partypoker Shut Down Another 42 Bot Accounts

partypoker have just released their May numbers in the battle against the online poker bots and they make for satisfying reading – 42 bot accounts closed down and roughly $50k in funds seized...

The heartening figures were the result of a combination of player reporting and the specialist Poker Fraud Team that the site set up to investigate all suspicious activity at their tables.

A breakdown of the latest figures, following last month’s 94 closures and money seizures, reveal that of the 42 accounts closed in May, some 33 (78.6%) came from the poker room’s dotcom market.

Those resulted in $46,805 being seized by the site, with another €3,598 taken from bot accounts in the .eu market.

partypoker’s .eu site serves Spain and France and nine (or 21.4%) of May’s account closures came from this ring-fenced market, with player diligence accounting for 1/3rd of them.

Direct player reports were responsible for five (15.2%) of the 33 dotcom closures and the overall May figures represent a 55.3% fall on the previous period.

This drop, say partypoker, reflect “the studious work of the site’s Poker Fraud Team in actively purging the site of bot accounts”, combined with player reporting. 

The initial launch of the hard-hitting, anti-bot measures in April resulted in more than 270 bot accounts closed and over $700,000 redistributed to players.

The specialist Poker Fraud Team comprises ‘a collection of former poker professionals whose duty is to investigate suspicious activity and aid partypoker in ridding the site of unscrupulous accounts’.

In addition to investing resources in weeding out the bane of online poker, partypoker have urged all players to report suspicious activity via email to reports@partypoker.com, with the promise ‘to investigate all incidents reported’.

The bot account closures and seized funds will be reported on a monthly basis, and the site is ‘currently processing refunds from the entire pool of forfeited balances’.