Slashdot Mirror
Online Poker Bots Becoming Problematic?
scumbucket writes "MSNBC has a story about how poker bots have started to appear on internet gambling sites and the implications. It also talks about how a 'master level' poker-playing bot already exists. Could this proliferation of poker-playing bots undermine the almost $1 billion online gambling industry?"
Poker is played against other players, not the house. The house makes money by taking a cut of every pot. Poker bots could undermine the industry by scaring off human players that can't play well against a bot. This will reduce the amount of pots that are being played, thus reducing the house cut.
At first I was thinking that maybe this isn't fair to the other players... But then again if you think about it... As it stands poker is still a game of chance... A bot can only play optimum hands based upon the cards it sees and what it knows is still in the deck... This really isn't any different then a human player. If bots exist that are beating inexperienced players, how is this different from the poker pro who logs 10 hours of online poker a day?
When you break it down it still takes a skillful poker player to engineer a bot that can perform at a winning level...
Also the bots are betting someones money...
There is an inherent risk in online poker that the player at the other end of the connection has tools that he is using to gain a competative advantage, such as tools for counting cards, figuring odds and so on...
If you're looking for real human vs human action without worrying about cheat tools find a game in your neighborhood and go play there. Even though gambling isn't legal in all 50 states you can always find somewhere to play if you look hard enough.
First of, you DO get something when you gamble. You get the thrill of gambling. Anyone who walks into a Casino knows that chances are they are going to walk out with less money then they started. It is the fact that you might beat the odds and the thrill that brings that adds value. Saying that they are not giving you anything in return is like saying TV doesn't give you anything in return... sure it does. It gives you entertainment.
As to bots, they are not going to cause a Casino to loose money in any other way in that they might simply stop allowing certain games to be played online. If the game is a game where a strong pattern rec software can 'beat the odds' then they will simply get rid of the game, have their own bots play, or adjust winnings such that they still win in terms of dollar amount in the end. The only people who are going to come out loosers are people who who want to play online without a bot.
...you don't trust other players to not be using bots, but you trust the house to not add their own player to every game and fix the host software to guarantee that the house's player wins???
"Freedom means freedom for everybody" -- Dick Cheney
I have come to the conclusion that anything that has to do with money on the internet will eventually be hacked and exploited, why should gambling sites be any different?
"It's so convenient to have a system where everyone is a criminal" - A. Hitler
If you suck at playing poker and write a bot to do it for you, your bot will likely suck as badly as you do...
"The object of war is not to die for your country, but to make the other bastard die for his." - Patton
Despite what ESPN would have you believe, there are a large number of people who play games other than "No-limit hold 'em'", namely Limit and Omaha. Each of those games are based FAR more on mathematical odds, probability, and having the nuts as opposed to the bluffing and gamesmanship required for No-Limit. It would be much much easier to program a bot that could play Limit and Omaha profitably. No-Limit and preventing collusion are a much more difficult task.
sig--we don't need no goddamn sig
Picking up on a bluff is overrated. Most of the time, players are not completely bluffing (i.e. they have a lowly but reasonable hand). What constitutes a bluff? In Hold 'Em if I go all in on an 8-man table while only holding two pair, is that a bluff? Maybe and maybe not. The important thing is that you still have to beat me. If you're worried at all that I'm bluffing then you probably have a weaker hand yourself. The guy with the full house isn't worried if I'm bluffing or not. He's going to bet into me because he thinks he's going to win.
Bots won't help you decide if someone is bluffing, but they will help you decide if it even matters whether or not they're bluffing.
He was probably losing to himself as a way of laundering the money.
As it stands poker is still a game of chance
Skill plays a major factor in the long term. If it wouldn't, poker professionals would not be able to exist. But they do exist and they do earn a decent living. The reason why skill is so important is that odds are only part of the equation. Straightforward betting on good hands and folding when the odds are not in your favor is easily exploitable by just not calling the bets and bluffing to get the opponent to fold. So a good player must use deception. That element of deception turns the game into an unstructured game that is very hard to beat algorithmically, so I have my doubt about being able to create world-class bots.
If bots exist that are beating inexperienced players, how is this different from the poker pro who logs 10 hours of online poker a day?
The difference is that the bot doesn't have to sleep, eat, pay taxes, etc so there are much lower expenses for a bot and it can work 24 hours a day. That means that if good bots exist, they can be let loose at tables where most people play for fun and where it's currently not worth it for a professional player to play. Then the poker games will split up in very low limit games that nobody plays seriously and the high stakes games where only the best professionals can live. There will be no middle ground, but that is where most money is made for the casino's and where most semi-serious players play. The result might be that online poker loses its appeal to 90% of the players.
If you're looking for real human vs human action without worrying about cheat tools find a game in your neighborhood and go play there.
That's not really realistic, is it? First of all, online poker is different from 'live' poker because you don't need a poker face and a lot of players like that. Also, you can play it whenever you want, without having to coordinate schedules with other people. You also don't have to play with the same 9 neighbourhood guys all the time. Then there are more games to pick from online. You can play big tournaments online. You can play freerolls online, where you can win money for free. I could go on, but I think you get the point. Online poker is just a different ball game.
The article mentions in passing one other danger.. "Team Edition". It doesnn't mention details but it clues you to the the obvious way of successfully cheating.
Imagine the advantage of having two machines side by side EACH playing a hand in the SAME game. Not only would you know more cards in play, but more importantly you could always have the ability to use the stronger hand as your main betting hand, folding the weaker hand to avoid wasting money on it. The mathematical advantage of that must be Very Large.
Seems like this cheat would be undetectable, easy to do (two internet connections so they can't compare your IP #s), and doesn't require any bot coding at all.. very adaptable to any casino or player changes or questions.
Summary: you can't trust any online betting activity.
Beating a 0.5/1 table for 5-6BB/100 hands is considered destroying the game. You're claiming that you're beating it for about 40-50BB/100h.
Even if your bot is four-tabling, your alleged winrate is double what can be reasonably expected by an excellent player, simply due to the nature of the game.
It's a cute story, but next time try grounding your MIT tales of evil genius in a little reality.
Since bluffing is meant to fool human heuristics that judge the strenght of other players' hands based on those players' bets, why would a bot that works on probabilities NEED to consider bluffs?
Bluffs are also intended to foil human intuitive statistical analysis. The fundamental problem is that the strength of a perfectly rational player's hand can be determined from his bets. So the player must introduce noise or bias into his betting strategy to maintain the advantage of hidden cards. Since computers are even better at statistical analysis than humans, bluffing becomes more important, not less. The problem is that a bluffing strategy is itself subject to statistical analysis. Probably ultimately, there is no constant bluffing strategy that consistently beats sufficiently randomization.