Online Poker Scandals

Poker Scandals

Cheating and sites closing down is not uncommon

Internet gambling is one of the most fast spreading businesses that have ever existed. In theory, it’s pretty easy to open your very own online poker room, for example – you just need a website, downloadable or in-browser software and you’re good to go, players will queue to start playing. But things aren’t that easy, as many people have seen: first of all, you need security. People don’t have much faith in semi-anonymous websites, and they certainly won’t have the same trust in a site that has been involved in some sort of scandal. And one thing is certain: where there are lots of money involved, there are surely going to be a lot of scandals. It’s in our human nature to fight over material things, and with online poker rooms being worth billions and billions of dollars, it didn’t take long for people to try and find less legal ways of making money.

Cheating is present on most online poker rooms, whether it’s players trying to gain an advantage over the online poker rooms, or even the other players, or the poker rooms themselves trying to trick the players into investing way too much in the poker rooms. Whichever the case, the opposing side is always fighting back. Let’s look at two of the widest spread examples: first, there are players who try to cheat by using a wide variety of programs. From bots to other special programs, they will try to take a peek at other players’ cards, at the community cards, they will try to quickly evaluate their odds, and so on.  On the other side of the game, the smaller online poker rooms also try to cheat. One of the most believable and wide spread conspiracy theory is that online poker rooms will try to rig the cards in order for you to win when you first start to play, then suddenly lose. This way, you can think that you’re, in fact, a very good player, and you’re just going through a bad down swing, and by playing a lot you’ll bounce back. This theory caught on because, if online poker rooms actually do this, it’s a very subtle technique, and it’s designed to get the most out of players in small increments, so that they don’t suspect a thing. But, as many experienced online poker players will tell you, there is no such thing as cheating in large websites, they would have too much to lose.

So, what’s the truth? Well, yes, there are cases of cheating on both sides of the game. But this certainly isn’t the case for the bigger online poker rooms: they have gotten to where they are by practicing flawless security techniques. So, on the largest poker rooms there will always be a lot of people who are making sure that the players aren’t cheating (they will constantly improve their security programs, in order for all kinds of malicious programs to be banned), and that the players who are cheating get banned and never play there again. And, on the other hand, it’s in their best interest not to cheat themselves, because one scandal breaks out and they’re gone for good, no matter what they do to try and bounce back.

And speaking of scandals that broke out in the online poker world, let’s have a look at some of them.

The most famous (and infamous) online poker cheating scandal that broke out is, undoubtably, the Absolute Poker scandal. Back in 2007, one of the most well known online poker room was Absolute Poker, but its fame quickly turned to infamy when a scandal broke out that made worldwide headlines for months on end. To be more precise, it all began in in September of 2007. It started off small, with several forums and poker communities targeting Absolute Poker and claiming that there is a ‘superuser’ which can see everyone’s cards. At first, the website denied all accusations, but the accusations persisted, and one month later the Kahnawake Gaming Commission began an investigation, and sure enough, they found the culprit as being ‘POTRIPPER’. After careful investigation, they had found that all his actions were of a man who already knew what his opponents were holding. Immediately, Absolute Poker denied the accusations, but it was already too late – the website started to be blacklisted and its reputation stained for good. After some internal investigation, and what started as unofficial rumors, Absolute Poker finally admitted to the cheating, and said that it was the work of a dissatisfied former employee, which took advantage of a security flaw and used it to scam people. He managed to do so for a period of 40 days. As a final gesture to save what was left of their good name, Absolute Poker announced that it had strengthened its security, and that all of the funds scammed by the player were returned to the players (about $1.6 million). Although they are still making efforts to bounce back, Absolute Poker’s image was forever stained.

Ultimate Bet is one of the poker rooms that was involved in a similar incident. Back in 2008, they released a statement that they too were confronted with ‘superuser’ accounts, which wreaked havoc in the online poker room for months on end. From March of 2006 and all the way to December of 2007 (although they have later confirmed that the cheating dated back to the beginning of 2005) cheating was flourishing on Ultimate Bet. Again, former employees were blamed for it all, and Ultimate Bet claimed to have fixed the malfunctioning software. Later investigation by the same Gaming Commission revealed that the cheating was done by only one player, from May of 2004 to January of 2008. To this day, Ultimate Bet has yet to refund players. And this time, their image remained stained.

These are two of the most outstanding scandals in the online poker world, but they are not the only ones. However, scandals like these can forever stain the image of a poker room, so everyone tries to do their best to avoid them. To avoid being cheated stick to the bigger sites and stay away from new small sites. If what they offer sounds too good to be true, it proberly is. Some of the most reliable sites, in my oppinion, are sites like Party Poker and PKR poker. These sites have been around forever, and you wont go wrong with an account there.

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