Winamax Facing Lawsuit from Players Over Investigation Into Poker Bots

Have you ever reported a suspected 'bot'?

These bots are borderline harmless. They are essentially rocks for coding simplicity. Just fold your hand to them. Yea the room should do more but I believe they are giving it their 110%

I have never reported and do not know how to do it. I am also against bots.

No, never reported one.
But playing freerolls, mainly cc frc, I don't think many bots at our tables.
Or the bots are as bad as I am. Funny detail: in my language 'bot' is a type of fish.

If you can't resist: check the top 10 of the frc leaderboards.

A bit more serious:
How to detect and prove that player 'x' likely is a bot, without getting your account blocked by the room?

This makes no sense. Why would they suspend the account of someone that they say played in person for them and proved that he could play extremely well? Definitely looks fishy.

In response, Winamax invited both players to play in front of their employees at the company’s offices in Paris. While Twopandas declined the offer, VictoriaMo did in fact play 400 sit-and-go tournaments at Winamax. VictoriaMo was ultimately exonerated by the poker room, while Twopandas was found guilty.
That meant that VictoriaMo was allowed to keep their winnings, while Twopandas was not. Both players had their accounts suspended, due to what Winamax called a “general climate of mistrust” surrounding them.

I've never suspected a bot because most players that I've found who win excessively do so due to BOTH good luck AND good play. It doesn't take a bot to play well when you're repeatedly dealt good starting hands and hit good flops, turns & rivers.

Any poker site that allows cheating (either deliberately or through negligence) deserves to have the book thrown at them.

Originally Posted by MattRyder

This makes no sense. Why would they suspend the account of someone that they say played in person for them and proved that he could play extremely well? Definitely looks fishy.

I've never suspected a bot because most players that I've found who win excessively do so due to BOTH good luck AND good play. Although it's a lot easier to play well when you draw good starting hands and hit good flops, turns & rivers.

Image management?
Lots of stories of players getting their account blocked are going around.
For sure some try to cheat, but the rooms prefer not to take a risk as the total number of players is not too big; collateral damage accepted.

Originally Posted by 8bod8

Image management?
Lots of stories of players getting their account blocked are going around.
For sure some try to cheat, but the rooms prefer not to take a risk as the total number of players is not too big; collateral damage accepted.

I see your point, but doesn't that discourage good players from joining or staying with the site? Imagine if Stars were to start arbitrarily cancelling accounts of all the best players. That kind of collateral damage would be the beginning of the end for them. Word would get around very quickly.

Even bringing back a meaningful loyalty program wouldn't be enough to undo the damage.

Originally Posted by MattRyder

I see your point, but doesn't that discourage good players from joining or staying with the site? Imagine if Stars were to start arbitrarily cancelling accounts of all the best players. That kind of collateral damage would be the beginning of the end for them. Word would get around very quickly.

Even bringing back a meaningful loyalty program would be enough to undo the damage.

Fully agree, but what happened that these 2 got noticed?
If these 2 had been in a game with Ivy, Negreanu, Hellmuth, etc. probably nobody had noticed anything, as all of them are walking super brains. (maybe we could catch Ivy doing some edge-sorting).
Winamax didn't arbitrarily cancel accounts of good players, only the two that got complaints; that's acceptable.
The sad part of the story:
2 player-id's accused of being poker robots.
1 proven non-bot; or it was a realy well made humaniod.
Maybe the other one is also not a bot; I would not go to Winamax (or any other room's) office, if I get invited.

The guy that was exonerated shouldn't have been cancelled. Although, it wouldn't surprise me if he was allowed to create an account with a different username as part of the deal. That, of course would be kept secret.

Hello, for me are well complaints against Winamax. If poker rooms want to make money, it's okay to do so, but not that way, because these types of issues makes players wary of online game.

I do not know how and where to report suspicion.

Originally Posted by Denchik43RU

I do not know how and where to report suspicion.

I am thinking you might start with the support department for whichever site you suspect. They will give you guidance.

Thank you, I will consider

Originally Posted by MattRyder

This makes no sense. Why would they suspend the account of someone that they say played in person for them and proved that he could play extremely well? Definitely looks fishy.

I've never suspected a bot because most players that I've found who win excessively do so due to BOTH good luck AND good play. It doesn't take a bot to play well when you're repeatedly dealt good starting hands and hit good flops, turns & rivers.

Any poker site that allows cheating (either deliberately or through negligence) deserves to have the book thrown at them.

I completely agree with you colleague, if the room allows itself to deceive its players, then you need to leave, but poker is not a game of chance, we play with people, and we have the opportunity to see all the cards on the board for a decision.

I've never told you this is very interesting, will we know about the progress of the investigation here in the forum?

