Bad? Or utterly ******? I choose the latter.

We have a very strict process for verifying collusion - there must be multiple examples of collusion and we combine that with other data that we've gathered. Once the team identifies the case, it then goes through a series of approvals, and then goes to the security panel if the case is significant enough. We release accounts where data is inconclusive.

It's a fine balance when a player reaches out - if we divulge too much about why the player's account(s) have been frozen for collusion, then they can use that information to avoid detection. There will always be individuals who disagree with our security practices. The reason why we created the Security Panel is to help us validate our own standards and to check our work.

Regarding HUDS, please review the above posts. To reiterate, HUDS are not allowed according to the Terms of Service. We however, have not found a good way to enforce this policy and are working on solutions. If you choose to play with a HUD, do so at your own risk. Same goes for Poker Minion.

Unfortunately, we will not be able to release that information. The communities that are frozen right now are part of a special group called the VIP channel (mainly used for overseas players and VIP players). These communities represent a small percentage of the total accounts on the site but were the ones with a high concentration of bots/collusion/sw assist.

Will you be employing a name and shame policy for the offending agents?

This would enable players to avoid doing future business with these scam artists.

It would also act as a deterrent to other potential scum bags.

Does it though? Even if the account in question did nothing wrong, you still feel justified in confiscating their funds?

In a word, yes. Poker King is a site that does not have KYC and we do not look at accounts as individuals (especially since many players multi-account). We use data to make decisions about collusion and financial connections between accounts. We have also taken it a step beyond to try and understand the relationships between accounts and the individuals involved (which we did not have to do).

Is this an aggressive stance? Yes. We stand behind our decision that any account connected financially to collusion, botting, or cheating will get closed and funds seized.

At this point, no. The decision we make on accounts and the communities involved will stay confidential for now. We are closing all communities associated with this channel so no players will be able to join the impacted communities.

So you're admitting these players are guilty purely by association.

Swapping action on the same table is a form of cheating and collusion and should be punished accordingly.

I don't know why you think that regs are swapping action on pokerstars, but if they were they wouldn't be dumb enough to settle the funds through the pokerstars client as they would be promptly caught and banned by stars.

And again, to clarify, Poker Minion PK has nothing to do with HUDs, or any predatory behaviour, it does not offer assistance with anyone's decisions, nor does it give you any additional information on players, or give you any unfair advantage. Assuming there is no problem with players tiling their table with a single mouse click or hearing a beep when it's their turn to act then hopefully there should not be any risk.

Guilt by association seems like a huge no no. Punishing people for the unscrupulous behaviour of other players is an extremely bad precedent to set. No legitimate player should be happy with this. There are so many worrisome hypothetical scenarios where players will get wrongly punished. I realise cost/time is probably prohibitive but it seems a half arsed approach.

This Lindyhppr account doesn’t seem real. How would one go about vetting their agent to ensure they won’t be associated with accounts that are breaking TOS? Once satisfied how would you avoid possibly becoming associated with these accounts at a later time? I can’t imagine wanting to deposit onto this site after reading his posts.

it might not be the best solution but it might be the only solution which works in the longrun.

i was one of the first europeans playing on Pokermaster and saw the entire development of the site first hand. I saw the first colluders, i saw the first bots, i saw them unwilling to do anything and now the site is just one big joke.

so what pokerking are doing might not be the right thing for alot of people who aren't guilty but are affected but their zero tolerance method will make damn sure that colluders and bots wont touch the site going forward with a 10 foot pole.

and yes it's also a problem that alot of people putting zero emphasis with whom they work, doing zero due dilligence. here are my 5 bitcoins pls load my accounts. so this might also have the benefit that players actually look abit closer with whom they do business going forward

Apparently not being part of the stable or having a financial relationship with any of the accounts also allows you to steal £25k from my accounts though. Using ‘an aggressive approach’ seems to just be your way of justifying stealing funds on a massive scale. Who will you be refunding my 25k to? All of the 10/20/40 players I alone played against and won money from with no other members of this ‘community’ playing? Seems reasonable

Basically this.

How can anyone ever feel confident about having money on this site? Like me, anyone could be part of a ‘community’, request a cash out of funds, but those funds could be sent to an account which has requested a deposit. This can happen without your knowledge, the account sent to can be deemed to have been cheating and you are then held liable to have all your funds seized due to a very tenuous association.

You can call this aggressively stamping out cheaters, but ultimately you’ll be stealing vast amounts of money from completely innocent players. I find it hilarious that there’s a few people on here actually applauding the site for this, I guess they’re hoping to get their hands on some refunds when a token amount is returned to the player pool somehow

New to thread and not involved in anyway. Read the whole thing and found it fascinating.

