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October 6, 2021

The Dark Side of Online Poker: What You Need to Know

Poker is an exciting game. In it, players try to outwit one another in terms of putting together the best strategies. With online gaming, you don’t even have to be in the same room with your opponents. Internet casinos allow players across the world to play poker games without meeting in enclosed spaces. Although poker is designed to be fun, some players break the rules causing online poker to have a dark side. Knowing the pitfalls that exist in poker can help you avoid them. Check them out below.

The Dark Side of Online Poker: What You Need to Know
  1. Collusion - This form of cheating in poker involves two or more players acting together to tip the odds favor one player. It takes a lot of time, effort, and planning to pull off successfully. Due to this, rogue players only target poker tables with very high limits. One would think that cheating through collusion would be challenging in online casinos. Surprisingly, players manage to do it by sharing their cards with their partners in crime.

  2. Ghosting - Ghosting is the most used way of cheating in online poker tournaments. In it, a player advises another player on which play they should make. At a physical casino, the players executing ghosting sit next to each other. Players use remote access tools on online casinos to see what is happening on their partner’s screen. Ghosting can change the outcome of online casino tournaments with a huge payout when the game is in the final stages.

  3. Using Poker Bots - Most moves in poker can be aligned to mathematical functions. Knowing this, players with programming skills have developed software that allows them to cheat in poker. The bots make quick and highly accurate decisions which makes it almost impossible to beat them. Since bots are not human, they can play poker for long hours without taking breaks. That is one way of identifying that you are playing against a bot. In addition, a near-perfect record in poker should raise a red flag, more so when the decisions are made in quick succession.

  4. Creating Multiple User Accounts - Online casinos implement the policy of one user owning one user account. However, players try to cheat by creating multiple accounts on different devices. If they succeed, they can log in as other users to a poker game and cheat. Moreover, owing more than one account allows a player to claim bonuses more than once. To stop this type of cheating, online casinos have very harsh punishments for account holders with more than one account.

  5. Accessing Super-User Accounts - Although not common, players gaining unauthorized access to casinos’ administrator accounts have happened before. With such access, the players know exactly when to fold, go all in, or fold. The other players have no chances of winning in such a game. An incident where an employee gained privileged access to a poker server happened in 2007. Luckily, he was caught and punished accordingly.

Conclusion

There will always be players who try to outsmart the system. Players are advised to check the licensing of the casino where they want to play to avoid getting cheated. When you do this, you can enjoy playing poker without worrying about the cheats described above.

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