poker bot collusion -- caveat emptor

[highnote]

I've been playing on the play money tables at bovada.com this week since the holidays are slow times at work.

Since one area I am interested in is automated betting, investing, etc., I did some research on poker bots.

The possibility of collusion among bots is one thing online poker players might want to be aware of.

I knew that there was open source poker bot software available because I used to use it before it became so hard to fund an online poker account and the Fed started shutting them down.

The poker bot software I used didn't really play automatically, but it did detect my cards and the flop cards. The software would calculate percentage of winning and, if my memory is correct, would suggest an amount to wager.

My concern now is that it would be possible for a person or persons to own several poker accounts and have the bots play on the same table and share information with each other about the cards that each bot has been dealt.

I can imagine all sorts of possibilities.

Imagine a high stakes game with 6 seats at a table and four or five of the players are bots. The bots would know all the cards being dealt to themselves and could share that info to make bets. Or a single person could be watching all 5 bots and bet the best hand against the unsuspecting human opponent.

Here is a link to open source software for bots:

http://code.google.com/p/openholdembot/

The first thing it says is that this software cannot be used for collusion. Like that's going to stop someone.

As in all things concerning money -- caveat emptor.

[Dave Schwartz]

This is a good post for those who think that online poker is just the next great adventure for the horse player who is looking for a "safe place" to land.

I have no knowledge of accuracy in the above post but it certainly makes sense.

[Magister Ludi]

This is the most popular commercially available team-play pokerbot. It has been in existence for about fifteen years. There are numerous privately developed team-play pokerbots in use since they are relatively trivial to write and deploy.

[Robert Goren]

If you were caught using a bot, every major online poker site would seize your money and ban you. At least that the way it was.

[highnote]

Originally Posted by Robert Goren

If you were caught using a bot, every major online poker site would seize your money and ban you. At least that the way it was.

There's a deterrent.

[highnote]

Originally Posted by Dave Schwartz

This is a good post for those who think that online poker is just the next great adventure for the horse player who is looking for a "safe place" to land.

... because god forbid collusion would ever take place at the race track.

[Dave Schwartz]

Collusion happens at the track, sure.

But what you are describing is equivalent to every race, every pool, every track.

[lamboguy]

Originally Posted by Dave Schwartz

Collusion happens at the track, sure.

But what you are describing is equivalent to every race, every pool, every track.

whenever money is involved in anything there is plenty of skulduggery that comes to mind.

i have no idea why anyone would sit at home and play poker online and not even see the face of the other players that you play against. hey i remember the old days in Vegas when poker dealers could deal seconds and guys would go into casino's and get cold decked. it happened all the time. i saw places on the strip bring in dealers that dealt from a shoe to cheat card counters. when those things were happening the town was folding up like an accordion. the wise guys were getting squeezed out and the big corporations came in and spent millions in security to make sure everything that took place in their joints was on the level all of a sudden people came to the strip out of nowhere. they were able to get rid of juncketeers and shills became a thing of the past. the corporations figured out that they could make more money running honest places than by cheating people out of their doe.

we are now in a downturn in horse race handles. the game can make believe that there is no such thing as after the bell betting and that batch betting does not impact this game in a negative manor. the latest thing that is happening is that they can't even operate a clock properly so that bettors that look at time and numbers have something to go by. they can turn their heads and say the super trainer is the best thing that ever happened to horse racing. yet for the easiest possible game to sell the gambling public is just scaring people away from it.

these things that i say over and over again are very obvious to most that look at this sport. we as gamblers and fans can complain, but we shouldn't have to say anything. the people that run this game should take steps to straighten it out all by themselves.

[highnote]

Originally Posted by Dave Schwartz

Collusion happens at the track, sure.

But what you are describing is equivalent to every race, every pool, every track.

good point.

[highnote]

Track mgt realizes bettors don't come to the track -- they bet online. So tracks are adjusting their models. See the recent Beyer article. NYRA just raised their source fees.

Originally Posted by lamboguy

whenever money is involved in anything there is plenty of skulduggery that comes to mind.

i have no idea why anyone would sit at home and play poker online and not even see the face of the other players that you play against. hey i remember the old days in Vegas when poker dealers could deal seconds and guys would go into casino's and get cold decked. it happened all the time. i saw places on the strip bring in dealers that dealt from a shoe to cheat card counters. when those things were happening the town was folding up like an accordion. the wise guys were getting squeezed out and the big corporations came in and spent millions in security to make sure everything that took place in their joints was on the level all of a sudden people came to the strip out of nowhere. they were able to get rid of juncketeers and shills became a thing of the past. the corporations figured out that they could make more money running honest places than by cheating people out of their doe.

we are now in a downturn in horse race handles. the game can make believe that there is no such thing as after the bell betting and that batch betting does not impact this game in a negative manor. the latest thing that is happening is that they can't even operate a clock properly so that bettors that look at time and numbers have something to go by. they can turn their heads and say the super trainer is the best thing that ever happened to horse racing. yet for the easiest possible game to sell the gambling public is just scaring people away from it.

these things that i say over and over again are very obvious to most that look at this sport. we as gamblers and fans can complain, but we shouldn't have to say anything. the people that run this game should take steps to straighten it out all by themselves.

[davew]

Poker bots and collusion are always a possibility, and definitely has occurred

- accounts are unique and sites know where info is coming from - ip addresses
- hand histories are kept forever by sites
- many players have HUDS/trackers that keep all their hand summaries
- players police the tables as well as site does, if chip dumping or odd playing occurs with a few accounts, players check it out and ask others they play with to do it as well
- sites can tell where cursor is on screen and where buttons are pushed
- bot accounts or suspicious activity accounts are caught and closed down
- 5 bots on 1 table killing a couple of other players would not last very long
- bots can go forever, people can not - accounts playing 120 hours a week look funny to sites

Collusion - (access to other players cards) has definitely occurred

- player with 2 accounts playing omaha8 in same big tournaments caught attention of other players because of odd play, and always playing same tournaments
- probably occurs in Holdem tournaments, but less of an advantage or chance of being on same table
- cash tables? probably occurs but also results and history are tracked
- some groups in China and Russia have been closed down from playing together in SNGs (sit and gos) and Double or Nothings.


biggest threat now (in my opinion) -> trojan viruses

- somehow you pick up a virus that lets other people to see your screen, or even have control of your cursor
- very hard to win if other guy knows your cards
- poker site can not tell your computer is compromised



unanimous tables? hard for players to track others - sites could be compromised

poker site bots? some have accused some sites of running their own bots - these sites have denied or said only used to get tables started

bots are programmed, and usually consistent - which allows players to figure out how to beat them