Poker Bots are a constant problem for poker rooms who want everyone playing poker on their site to be honest human players prone to the same errors and learning that every player goes through whilst developing their poker skills. Players using computer programs to play their hands are not only cheating because it is not their skills being used to play, but they are breaching the terms and conditions of the poker room. As online poker is unregulated, the only Policing of such activity is by the poker rooms themselves so a good question for players to ask is, are they doing enough to quash this sort of cheating?

The truth is that it is very difficult to catch poker bot users because the programs themselves can be hard to detect and easily masked as something else running on the player’s computer. The bots also click different pixels of the fold, check or raise buttons which looks human and some of the more sophisticated bots can even type in “nh” for “nice hand” into the chat box if they lose a large pot with a strong hand.

Wherever there is money involved in anything there are people prepared to go to extreme lengths to get it, whether that means breaking the rules or not. Poker bots remove the human emotion element and given the circumstances it faces it will always make the optimum response, providing it is programmed well enough. Any player prone to tilt has a major problem facing a bot who will always mean its best poker. On the other hand I have read poker articles where players were aware they were playing a bot, yet the bot was so bad they did not mind. Only when the poker bot owner saw the losses incurred would they realise their bot was outplayed, but by then it would be too late.

Poker rooms will act if a player plays over four tables for three full days solid or if players report suspicious activity. Many poker bots are discovered through the illogical action of their owner rather than their own failings when they let the bot play for so long a human could not manage that length of poker session thus their cover is blown. Some players have accused poker rooms of not caring providing rake is being generated but this is unfair as that implies they do not care about their players.

There is also the problem of proving that a bot is being used, which is virtually impossible unless the poker bot is flawed in some way. Confiscating players bankrolls on the back of random accusations by players emailing the poker room support is a dangerous situation to get into as once investigations are complete players will cash out and the poker room may lose a regular player. It is a tough balance between being seen to be actively policing their own site to trusting their regular players. I would not like to be in their shoes.

If you suspect you are playing against a bot you should email customer support and give them the reasons why you believe this is the case. Ask for them to get back in touch with their findings and if they believe you may be right. Make sure you have good reason for doing this as another player may believe the same of you and any investigation can be stressful and inconvenient, particularly if you are innocent. Some players are constantly reporting others and losing one session against a player is not a reason to think they may be a bot. They may just be better at poker than you are.

I play poker at bwin.com where I have not read of a single instance of bot related activity and their site is not listed on any of the bot sites as a playable room. That is good enough for me.

By Malcolm Clarke