Cheating in Online Poker
Cheating at online poker is either the act of actually manipulating what happens and giving yourself an unfair advantage. Additionally, cheating in poker is engaging in unethical actions that violate the Terms of Service of the poker providers. Both instances of cheating at online poker are unfair, but are surprisingly more common in the live venues.
There have been a few cheating scandals in online poker. Every poker website is running with extensive encryption algorithms and bots that search for and sniff out unwelcome intrusions or attempts to manipulate the actual game. For this reason most of the cheating that happens involves players using systems that are already in place to their advantage. One of the easiest and probably most common ways to cheat at poker online is to have multiple accounts running at the same time.
Having multiple accounts active at one table or tournament at the same time will, obviously, give you a huge advantage over players who are playing fairly. Not only do you have more hands but also you have much more information about the hands at the table because you hold more than one. Depending on how knowledgeable you are with computers, you can use this method with little fear of being caught. Between use of dedication proxy servers to mask the IP of other clients and messing with your system to run multiple instances of the program, you can have multiple accounts logged into the same table fairly easily.
Another common method that ultimate bet cheats is by way of collusion. Collusion in poker games is when two or more players at the poker table play together. Whether they stay out of each other’s way on purpose, or the colluders help one another out by knocking people out of the pot or catching a third person in crossfire of betting, they are clearly playing together. Some players will get together in a chat room, telephone, or via a messenger program and they will reveal their holdings to one another. This type of cheating is indeed against the poker room’s terms of service and may result in a ban and/or forfeiture of money if one is caught colluding.
Cheating at poker is something that one should not even consider and while it can be fun to discuss in an academic environment should never be put into practice. Cheating is not fair to other players and while it may be beneficial in the long term, players who cheat at online poker will eventually be caught.