WASHINGTON – The head of the U.S. commercial casino industry today declared, “there are no longer any good reasons to put U.S. citizens at risk by continuing to outlaw online poker in the U.S.” He also called on Congress to pass laws toughening enforcement against illegal online gambling operators.
Frank J. Fahrenkopf Jr., president and CEO of the American Gaming Association (AGA), made the statement as his group introduced an online poker Code of Conduct, outlining the measures it thinks are necessary to institute an effective regulatory system that will protect American consumers, keep minors from gambling, provide tools to help problem gamblers, and create provisions to help law enforcement identify and prosecute illegal operators.
While the U.S. Justice Department has taken steps to shut down illegal off-shore online gambling sites, millions of Americans continue to play online poker every day.
“The AGA thinks online poker operators must adhere to the same stringent regulations that have proven effective in governing brick-and-mortar casinos,” Fahrenkopf said. “If online poker is legalized in the U.S., implementation of the principles of the Code of Conduct will ensure that American consumers are playing online poker in a fair and secure environment provided by a responsible operator.”
In addition to the Code of Conduct, the AGA introduced a YouTube video that makes the case for establishing federal guidelines that would allow states to license and regulate online poker, ensure American consumers are protected and that the jobs and revenues associated with the industry are realized in the U.S.
The Wild-West-themed video ties poker’s earliest and most lawless periods to today’s unregulated, illegal operators and the risky, anything-goes environment in which U.S. online poker players currently are wagering. The video briefly recounts the history of poker in the United States and reminds viewers that without regulation and enforcement, poker establishments were not always run fairly.
The video also outlines the current environment in which Americans are once again playing poker – this time online – in a risky environment without regulation and where law enforcement has limited ability to protect them. It points out that the U.S. is losing thousands of jobs and billions of dollars to foreign countries through the actions of the companies that are operating illegally. The video closes by asking Congress to approve legislation allowing states to license and regulate online poker so the millions of Americans who play online poker can do so safely with responsible, law-abiding operators.
The Code of Conduct proposes the following six principles online poker companies should follow in order to obtain a license. Companies should:
Conduct extensive background checks that will keep criminals out of the business;
Install proper identification of every U.S. online poker player to assist law enforcement and keep minors, consumers from unlawful jurisdictions and cheaters from playing;
Undergo regular testing and auditing of online poker software to ensure that games are fair and honest;
Implement rigorous player exclusion processes to prevent minors, players from illegal U.S. jurisdictions and cheaters from accessing online poker sites;
Institute effective responsible gaming protections on operator sites to educate patrons and provide problem gamblers easy access to tools to help control their behavior; and,
Maintain stringent anti-money-laundering procedures that will assist the government in its law enforcement efforts.
“Only a few years ago, the technology and operating processes did not exist to implement and enforce the principles of the Code,” Fahrenkopf said. “But online gambling is legal in some 85 jurisdictions today, and the technology that eliminates the risks that once concerned the AGA and others has now been proven through actual use.”
The Code of Conduct is housed on a new “Online Poker Headquarters” section of the AGA website. Accessible via www.americangaming.org/onlinepokerHQ, the site includes resources such as an issue backgrounder and the AGA’s recent white paper on online gambling; AGA statements, press releases and opinion pieces related to online poker; and directions for how to get involved.
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The AGA represents the commercial casino-entertainment industry by addressing federal legislative and regulatory issues. The association also serves as a clearinghouse for information, develops educational and advocacy programs, and provides leadership on industry-related issues of public concern.
The game of poker (or at least most of the variants) is considered to be computationally unsolvable. However, methods are being developed to at least approximate perfect strategy from the game theory perspective in the heads-up (two player) game, and increasingly good systems are being created for the multi-player or ring game.
Perfect strategy has multiple meanings in this context. From a game-theoretic optimal point of view, a perfect strategy is one that cannot lose to any other player’s strategy; however, optimal strategy can vary in the presence of sub-optimal players who have weaknesses that can be exploited. In this case, perfect strategy would be one that correctly or closely models those weaknesses and takes advantage of them to make a profit.
Some of these systems are based on Bayes theorem, Nash equilibrium, Monte Carlo simulation and Neural networks.
A large amount of the research is being done at the University of Alberta by the GAMES group led by Jonathan Schaeffer who developed Poki and PsOpt.
