Inside PokerStars: Protecting Integrity of the Games

PokerStars has long been known as one of the safest, if not the safest room to play online. But people are always curious as to how things really work, and the people whose job is to maintain the integrity of the games tried their best to answer some of the questions that players regularly ask.

PokerStars has a big team of 80 people whose job it is to look at the games and prevent cheating on this popular site. They work day in and day out to keep everything on the up and up at the tables.

Stephen Winter, Director of the game integrity, explains that the issue of cheating is taken very seriously and that all employers work really hard to catch those who are breaking the terms of service.

When someone cheats, system is set up to catch it very quickly. Victims of cheating can be sure that all the funds will be given back in the majority of cases and no one will be damaged by the cheats. Although a great number of incidents is reported by the players, four times more cheating occurrences is detected by the PokerStars security teams and generated by the system.

Bryan Taylor, senior game integrity product manager, said that most common player report is about collusion. The reports usually revolve around two or more players sitting at the table and sharing cards and working together to gain an unfair advantage. Seeing that this is the most often reported incident, there are different counter measures set in place to help protect players against this type of behavior.

System employees are looking for people who are using the same hardware. Team investigators, who are also experienced poker players themselves, are doing their job very well because every report about a cheating problem is usually quickly solved.

The company also has a team of people whose job is detecting non-human interaction patterns (aka bots). They are detecting variety of things that could indicate that a computer is making the plays instead of a human player.

Although there is a lot of interest into specific aspects behind the processes, PokerStars representatives were reluctant to share this information with the public, primarily because they wouldn’t want make the job easier for existing or potential cheaters. New systems and procedures are constantly being added to improve already very strong security setup.

The entire PokerStars team works hard every day to ensure that everyone can sit down at the table and be certain that they are playing in the fair environment. Cheaters will, of course, always be there, as they come with the territory, but so far they’ve been dealt with quickly and efficiently for the most part.