As a poker media veteran of 15+ years and an online player for a little longer than that, I’ve seen the industry go through many changes. Limit Hold’em was the game of choice for many when I was a rookie. When they ran, hundreds of people observed $10/$20 cash games because those stakes were seen as crazy, and there was no such thing as re-entry or progressive knockout tournaments. However, one thing has remained constant throughout my time in poker: players cheating in the online and live poker worlds.
Let’s kick off this opinion piece with a statement I 100% stand behind: Poker cheats should be permanently banned from all forms of the game. I cannot abide cheaters in any way, shape, or form, especially in the game that has afforded me such luxuries and life experiences. Being part of this community has enabled me to travel across Europe and to Las Vegas and has enriched me with lifelong friends from far and wide. We have our moments, poker and I, as most long-term couples do, but the love and respect remain there; I wish others respected it the same.
Cheating has occurred in poker for as long as the game has existed. Whenever money is at stake, someone will bend and break the rules to give them an advantage. It’s a sad part of human nature.
Online Multi-Accounting
Multi-accounting was rife back in the early days of online poker. Back in 2006, Josh Fields, better known as “JJProdigy” and “ablackcar,” took down the PartyPoker $500K guaranteed event for $140,000. Fields had busted the tournament under his “JJProdigy” alias but took it down using his, apparently, grandmother’s “ablackcar” account. Rumors later surfaced that Fields was only 16 years old when he won that six-figure score.
Justin Bonomo, the second-winningest live poker player of all time, was also embroiled in a multi-accounting scandal. Bonomo openly admitted to playing in online poker tournaments under multiple aliases. He received a temporary ban and had funds confiscated.
Even the legendary Poker Hall of Famer Patrik Antonius admitted to creating the “Luigi66369” account on the now-defunct Full Tilt Poker in addition to his “Findagrind” account so he could enjoy high-stakes action anonymously.
More Advanced Online Poker Cheating
Then, there was the Ultimate Bet/Absolute Poker superuser scandal, in which the owners of those online poker sites refunded an estimated $50 million to affected players.
More recently, players like Jake Schindler and Ali Imsirovic have found themselves on the end of the ban hammer. As did Fedor Kruse, who was adjudged to have been using Real-Time Assistance (RTA) in high-stakes online cash games.
Don’t forget about those who use bots at the tables, too.
Live Poker Has Cheaters, Too
Live poker isn’t free of unscrupulous players, either. We’ve had Ali Tekintagmac being disqualified from the, again, now-defunct Partouche Poker Tour Main Event for employing fake live bloggers to relay hole card information to him, the brazen Borgata chip counterfeiter Christian Lusardi, and who can forget about the Mike Postle saga? The list, sadly, is endless.
Current Punishments Are Nowhere Near Severe Enough
Online poker sites and live cardrooms do a decent job at ironing out cheaters via their Game Integrity teams and feedback from the poker community. However, once a cheat is caught, very little happens to them. Sure, they have their funds confiscated most of the time, but they cheated their way to that money, so they never really had it in the first place.
Sites impose temporary or permanent bans on cheating players, but those bans don’t have far-reaching consequences. Nothing stops a player banned from Online Poker Site A from heading to Online Poker Site B and continuing to play this game we all love. They can probably continue playing at the site where they’re banned if they have someone willing to pretend the account belongs to them and can provide documents for the “Know Your Customer” verification process.
Earlier this week, GGPoker banned 31 accounts after working with GTO Wizard and discovering those accounts were using RTA to make decisions. Prominent pro Patrick Leonard tweeted at GGPoker once the news broke and asked a perfectly reasonable question:
GGPoker ambassador and high-stakes crusher Fedor Holz responded, “That’s the plan, and that’s what will happen.” GGPoker’s parent company recently acquired the WSOP for $500 million.
PokerStars has previously taken a hard stance on cheaters, banning those caught cheating at its site from attending PokerStars-branded live events. However, someone playing in a European Poker Tour (EPT) event is not automatically prohibited from an 888poker LIVE or a WSOP tournament. They should be.
If you are caught using RTA at 888poker, for example, you should be banned from every single online poker site in existence and for life. That lifetime ban should extend to every live poker tour on the planet, with no exceptions. I don’t necessarily agree with naming and shaming the cheaters, but we should get them out of our game—your game—permanently.
We have data protection laws to thank for online poker sites and live poker operators’ inability to lawfully share information about cheaters. Yet gambling prevention entities and charities are able to ban and block people across the board, and other sports and industries manage to share information about wrongdoing.
Perhaps poker needs a central governing body to handle matters like this, but nobody seems prepared to create one. There is the World Poker Federation, but they seem more interested in celebrating having poker recognized as a mind sport than doing anything else, which is evident by their inability to spell Singapore on its list of member nations. The Poker Tournament Directors Association (Poker TDA) does a stellar job unifying rules and procedures, but handling blanket bans is understandably outside their remit. Somebody must step up and have the entire poker industry under its umbrella.
I don’t want cheaters in poker, and you shouldn’t either. The sooner they’re permanently banned and erased from our community, the better.
Senior Editor