On April 15, 2011, the Federal Bureau of Investigation shut down three major poker sites, Full Tilt Poker, Poker Stars, and Absolute Poker. A grand jury has charged 11 defendants, including the founders of the poker sites, with bank fraud, money laundering, and violating gambling laws. The prosecutors are claiming that the sites tricked and bribed U.S. banks to receive profits from online gambling, an act that violated UIGEA. The same day, former Senator D’Almato released a comment on behalf of the PPA. He asserts that, “Online poker is not a crime and should not be treated as such.” D’Almato made no comment on the specific charges raised but promised a response once the “full facts become available.” (Wikipedia)
3 online poker houses face fraud charges in NYC Forbes Authorities in New York City have unsealed an indictment charging 11 people with bank fraud and illegal gambling in a prosecution of the three largest Internet poker companies. Federal prosecutors in Manhattan …
Lawyer: Utah bank exec arrested in online poker case had no authority to make … Greenfield Daily Reporter A Utah bank executive arrested in a federal prosecution of the three biggest Internet poker companies had no authority to make deals for the bank, its attorney said. Lawyer Loren Weiss, who represents SunFirst Bank in St. George, …
Three largest online poker sites shut down by FBI Lottery Post Its illegal to play online poker in the US. If Joe doesn’t drive even to the nearest casino the bustards fooling with oil futures will be in a deep trouble. Its illegal to play online poker in the US. If Joe doesn’t drive even to the nearest casino the …
Possible Australian Connection In US Online Poker Debacle Online-Casinos.com It has been speculated in a few reports that the Online Poker shut down in the USA has been brought about by the young Australian entrepreneur Daniel Tzvetkoff. A short while ago in August of last year Daniel Tzvetkoff was arrested in Las Vegas under …
The Morning After: Players Speak on the Online Poker Shutdown Bluff Magazine It’s only been 24 hours since the news broke that online poker as we know it in the United States is over, but the impact the news has made on the poker community is already far-reaching. Players instantly took to Twitter to joke about being unemployed …
Casino mogul ends PokerStars association following ‘Black Friday’ Manx Radio A statement released by Wynn’s firm says, ““Wynn Resorts Limited announced today that it terminated its alliance with PokerStars, the online poker company. “The decision was reached as a result of the indictment unsealed by the US Attorney for the …
Poker company indictments further cloud legislative debate Las Vegas Sun It also doesn’t look so hot for Wynn Resorts, coincidentally represented by Perkins, too, which signed a deal March 25 with the online poker behemoth. Or for Station Casinos, which partnered with Full Tilt less than a week later. …
US clampdown a massive blow to online poker Winnipeg Free Press I wanted to discuss the Manitoba Poker Championship in this column, but due to the magnitude of Friday’s events, that will have to wait at least one more week.
DOJ indicts founders of top US online poker sites MarketWatch Federal authorities unsealed an indictment Friday against the founders of the three largest internet poker companies operating in the US The indictment charges eleven defendants, including the founders of …
Blogosphere
FBI shuts down poker sites in online gambling crackdownTechnology Boing Boing On Friday, the FBI shut down three of the world’s most popular online poker sites, replacing their home pages with the message: “This domain name has been seized by the FBI pursuant to an Arrest Warrant.
FBI Shuts Down Top Online Poker Sites The Big Lead Yesterday the department of Justice charged the owners of PokerStars, Full Tilt Poker and Absolute Poker with bank fraud, illegal gambling offenses and money laundering.
The Fallout From The Full Tilt / PokerStars Pullout Bill’s Poker Blog I said I was going to cover what this all means on a few topics when I got home and as I start to write this it’s 6:07am and I’ve just spent a sleepless night on the bus from Phetchabun so I’ll probably just do a quick draft and finish up after …
FBI Shuts Down Online Poker Sites Drudge Retort Eleven executives at the online poker sites PokerStars, Full Tilt Poker and Absolute Poker have been charged with bank fraud and money laundering
Poker Sites Charged with Gambling Offenses [H]ardOCP Eleven defendants from 3 online poker sites were indicted on multiple charges stemming from illegal gambling profits. The Manhattan US Attorney charged the operators of Poker Stars, Full Tilt Poker and Absolute Poker with conspiracy.
Imagine having your own online Poker Club, for just you and your friends – where you can arrange your own private poker games whenever you want! It’s called Home Games. It’s free to use. And it’s really easy to set up.
PokerStars introduces Online Home Games
Now you can take the experience of home games online! PokerStars Home Games lets you create and manage your own private poker club to play online poker games of your choice, with just your friends, on your schedule.
Creating a club is easy – just pick a club name and invitation code. You’ll then be presented with your own exclusive poker lobby that you can customize with private Home Game tables and tournaments of your choosing.
Inviting friends is simple – just send them the club ID and invitation code, then accept them as members when they join.
Scheduling games and tournaments is moments away – just choose the game type and buy-in level, then set the date for your online Home Game. The system will automatically notify your club members of the scheduled game.
Your exclusive online Poker Club includes these key features:
Club Management Tools – appoint administrators, accept/remove members, customize your club lobby, set length of club seasons, and more.