Originally Posted by Robin Moura

I've never told you this is very interesting, will we know about the progress of the investigation here in the forum?

I think the outcome of the investigation is in the article.

Originally Posted by shells_bells_53

I am thinking you might start with the support department for whichever site you suspect. They will give you guidance.

Yes, I really did appreciate it for the feedback.

Originally Posted by 8bod8

Fully agree, but what happened that these 2 got noticed?
If these 2 had been in a game with Ivy, Negreanu, Hellmuth, etc. probably nobody had noticed anything, as all of them are walking super brains. (maybe we could catch Ivy doing some edge-sorting).
Winamax didn't arbitrarily cancel accounts of good players, only the two that got complaints; that's acceptable.
The sad part of the story:
2 player-id's accused of being poker robots.
1 proven non-bot; or it was a realy well made humaniod.
Maybe the other one is also not a bot; I would not go to Winamax (or any other room's) office, if I get invited.

It is difficult to prove that these accounts are bots, so it seems to me that the court will be lost.

Well look, nor in pokerstars have total control of all the bots there are, every day they discover a new one. With this criticism, knowing that Pokerstars is the best room in the world in all aspects, imagine the problems of bots that should have the other rooms

I have never ran across a bot that I know of...how can you tell?

Originally Posted by Splitpot88

I have never ran across a bot that I know of...how can you tell?

+1 constructive question
Maybe the site reps can advise?
This way cc members can assist the rooms in the fight against bots.

One thing I know:
- you can ask in the chat: '<playerId>: are you a bot?'
- even if the answer is yes, it's probably not true

hi how do you recognize or suspect a bots?

Im pretty sure I come across alot of pokerbots in my time... its a real shame on this happening. come on pokersites use packet sniffers to shut down this crime.

most of the players who had a bad beat would claim it was to a bot , and that if the game is hard to them its not because other players actually work on their game and putting some hard work on it , its because they are bots ^^ . i dont see how so many people can claim being victims to playing vs a bot , if you noticed the bot reported on winamax was at the highest levels it means that the other players did notice the suspucious behavior while working on their game and seeing where they did go wrong and started to analyse that suspected person behavior meticulously to come with that statement. i highly doubt most of the people are doing the same , they probably frustrated because of a bad beat and who doesnt want to blame a bot )

I think it's absolutely ridiculous that VictoriaMo still got his/her account suspended after proving he/she was legit... I would never ever play on Winamax again

What criteria does one use to report a "suspected bot"? Is there something about their play that can tip me off? I guess bots are able to play many tables at one time and that might be a tip off. But I would hesitate to report a player as a bot if I weren't quite sure. That would really tick me off if someone reported me, perhaps simply because that person was angry with me for some reason.

Originally Posted by tauri103

hi how do you recognize or suspect a bots?

Originally Posted by mulliongc

What criteria does one use to report a "suspected bot"? Is there something about their play that can tip me off? I guess bots are able to play many tables at one time and that might be a tip off. But I would hesitate to report a player as a bot if I weren't quite sure. That would really tick me off if someone reported me, perhaps simply because that person was angry with me for some reason.

I believe the article tells us a little of what the poker players had noticed and recorded. I don't think it's just one single thing that tips people off, but many things over a period of time.

I think I have seen a few bots in old full tilt and party poker
I think there are bots im every site but they are better managed

I play winamax is, and I've never seen anything rare, I've met people who play several hours during the day, so that's not a good way to discover a bot.
I think it would be something good to think you're a bot, because you win a trip to, in this case Paris, I would not bother traveling to Paris, to prove I'm not a bot.

Yes, I'm certain I have...at least once. One way is to play in higher limits and then if you make it to heads-up and you suspect something, use chat, call up support to monitor the game and play sloooowwwwly ....verrrry, verrrrry slowly. For anyone who has played computer chess or other such game, there are exploitable weaknesses in the early levels. Understanding the games is critical to understanding the optimal choices required.

Bet online 1&2$ 10man sngs were infested with bots.you'd spot them on the leaderboard because they had more points than you could accumulate with 10 tables at all times for a month and not sleeping ever. I contacted support to notify. they said its impossible for bots on there site....So I just faced the facts I'm playing half people half bot. Which became pretty easy actually because they have very specific ranges and different ranges for short stack and deep but they suck at short handed play before they get short stacked if you are slightly aggressive.

Originally Posted by playinggameswithu

These bots are borderline harmless. They are essentially rocks for coding simplicity. Just fold your hand to them. Yea the room should do more but I believe they are giving it their 110%

This ^ is incorrect. That's the way BOTs were 10yrs. ago. Not that way today. On 6max SPEED, FastForward & ZOOM tables they are uber aggressive. I'm sure the style of play is actually quite intimidating for many average (&/or newer) players.