I looked at this site because I follow Meale and he was talking about it. I did not take me long to discount it because IMO if it is available to UK players (idk if it is or it is not) it would operating illegally (because of UK gambling regulations) and therefore my money would be at risk. Pretty much everything in this thread confirms that view.

Several respected 2+2 regs seem OK with what the site rep is posting since he talks with content, manner and style, favourable to the online poker community...that's fair enough but from where I'm sitting the site is judge, jury and executioner and that would be unacceptable in any country where gambling is regulated.

Specifically in one of the reps replies to Meale he posted...

Not true. If the "rules" (T&Cs) are not clear (and the rules about allowable s/w are demonstrably vague...and still are!) you would have zero chance with that line of argument if you were up against a gambling regulator (which you would be if I had played and you had frozen any of my money)

tl/dr

Self regulation in any industry involving consumer risk is a recipe for disaster (737 Max, anybody).

Just curious... why have you (and OP) created new accounts to post about this

Technically this isn’t a new account, it was created a few years ago, but I don’t read or post on 2+2 recreationally. I used to post on a UK forum under the same alias. I was made aware of this thread and thought it appropriate to comment as there is a dialogue with someone representing the site. Is that unreasonable?

I joined this company because I believe in its people and its mission. If any of the people involved in Poker King thought this was an attempt to steal funds from players, we wouldn't be here. You may question our practices but never our intent - to provide our players with the softest site in the safest environment possible.

To reiterate, closing this community and confiscating the funds was not a close decision. There is conclusive evidence of the following:

1) The community in question was created specifically for this community head and his stable.

2) The community head was directly involved in collusion along with others in the community/stable.

3) The community head and his partner were staking the members of his community and members of the community were sharing action with the individuals involved in the collusion. We have transfer history, interviews (community members, the union head/agent, and reputable individuals who know the community head), and other data that link each account within the community.

4) There is other information that is not presented here that condemns this community head and its members beyond any reasonable doubt.

Poker King does not taking closing of accounts and seizing of player funds lightly. In cases where evidence is not strong enough (even though we suspect there is a high likelihood of bots for example), we have chosen to release those funds back to the players (but close those accounts). This community is not one of those cases.

We have hired, retained, and consulted with some of the most respected names in the industry to validate our methodology and conclusions. These are individuals we count as friends, confidants, and advisors. The company is here to build something we can be proud of. We will not let the ill-intention of several bad actors stand in the way of what we are trying to achieve.

Ultimately, the battle for public opinion is a difficult one to win and thankfully, one that isn't our primary goal. This has personally been one of the most challenging and stressful times for me. We are trying to do the right thing (and sometimes that isn't the most popular option).

Uh...no. Transfers between accounts are documented and we keep records of which account transferred to which account. Also, the community in question was created for an individual and his stable. It's members are not random. There is no "vast amounts of money from completely innocent players" - this community had one of the clearest cut cases among the entire group of communities being investigated.

Your intent is obvious if you aren't directly refunding players you say were cheated. So far you have been very slippery on that point, when it's very easy to just say "yes, of course we directly refund players that we deem to have been cheated." The player you say was cheated out of 200k should have already received a refund, and yet you say you're "considering your options".

To be very clear, nothing has been decided on at this point. We are in the middle of an investigation - not trying to figure out what we are doing with the funds that have been seized. The priority and focus is to address the players and communities whose money is frozen.

While I agree in principle that the player that was colluded against should get some form of retribution, that discussion will come after the case is closed.

Somehow I doubt that

Your pretending like there's more than one ethical option to consider, when clearly there isn't. The fact that you don't already have a refund policy in place for a clear-cut scenario where you say someone is blatantly cheated out of 200k, means either you're totally incompetent, or you're a scammer and you just don't want to admit that you're going to keep most or all of the money.

So they have a gaming licence from the UK gambling commission? No dog in this fight have never messed about with these shady apps just curious as my understanding is they need a licence to offer games in the UK if they are truly legitimate.

You have data that links accounts in the group, we get it. They send money to each other to process cashouts. This does not mean every single player in the group is involved in cheating.


Bull****. If that's the case, why are there so many people complaining about having their accounts closed when they claim to have done nothing wrong? Either they're literally all lying on 2+2 after their money is already gone, as if lying about it would make a difference, or you DO NOT HAVE DATA THAT CONDEMNS EVERYONE YOU have seized funds from.

And apparently there's nothing we can do about it because when we demand evidence you hide behind "we're not at liberty to disclose our methods" as if you have some sort of crazy recipe for collusion detection. Your methods don't have to be protected - it's really ***** easy to detect collusion. I'll give you a hint, it involves collecting hand histories.

Next time you decide to ban someone and take their money I seriously suggest you provide that player with the evidence (again, hint, hand histories) to support your actions.

You're not trying very hard at all and that's abundantly evident.