Online Poker is doomed.. Eventually. As someone not affiliated with an online site and a tech background, here is why we still have some time. But the clock is ticking.

Expand regulated online poker to more states Jail time for people caught cheating

Would strongly disagree with your last point - RTA is not the driving factor behind ROI/win rate differentials between international and geo-locked sites. We wrote about it last week (from a different angle though)

To your point when a larger player pool increases the right side of the bell curve with low profit cheaters what do you think that does to ROI and the distribution. This can be a both / and not an either / or.

You were discussing present and past win rates. You seem to agree that in the past, present, and at least in the near to mid future cheating isn't impacting the games to a degree you're concerned about ... Then go on to say that cheating has and is currently driving the differential between international & geo-locked sites.

It absolutely is a driver. There are other drivers too.

Websites themselves already use bots that mimic your play level then get replaced with new bots. Keeps the fish playing longer to deposit and most players don’t even know they are being scammed.

well said. i agree the demise is inevitable and we are already in the midst of a slow but sure death. in the meantime, lets click buttons while we can.

This.

Hi Rob. Curious if you have tried out Phenom Poker yet. We KYC, largely for security purposes, and the games feel human. Would love to hear your impressions. I’d be happy to help with any questions or to help you get set up.

Is there a world where operators get materially impacted enough where they will care? Can security get commoditised enough where it makes sense for them to widely use to protect themselves (and player pool)? Or is the market too small and/or gone for many to blink an eye?

Maybe in a perfect world. But no way it practically happens. Anyone who prioritizes it is at such a disadvantage

Interesting perspective

@daraokearney Great recap. I think cheating scandals do hurt volume though. We can’t see the missed business from the potential new players that were scared off.

@PokerNews @dklappin @daraokearney @RecPoker @blaisebourgeois @kwansfull

Love your openness and frankness on this subject. Thanks,

It’s been over zzz

Live guys love to tell us how online is always doomed. It’s doomed for you because you haven’t put in the work.

i play the majority of my volume online and make a living at it

20+ years they have told me online poker is dead. Play on regulated sites, play lots of tables, make relationships with operators where they respect you and will insta investigate guys you are worried about.

Keep paying those random stars and streamers 25k buy your friends into these online tourneys and continue to take a HUGE 💩 on new and recreational players. #RantOver ACR is a JOKE!

Gg uses KYC? And they’re biggest around

Biggest isn’t a good thing.

Didn’t say it was. You said if sites used it nobody would go to it…which isn’t the case if the biggest site in the world is using it…

How about live Poker?

Inconsistent logic: (a) cheating will ruin poker, i.e. drive traffic away b/c of cheating, isn't consistent with "cheating doesn't drive traffic away." (b) As AI bots become easier to make, AI detection systems become easier to make. It doesn't just evolve for the bad guys.

Online poker been dead for years

This is interesting. My wife started to play a little on ACR. We NEVER were on the site at the same time. We did not play in tournaments together. She was deep in a few tourneys and they instantly banned her. She gave them all information asked for.

Yeah, get on the “Globals and the WPTs” cause we all know sweepstakes poker sites are legit 😆 The funniest thing about all this is how the industry held up Ali like a prize fish as evidence it was capable of combatting RTA cheating… he was multi-accounting… 2 separate things

It's not mate... I've designed variants that increase profit, make the game easier to play by adding no new complications, are more fun and more. The real problem is that nobody can see beyond GTO. "The bots are using it, game over".

Variants buy time. But I promise you with the latest ai models building solves for variants isn’t as hard as you think. All comes down to the fish / cheater ratios. Eventually it will be too low to overcome rake.

If you add changeable elements to the game the solvers might be able to keep up. But, if you make it mega profitable to exploit, change those elements regularly, then nobody will even bother to try solving it each time.

I'm sure you agree the problem with new varients is that it's basically a whole new game. These handicaps are different! If you can play poker, you can play with a handicap. I think it's the future of all games. Imagine chess, but secretly, your queen can only move diagonally

You can hear the addiction in his voice....just go play in person like a normal addict

It’s sad that this is how the new players get treated. I’ll never refer anyone to ACR. I won’t promote them in any way and when they found no fault they should have given all buy ins back. The nonsense they “love their players” is a complete lie.

Live Dealer Online Poker. Somewhere someone is working on this. Get a robot to handle the auto shuffler and read winners

Which one would have less cheaters ? Coinpoker or WPTGlobal?

People don’t realize how insanely fast LLMs are now! People can build their own custom solvers that are 1 of 1 without any coding or engineering knowledge. This makes it hard for sites to police this for home made white glove rta tools shits scary out there 🥹

She was playing for fun, as a release, and probably just to show me what it feels like to run the kids down while the spouse plays online poker 😂. Either way it left a bad taste in my mouth and in hers. It was purely a bot move. I told them I know people play in the same house.

They then proceeded to tell her basically “my bad” and gave roughly 20% of buy ins back. The tournaments she was going to cash were not honored and they banned her mid-tourney while deep in a few tournaments. Look I’m a losing player she didn’t want my help lol.

Here is an idea. Why dont casinos hire the cheats themselves and pay well to prevent