UK Government Steps in to Review Online Poker
8 years ago
15 Oct
The UKGC (United Kingdom Gambling Commission) have announced a review of peer-to-peer online poker in an attempt to discover whether collusion and cheating can be attributed to 3rd party software and ‘bots’.
The review announcement comes just a week or two after the big names in the poker world introduced their own measures to restrict 3rd-party software. PokerStars stated that
"HUDs are no longer permitted to display non-numerical data, categorize players or dynamically display statistics specific to a certain situation," while PartyPoker claimed “These changes are designed to create a more hospitable environment for recreational players.”
The first stage of the review, according to the UKGC, will involve ‘seeking information from licensees about collusion and cheating - including the use of automated poker robots (‘bots’) and third party software’ and a Commission spokesman stated:
“We’ve been asking licensees who offer peer-to-peer poker for information and their views on current issues identified in relation to this product.”
The use of ‘bots’ - automated playing software - has been a recurring issue over the years, with the most recent case this summer seeing PokerStars launching an investigation into Russian and Kazakh players allegedly winning $1.5million in the sites PLO games by using sophisticated playing robots.
Although PokerStars eventually banned several players, there is still much disquiet in the poker world over the integrity of the sites and the insultingly small payouts people have received so far among those affected.
2+2 forum member Schwein – one of those responsible for initially investigating and publicising the offences - calculated that
“PokerStars collected nearly $2.5 million in rake from the probably-banned accounts during the time that they were active - a million more, in other words, than the profit earned by the cheaters themselves,”
The Gambling Commission stated of the new review,
“We want this information in order to assess whether the current controls in Licence Conditions and Codes of Practice (LCCP) and the Remote Gambling and Software Technical Standards (RTS) are sufficient to ensure online poker is crime free, fair and open and children and vulnerable people are protected.”
The spokesman added,
“We are also considering the impact of game integrity issues overall and using the opportunity to canvass views more generally,” and that all of the information gathered will eventually “beused to help shape a future formal consultation on remote technical standards.”
This formal consultation on proposed amendments to remote gambling and software technical standards is scheduled forSpring 2016 and forthcoming publications and consultations of the UKGC can be viewed here.
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