being played with bots and datamining purchasers.

The people working for PokerStars are comically inept. Except noone is laughing.

Clearly legal. The data mining introduces fairness issues but the regulator is a long way from getting a grip on that. Data mining is much like 3rd party software in terms of fairness, The UKGC are only just getting to think about these issues. Meanwhile Nevada vs NJ gives us a stark difference - criminal vs allowed.

Quite where the UKGC will go is unknown but the bias (that I support) is for light touch regulation and empowering firms to act.

You are of course quite right that the "fair" obligation on the UKGC is not currently being met by poker. That is true for compensation, s/w, data, bots and collusion. The plus is that the UKGC when reminded of the obligation can (over years) be pushed to do more because of their remit.

Richas, in your opinion, can we hope/expect these new upcoming rules/guideline to be retroactive in some way? Im pretty sure we cant expect retroactivity for the hole history of online poker, but what about since regulation exists, or since this PlO bot ring scandal, or even earlier?

Sent from my GT-I9500 using 2+2 Forums

No. New rules are still far from sure at all, making them retrospective is just not going to happen. Whilst it is true that the PLO ring was basically under UK regulation, that Spin queue software was under UK regulation there will be no retrospective action - judicial review will not allow it, all we can hope for is better rules and enforcement going forward .

what are the odds that there are more bots or bot rings still on stars doing similar things? not necessarily even plo either

Around 100% obv, these guys only got caught cause they played at midstakes. I imagine there are a bunch of rings operating at low stakes. Why stop? The site/regulators don't care and the players have no recourse.

Yeah this was what i was thinking, pretty similar views as you on this whole ordeal. I can't imagine that this was the only one and why should it be when like you said stars really doesn't give a **** as evidenced by this whole fiasco.

I wouldn't be surprised if that was the case. I've always thought if I was running some bots I'd have the at lower stakes bringing in a nice steady income with a very low risk of getting caught.

How much was the total refunds? Have Eric Hollreiser adressed this issue in public?

It's only logical if it happened a few times now and it was only caught because of a player it's happening now. Also, anonymous sites like bovada are probably infested and because there's no user IDs, there's no way players can use heuristics to know who a bot is.

Basically as an American, my low-stakes journey on bovada, I'll just consider that I'm paying to learn from bots and the occasional bovada fish. I would not look to start a career in online poker with how things are running.

If Amaya approached it differently and were open about bots, problems, and paying back players it would be different, because that means they feel like they are solving the problem. By Amaya staying silent, they are basically ignoring the problem, which is the worst possible thing they can do.

*EDIT*

Does anyone know how these bots are operating? Are they like poker snowie and GTO, or decision tree based(finite state machine) or decision tree human hybrids?