Collusion

I keep hearing about people with 2-3-4 computers playing at the same table! It scares me to play for real money! Could anyone tell, what preventative steps succesfull sites are taking to prevent on line collusion? Sites like Paradise Poker, Planet Poker, Ultimate Bet, True Poker? Don’t they have some high tech system to spot and prevent this possibility? Are they really watching for collusion or just waiting for reports from players?


Would love to hear from the operators of the sites regarding the above subjects as well as from all the players out there with the same concerns!


Thanks.

Well, I don't work for Paradise, so I don't know for sure what they are doing to prevent this type of thing, but I notice that when you log in, it tracks your IP address, which I assume has something to do with them trying to prevent a single user from playing multiple accounts at once. They can't simply use the IP address to prevent people from the same location from playing, but if they know where you were logged on from and they get a complaint about possible collusion, they can pretty quickly figure out if the two players were in the same place.


As far as how they catch cheaters, all they can do is wait until people do something suspicious and then watch for another sign of collusion from the same people. Of course, this means that if the players are fairly observant and report all suspicious plays, Paradise will be able to catch many of the cheaters. They won't be able to catch all of them, and particularly people who are more clever about how they collude will be difficult to catch, but with the exception of two people blatantly trapping you in the middle for many bets, most of the colluding won't cost you much. Assuming that the two players are not making any blatant attempts to trap people, the fact that they each might know what the other has only gives them a slight advantage, thus they would have to already be good players to benefit much from colluding.


As far as one person playing all the hands except yours, again I don't think this is much of a concern. People move in and out of games so fast that you would naturally become suspicious if the same 9 players were in your hold'em game for several hours (I'm talking about low limits, obviously). Also, it would be very hard for one player to convincingly use all 9 hands to gain any real advantage.


I think the only thing to worry about is a group of friends playing many of the hands at your table and telling each other what they have as well as helping each other make the right play, but again, they would have to be good players already to gain much benefit from the additional knowledge, and you aren't going to win much if your table is full of good players anyway.

Wow.... that was like... the perfect post.... I have never really heard anything other than: "Collusion? Yeah... well... you take your chances..." What you said made alot of sense... thanks.


index

Well, thanks your explanation does make a lot of sense! I'll try not to be so concerned in the future! :-) Regards, Amix1

At TruePoker, in consultation with David Sklansky and Mason Malmuth, we are continuously developing and refining a four-layer collusion detection system that is described at http://www.TruePoker.com/collusion.html. Part of the strength of such a system requires keeping the workings of the system secret so the description is necessarily vague.


Particular player actions, characteristics, data, and patterns of play are reviewed constantly by our security experts. In contrast to bricks and mortar poker rooms, online poker rooms have a hand history for every hand played at their sites. These histories provide a powerful tool for analysis and detection. All players are of course given the benefit of the doubt but lacking valid explanations for suspicious behavior, TruePoker reserves the right to remove players from the site.


Reports by players of their suspicions of collusion to TruePoker Hosts, who are live onsite 24 hours a day every day of the year, are carefully reviewed by our security experts. We believe at TruePoker that cooperation between players, Hosts, and technicians can serve to protect players. I hope this responds to your questions.


TrueHostBen

Crazy Jim can confirm this


You can email Paradise, explain to them how you cheated, and they will tell you not to do it again as it upsets customers. Do the same thing twice and they threaten to ban you.


Emmerson Biggums

You'll face a lot fewer cheats in live poker. Good luck.

I'm not certain how it was detected, but I received an e-mail from Planet Poker saying they had detected collusion in a game in which I was involved. The credited my account $40 - their estimation of what the collusion cost me.

...and that made you feel happy? Worried? Cheated? How could you continue to play there?

Allin abuse is more costly than any so called collusion.