Posted on 10/18/2007 6:58:11 AM PDT by philsfan24
A few weeks back I blogged about allegations of cheating at an online poker site called Absolute Poker. While things looked awfully suspicious, there wasn’t quite a smoking gun, and it was unclear exactly how the cheater might have cheated.
A combination of some incredible detective work by some poker players and an accidental (?) data leak by Absolute Poker have blown the scandal wide open.
Some opponents became suspicious of how a certain player was playing. He seemed to know what the opponents’ hole cards were. The suspicious players provided examples of these hands, which were so outrageous that virtually all serious poker players were convinced that cheating had occurred. One of the players who’d been cheated requested that Absolute Poker provide hand histories from the tournament (which is standard practice for online sites). In this case, Absolute Poker “accidentally” did not send the usual hand histories, but instead sent a file that contained all sorts of private information that the poker site would never release. The file contained every player’s hole cards, observations of the tables, and even the IP addresses of every person playing.
Then the poker players went to work analyzing the data — not the hand histories themselves, but other, more subtle information contained in the file. What these players-turned-detectives noticed was that, starting with the third hand of the tournament, there was an observer who watched every subsequent hand played by the cheater. Interestingly, the cheater folded the first two hands before this observer showed up, then did not fold a single hand before the flop for the next 20 minutes, and then folded his hand pre-flop when another player had a pair of kings as hole cards! This sort of cheating went on throughout the tournament.
(Excerpt) Read more at freakonomics.blogs.nytimes.com ...
If this is all true, I presume that the two cheaters are looking at potential prison time. I would also guess that if Absolute Poker continues to argue that nothing out of the ordinary happened, they will take an enormous hit to their profits. Online poker is a game of trust — players send their money to a site believing that they will be playing a fair game, and trusting that the site will send them their winnings. If there is even a little bit of uncertainty about either one of those factors, there is no good reason for a player to choose that site over the many close substitutes that exist. If I ran Absolute Poker, I would take a lesson from past corporate attempts at cover ups, sacrifice the cheaters, and institute safeguards to prevent this ever happening again."
The detail account of the story is here (http://forumserver.twoplustwo.com/showflat.php?Cat=0&Number=12523924&page=0&fpart=1&vc=1) at 2+2 Poker Forum
ping
PING!
PING!
Cheating on an online poker site? I’m shocked, just shocked!
And there are STILL some people that wonder why the liberal socialists are IN FAVOR OF ON-LINE VOTING.....who is kidding who???
ping
This is no good...
There’s lots of cheating that goes on...Think of this.. group of people enter one table. They’re on the phone..they talk to each other so everyone know what each other has. The odds are they are going to win the majority of the time. They take the money and split it. This is the most common form of cheating on online poker sites.
The best bet if you want to play is just play the low betting tables, or just practice. You’re a fool if you play the higher end tables.
What?! Gambling is just a scam to sucker people out of their money?! Nobody could’ve guessed that!!
If you gamble at a casino {as I occasionally do} you are only recreationally retarded.
I've gambled for over 50 years, and in the long run, you cannot win. You can have fun, and you may win on occasion, but who do you think pays for the casinos?
The people playing games of chance where the house has a distinct advantage that over time can not be overcome?
No, I like to watch it on TV.
“And there are STILL some people that wonder why the liberal socialists are IN FAVOR OF ON-LINE VOTING.....who is kidding who???”
Online voting could be fine, just as could electronic voting machine voting, if implemented properly (the electronic machines are also a problem now). There needs to be a public database where:
1) Every person can check their own vote as recorded, via an ‘anonymous token’ assigned when you vote (given via a slip of paper or a printable web page, ie you’re voter e5hv820802a622kl332)
2) any entity can download the entire database of votes and tally them, to double check the ‘official’ results.
Of course, some form of ID would need to be required to vote (DL number or equivalent - fewer dead and duplicate voters). All software should be open source so it can be checked transparently for backdoors or malicious code, and built and run by anyone.
It is very easy to win at online poker. I doubled my initial stake at PartyPoker playing in the small stakes games. This was before the politicians saved me from myself with the port security bill. You do need to win more often than average to make money because the online casino takes a small cut from the winner's pot.
I presume that the two cheaters are looking at potential prison time.”
Commenters at the site are saying, who is going to prosecute the cheaters? The Chilean Govt.?
At a $1000.00 a seat buy in, I imagine someone will be interested in having a chat with the cheaters.
I love to play Poker of all sorts.
I would never even for an instant consider playing cards with people that I do not already know.
Far better to just go to Vegas, drink, and flirt with the cocktail waitresses. Much more fun, and your chances are about the same.
There was nothing wrong with paper ballots. When 10 % of the population has their ballot filled out for them, or is functionally illiterate, or votes again and again with no proof of identity or citizenship, you don’t need a computer to fix an election. Just ask Bob Dornan.
Happens in live games also. One of the poker magazines this month has an article on collusion. Shows how players can place their chips on top of their hole cards in a certain way to let their accomplices know what they have. Interesting.
You've done it now. Stand by to be flamed by the "poker is a skill, NOT gambling, and ranks up there with brain surgery" crowd.
BTW, I agree with you completely. Unless one is the house, gambling (especially lotteries) is just a tax on folks who can't do math. It may be fun in the short run, but don't expect to win in the long run.
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