Indeed, there are online poker sites which are considered safe and secure. However, cheating also happens in the industry. In this article, you will learn some of the common ways to cheat in online poker:
Multi-Accounting
With multi-accounting, a player has many real money accounts in one poker room. The poker rooms prohibit gamers to create more than one real money account for each person at the poker website. The reason for this is due to bonus offerings. As the sites prevent creating multi-account, they are also stopping bonus fraud.
The big problem comes in when the multi-accounting players use two or more accounts to play poker simultaneously for the same tournament. This player poses an unfair advantage because he can see four hole cards. Moreover, during tournaments, he can have two lives in one tournament only.
Indeed, multi-accounting is a serious case of fraud. Anyone who gets caught will be penalized. Then the authorities can retain his bankroll.
To prevent multi-accounting, poker rooms take comprehensive measures. To cash out, players have to upload their updated IDs. The majority of the poker rooms have an advanced security feature which prevents the same IP address to register in the same tournament twice.
Other players can detect multi-accounting cheating too and they can report this to the poker room. But overall, multi-accounting is always possible, not until you are caught in the game.
Poker Bots
Computer programs called poker bots are present in the poker rooms. The most popular poker bots are called Polaris which is created by students of the University of Alberta in Canada. This bot can help a player win in the Texas Hold’em games versus the professionals.
Poker is a game of limited information but the profits and ROI are determined by the skills of the players. For example, you can win in the Heads-Up Fixed Limit Hold’em using your mathematical skills. With computer bots improving each day, it is for sure that they can beat strong opponents in any mathematical tournaments.
Ghosting
Ghosting is providing advice from one player to another poker player during the tournament. This is not allowed during the live tournaments, however, it can be very difficult to enforce during online tournaments.
Ghosting happens when a person sits next to the player and plays the game with him. At onlinepoker, ghosting can happen with the help of free tools like Team viewer or Skype. These tools can help transmit real-time images of the tournament or even share the screen.
The coached player has the advantage of discussing difficult situations with the ghost before committing on a decision. With a live coach, it can reduce the risk of tilting significantly.
Ghosting is used on games with a high prize at stake. It is usual when players become lucky and made it into the final table. With a coach, they can win thousands of dollars in the tournament.
This is one of the most common forms of cheating in an online game. However, the harm is limited as the player poses no additional biased advantage to other players.
