5 ms·

Isn't it trivial for online poker providers to cheat, i.e. manipulate the cards you receive, and have a fake bot player at the table that can be made to win, et

Isn't it trivial for online poker providers to cheat, i.e. manipulate the cards you receive, and have a fake bot player at the table that can be made to win, etc. ?

sejje 1y ago
Short term, yes. Long term, people store their hand histories and this shows up plainly in analysis.
- _heimdall 1y ago
  That only catches a subset of ways online poker rooms can cheat. The server knows what cards everyone is holding. Even if the cards were randomly assigned and weren't changed after the fact, users have no logs of the order of cards remaining in the deck. Its pretty trivial to have software that selects community cards that usually lead to a larger pot.
  - chowells 1y ago
    That's not exactly true. It's a non-trivial but not exactly difficult task to design a fair shuffling cryptographic protocol that every participant can validate after the fact. On the other hand, that still doesn't prevent cheating in the form of the server providing information to some participants via a different channel. There's nothing cryptography can say about out-of-band communications. So maybe fair shuffling is cute but ultimately pointless.
    - _heimdall 1y ago
      My point wasn't that a fair, auditable system couldn't be built. Only that we don't have that today, and I'd add that online casinos are incentivized to not build that.
  - pton_xd 1y ago
    Wouldn't that show up in a statistical analysis of the community cards? How is your algorithm modifying the community cards advantageously but preserving randomness such that over a large sample size every card shows up at the same frequency? Although it wouldn't be exactly the same, presumably some cards that are less often bet preflop, like a 2, would show up at a slightly higher frequency in the community cards, but still. The much simpler way to cheat is to just give some players more information. Or, run bots that take up guaranteed payout seats in tournaments and such, which I've heard rumors of happening on certain sites. Or both.
    - _heimdall 1y ago
      Fake players or predefining winners would work as well. My point was simply that an online casino could seem completely legit even if you can compile audit logs of every players' hands at the table. Controlling the community cards is completely undetectable and more than enough to push larger pots, and therefore larger rakes.
      - sejje 1y ago
        It's not undetectable. Most pots already hit maximum rake.
        _heimdall 1y ago
        How would one detect it? As far as I'm aware, you would have to know the full list of cards in the shuffled deck before the hand was played to know they didn't change the community cards.
        sejje 1y ago
        Because it shows up in analysis of millions of hands. The community cards are subject to the same frequencies as the hole cards. (And you can see them more often, so they're actually easier to analyze)
    - sejje 1y ago
AndrewOMartin 1y ago
I think you can make an analogy with Casinos and their incentives to cheat. They could do all sorts of things and there are plenty of gambling scams that do those things, but most legit looking Casinos are already making money hand over fist, have published odds on their favour and against yours, can kick out anyone who seems to be doing well, have all sorts of non-cheat tricks to squeeze money out if you, and are risking serious reputation and legal damage if found out. Doubtless there are scummy poker games, but for most of them the money comes plenty easy, and the existential risk of faking cards to increase pot sizes just isn't worth the marginal benefit. Of course everyone, winners, losers, and impartial bystanders will see these patterns in completely random deals so every site will be accused eventually.
- concerndc1tizen 1y ago
  That's very optimistic :)

Isn't it trivial for online poker providers to cheat, i.e. manipulate the cards you receive, and have a fake bot player at the table that can be made to win, etc. ?

sejje 1y ago

Short term, yes. Long term, people store their hand histories and this shows up plainly in analysis.

_heimdall 1y ago
That only catches a subset of ways online poker rooms can cheat. The server knows what cards everyone is holding. Even if the cards were randomly assigned and weren't changed after the fact, users have no logs of the order of cards remaining in the deck. Its pretty trivial to have software that selects community cards that usually lead to a larger pot.
- chowells 1y ago
  That's not exactly true. It's a non-trivial but not exactly difficult task to design a fair shuffling cryptographic protocol that every participant can validate after the fact. On the other hand, that still doesn't prevent cheating in the form of the server providing information to some participants via a different channel. There's nothing cryptography can say about out-of-band communications. So maybe fair shuffling is cute but ultimately pointless.
  - _heimdall 1y ago
    My point wasn't that a fair, auditable system couldn't be built. Only that we don't have that today, and I'd add that online casinos are incentivized to not build that.
- pton_xd 1y ago
  Wouldn't that show up in a statistical analysis of the community cards? How is your algorithm modifying the community cards advantageously but preserving randomness such that over a large sample size every card shows up at the same frequency? Although it wouldn't be exactly the same, presumably some cards that are less often bet preflop, like a 2, would show up at a slightly higher frequency in the community cards, but still. The much simpler way to cheat is to just give some players more information. Or, run bots that take up guaranteed payout seats in tournaments and such, which I've heard rumors of happening on certain sites. Or both.
  - _heimdall 1y ago
    Fake players or predefining winners would work as well. My point was simply that an online casino could seem completely legit even if you can compile audit logs of every players' hands at the table. Controlling the community cards is completely undetectable and more than enough to push larger pots, and therefore larger rakes.
    - sejje 1y ago
      It's not undetectable. Most pots already hit maximum rake.
      - _heimdall 1y ago
        How would one detect it? As far as I'm aware, you would have to know the full list of cards in the shuffled deck before the hand was played to know they didn't change the community cards.
        sejje 1y ago
        Because it shows up in analysis of millions of hands. The community cards are subject to the same frequencies as the hole cards. (And you can see them more often, so they're actually easier to analyze)
  - sejje 1y ago

AndrewOMartin 1y ago

I think you can make an analogy with Casinos and their incentives to cheat. They could do all sorts of things and there are plenty of gambling scams that do those things, but most legit looking Casinos are already making money hand over fist, have published odds on their favour and against yours, can kick out anyone who seems to be doing well, have all sorts of non-cheat tricks to squeeze money out if you, and are risking serious reputation and legal damage if found out. Doubtless there are scummy poker games, but for most of them the money comes plenty easy, and the existential risk of faking cards to increase pot sizes just isn't worth the marginal benefit. Of course everyone, winners, losers, and impartial bystanders will see these patterns in completely random deals so every site will be accused eventually.

concerndc1tizen 1y ago
That's very optimistic :)