poker experts
On the Trail of the Online Poker Cheat
In online poker, you compete against other players. That is why it is normal to trust nothing and no one but you cards. Putting it in another way, it is normal to think that almost anybody will cheat given the right opportunity and the means to do so. Allegations are pretty commonplace that online poker games are rigged and that the cheat is the poker room itself. Is there substance to this allegation?
Some suspect that online poker rooms cheat players to get them out of the game so that when they get back in, they will again deposit money. This does not seem to make sense since a player who is put out of the game will more likely move to another site and the poker room losses a customer. Worst of all, a player who suspects that he was intentionally taken out of the game will either lodge a complaint or will no longer return to the poker room to play. Obviously, online poker rooms have everything to lose and stand nothing to gain when they cheat their players. Viewed in this perspective, a rigged online poker room is counter productive and it has absolutely no motivation whatsoever to cheat its customers.
However, fraud in online poker is most commonly committed through collusion by two or more players communicating with each other by phone, SMS or playing on a computer that are located next to each other. This form of cheating is carried out both in a live and online game. Fortunately, the colluding players are easier to detect in online poker rooms which have systems and programs capable of detecting and tracing the location of the cheat.
Given the chance and the means, many people would cheat in online poker. Capitalizing on this hope, many unscrupulous sites are offering software that ostensibly enables the user to view holes cards and succeeding cards of other players. This kind of software does not work at all considering that the cards in online poker games are dealt by a random number generator whose outcome is almost impossible to predict. To see another player's cards, the cheat would have to hack into the system to intercept the data streaming to and from the player's computer and the website server. To do this, the hacker would have to know the IP address of the other player. Moreover, granting that the cheat is able to hack his way in, the data intercepted would be unusable because it is encrypted.