How to spot online poker cheating and what to do about it
Nab those poker cheats!
BEAT-A-CHEAT! Cheating online (which usually takes the shape of collusion) is thankfully rare on the big poker and casino sites. If it takes place at all it happens on the high stakes games as the lower limits are not worth the effort and teamwork involved for any attempted fraud.
HERE’S HOW YOU SPOT IT If you pay attention to betting patterns (which you should do as a matter of course anyway) they will pretty soon point up whether or not certain players are working together. A pattern of play will always become apparent if a sting is taking place. These kind of notes are valuable to you for a host of reasons.
HERE’S WHAT TO DO Being suspicious of wrong doing is one thing but a little proof will go a long way to nabbing suspects. All the big sites provide hand histories so once you are suspicious take a good look at some detailed records on the players you are concerned about. Pass these details onto the site administrator. He or she will be delighted to target the individuals and freeze their accounts. A word of warning. Be absolutely sure within yourself that you are not being a bad loser trying to retaliate after a game has gone against you. Have a good case. The administrator will do the rest. The big sites can track collusion very easily once they are made aware of it and they act swiftly and with harsh penalties so your help will be appreciated if it’s in good faith.
SECURITY IS EVERYTHING Be assured the powerful poker sites hate cheating more than you do as it’s extremely bad for their business and reputation. There is now a healthy competitive war ongoing between the large organisations to “out secure” each other and a lot of their promotional money is rightly spent on advertising that fact. This is your very best protection. The fact that security is their biggest selling point guarantees they’ll stamp it out as soon as it rears its head.
CHIP VALUES & COLOURS For the benefit of all new players and those of you who are thinking about taking up poker, I thought I’d set out the various chip colours and values as it’s been pointed out I have never covered this previously. White-1, Yellow-2, Red-5, Blue-10, Grey-20, Green-25, Orange-50, Black-100, Pink-250, Purple-500, Burgundy-1,000, Light blue-2,000, Brown-5,000. For cash games the individual value will be on the chip itself in most cases.
