Bot Compensation Claims
8 years ago
30 Oct
The online poker sites have been regularly hit by accusations and actual examples of poker-playing ‘bots’ taking money from the unwary -and wary -alike.
The biggest question the sites face is generally ‘What are you doing about it?’ – a question which usually elicits a stock response along the lines of ‘We take claims of unusual activity very seriously and have security in place to spot and catch such players.’
All well and good – the sites are up against an ever-increasing level of complexity in the attacks they face by poker cyber-criminals on many fronts.
However, the biggest question players should really be asking – and which has taken centre stage recently - is ‘How much are you going to refund for my losses to these bots?’
This latter is the approach favoured by 2+2 poster ‘paininzebott’, who has promised to explain step-by-step how those affected by such cheating can claim recompense. His initial post lays out the ground-work for what could be seen as a call to class action against those sites who don’t take their customer’s losses seriously.
Posting on the popular forum, he stated:
The purpose of this thread is to explain how to obtain full refunds from the online poker operators for losses (including rake) suffered against bots,” adding, “I will do this via a series of posts explaining what steps can be taken along with a detailed explanation of how to proceed.”
His reasoning for such action is quite clear.
Many players have received small, insignificant or in many cases no refund at all,” continuing “The overwhelming majority of players believe two things:-1) The rake from bot games should be returned to the players.
2) The monies the bots won should be returned to the players.”
‘Bots’ and their impact on the game - including refunding cheated players - is not new to poker.
This summer’s PokerStars investigation into an Eastern European ‘bot’ network which took the site’s mid-stakes PLO games for a reputed $1.5million may have seemed like ‘news’ to many unfamiliar with the history of robotic software which is used to ‘play optimally’ – a phrase which is increasing in value each year as programmers improve algorithms and processing power.
However, back in September 2007, Bluff Europe reported:
Following public outcry, leading online poker site FullTiltPoker.com has reportedly responded to accusations that poker ‘bots’ are playing within its rooms by issuing refunds to those affected,” and explained, “Although ‘bots’ have been common in online gambling and poker for several years, it has been almost impossible to catch them as they seek out new players that are still naive about the online gambling world.”
So it’s not a new phenomenon, and as paininzebott points out of his claims above:
It is self-evident that the operators disagree with the above, with the proof being served as small portion refunds to a smattering of regular customers.”
It is these small pay-outs to disgruntled, or sometimes completely unaware, players which has raised the hackles of many in the poker community, and the relative silence of the big sites doesn’t help matters.
As PokerNews reported of the PLO bot-scam:
Players have reported on TwoPlusTwo that they have received refunds, albeit with very little explanation. The amounts being refunded are relatively small in comparison to the number of hands played against the suspected accounts leading some to believe that their refunds could be a result of an unrelated case of cheating.”
2+2 has proven to be a major source of player-led investigation over the years into a number of cheating cases, and the recent post by paininzebutt is already attracting attention.
He points out that there are:
Two viable routes exist that can be either used jointly or separately to obtain a refund:-1) A complaint to the UKGC and or the licensing authority.
2) Legal channels.”
A reply from ‘Richas’ points out the important fact that:
The UKGC are currently doing a review of online poker. We should hear something from them sometime around the end of the year. I know that they have asked operators about how they compensate so clearly that is part of the review.”
This review announcement was reported on PokerTube recently and included the following from 2+2 poster-turned-investigator Schwein who, according to parttimepoker.com stated:
“PokerStars collected nearly $2.5 million in rake from the probably-banned accounts during the time they were active – a million more, in other words, than the profit earned by the cheaters themselves.”
At the moment it’s unclear what, if anything, poker players who feel aggrieved can do-so the current online debate is much-welcomed. The sites themselves claim they are doing as much as they can to detect, prevent and rid the poker community of such problems – but as has been seen regularly over the years the compensation clearly doesn’t match the damage which is done to the pockets of those cheated.
The specific actions which paininzebott promises to post soon may be a step in the right direction. Here at PokerTube we will be creating individual guides for every site on how to go about submitting compensation claims when the information arises.
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