Home / Poker News July 2010 / The poker grapevine: cheating at PokerStars
The poker grapevine: cheating at PokerStars
Posted by: James Carter. - Sun, 2010-07-11 12:06
Most online poke
r players take to the tables in hopes of making money. Some of them do, others end up losing. Those who eventually become successful do so through hard work, study and perseverance. Short-cut seekers are never in short supply in online poke
r though. The game, which rewards shrewdness and strategic prowess, obviously attracts individuals who do find all sorts of exploitable loop-holes in the system. Some of these guys don’t shy away from crossing all lines apparently though. Yes, I’m talking about cheating.
A gang of Chinese nationals, mostly from the city of Hangzhou has apparently been involved in a collusion-based cheating spree, which lasted from June/July 2009, till February 2010. The perpetrators targeted the $52-$108 Double or Nothing SNGs and had accumulated around $750,000 in winnings during the spree. Several
PokerStars players have launched threads on various
online poker forums noting their suspicions about the above said SNGs, but it wasn’t until one of the gang, known by the nickname “Jane0123” posted a complaint about how he/she had his/her account blocked by PokerStars, with more than $10k in it.
The community snapped immediately and one of the other users quickly provided an explanation for why Jane0123’s account had been blocked: he had logged more than 25 complaints against the said user.
The people involved in the cheating would flood the DoN tables on the said buy-in levels, taking at least half the seats at each of the tables. The members would then work as a team to knock the other players out.
The good news is that PokerStars’ collusion detection systems did swing into action eventually and they did manage to pinpoint all those involved in the scheme. PokerStars has agreed to pay out $587,000 to those short-changed by the colluders. $85,000 have successfully been recovered from gang members.
