Online Poker Blog

LAS VEGAS — Las Vegas poker professional Huck Seed has won $500,000 in the National Heads-Up Poker Championship, topping a field of 64 players in bracket-style matches.

Las Vegas poker professional Huck Seed topped a field of 64 players at the National Heads-Up Poker Championship.

As with other forms of online gambling, many critics question whether the operators of such games – especially those located in jurisdictions separate from most of their players – might be engaging in fraud themselves.

Internet discussion forums are rife with unproven allegations of non-random card dealing, possibly to favour house-employed players or “bots” (poker playing software disguised as a human opponent), or to give multiple players good hands thus increasing the bets and the rake, or simply to prevent new players from losing so quickly that they become discouraged. However, there is little more than anecdotal evidence to support such claims, and others argue that the rake is sufficiently large that such abuses would be unnecessary and foolish. Many claim to see lots of “bad beats” with large hands pitted against others all too often at a rate that seems to be a lot more common than in live games. But this theory might be refuted by the fact that online cardrooms deal more hands per hour. Because online players get to see more hands, their likelihood of seeing more improbable bad beats or randomly large pots is also increased.

However, to date there has been at least one site, ProPoker.com, that has been found to use serverside bots that play with the knowledge of players’ cards and the cards yet to be dealt. It has since been shut down, with many players losing the funds they had on the site.

Many online poker sites are certified by bodies such as the Kahnawake Gaming Commission, and major auditing firms like PricewaterhouseCoopers review the fairness of the shuffle and payouts for some sites.

The problem of finding a protocol to play poker without a trusted dealer is called mental poker.

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Ronnie O’Sullivan, Roy Brindley, Tony Cascarino, and Colin Lloyd among the stars taking to the felt in charity poker tournament at Harlow Stadium on March 18.

The Mighty Hopefuls Relay For Life team will hold a fundraiser poker tournament Friday, March 27, at the Eagles Club on Main Street in Lead. The event will feature Texas Hold ‘dm at 7 p.m. with a $10 charitable donation. There will be prizes, and proceeds will benefit the American Cancer Society through the Lawrence County Relay For Life in Spearfish June 19-20.