Club Leaderboard – ranks players by points earned through tournament play
Player Statistics – view points earned, top finishes, knockouts for each club member
Game Management Tools – customize game parameters and schedule games
Save Favorite Game Setups – easy to replay your favorite customized game configurations
Game Schedule – list of scheduled tournaments and open ring game tables
Game Results – view tournament results including finish order, points earned, knockouts
Private Games – all games and tournaments are available only to members of your club
Custom Tables – your club name appears on the felt of your customized game tables
Full Range of Poker Games – Choose Hold’em, Omaha, Stud, mixed games like HORSE and others
It’s Free – there is no charge for opening and running your own online Poker Club
Check out the rest of the Home Games section to learn more, and see how easy it is to manage or join an online Poker Club with PokerStars Home Games.
Home Games Romania
You are invited to join my private online poker club, Home Games Romania.
- If you don’t already have it, download the free PokerStars software
- Open the main poker lobby, then click on the Home Games tab
- Click the ‘Join a Poker Club’ button
- Enter my Club ID number: 194031
- Enter my Invitation Code: homegamesro
That’s it! Once I’ve approved your membership request, we’ll be ready to start playing Home Games online together.
One possible algorithm for shuffling cards without the use of a trusted third party is to use a commutative encryption scheme. A commutative scheme means that if some data is encrypted more than once, the order in which you decrypt this data will not matter.
Example: Alice has a plaintext message. She encrypts this, producing a garbled ciphertext which she gives this to Bob. Bob encrypts the ciphertext again, using the same scheme as Alice but with another key. When decrypting this double encrypted message, if the encryption scheme is commutative, it will not matter who decrypts first.
The mental poker problem concerns how to play a fair game of poker without the need for a trusted dealer.
Today this is an important problem due to the sharp rise in interest in online poker. The problem arises because of the need for a way to ensure the players a fair game without needing to trust the dealer (usually an internet gambling site). For instance the dealer might give some players an advantage in the cards dealt, giving them an upper hand. This problem can be compared to the problem of flipping a coin over distance.
Several protocols for doing this have been suggested, the first by Adi Shamir, Ron Rivest and Len Adleman (the creators of the RSA-encyption protocol).
Tracking poker play in a B&M casino is very difficult. You can easily monitor your winnings, but tracking any detailed statistics about your game requires a player to take notes after each hand, which is cumbersome and distracting.
Conversely, tracking poker play online is easy. Most online poker rooms support “Hand Histories” text files which track every action both you and your opponents made during each hand. The ability to specifically track every single played hand has many advantages. Many third-party software applications process hand history files and return detailed summaries of poker play. These not only include exact tallies of rake and winnings, which are useful for tax purposes, but also offer detailed statistics about the person’s poker play. Serious players use these statistics to check for weaknesses or “leaks” (mistakes that leak money from their winnings) in their game. Such detailed analysis of poker play was never available in the past, but with the growth of online poker play, it is now commonplace among nearly all serious and professional online poker players.
There are substantial differences between online poker gaming and conventional, in-person gaming.
One obvious difference is that players do not sit right across from each other, removing any ability to observe others’ reactions and body language. Instead, online poker players learn to focus more keenly on betting patterns, reaction time and other behavior tells that are not physical in nature. Since poker is a game that requires adaptability, successful online players learn to master the new frontiers of their surroundings.
Another less obvious difference is the rate of play. In brick and mortar casinos the dealer has to collect the cards, then shuffle and deal them after every hand. Due to this and other delays common in offline casinos, the average rate of play is around thirty hands per hour. Online casinos, however, do not have these delays; the dealing and shuffling are instant, there are no delays relating to counting chips (for a split pot), and on average the play is faster due to “auto-action” buttons (where the player selects his action before his turn). It is not uncommon for an online poker table to average sixty to eighty hands per hour.
This large difference in rate of play has created another effect among online poker players. In the brick and mortar casino, the only real way to increase your earnings is to increase your limit. In the online world players have another option, play more tables. Unlike a physical casino where it would be nearly impossible to play multiple tables at once, most online poker rooms allow a player to be on up to 4 tables at once. For example, a player may make around $10 per 100 hands at a lower limit game. In a casino, this would earn them under $4 an hour, which minus dealer tips would probably barely break even. In an online poker room, the same player with the same win rate could play four tables at once, which at 60 hands per hour each would result in an earning of $24/hour, which is a modest salary for somebody playing online poker. Some online players even play eight or more tables at once, in an effort to increase their winnings.
Another important change results from the fact that online poker rooms, in some cases, offer online poker schools that teach the basics and significantly speed up the learning curve for novices. Many online poker rooms also provide free money play so that players may practice these skills in various poker games and limits without the risk of losing real money. People who previously had no way to learn and improve because they had no one to play with now have the ability to learn the game much more quickly and gain invaluable experience from free money play.
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.
Online poker is the game of poker played over the Internet (online). It has been responsible for a dramatic increase in the number of poker players worldwide, and as of December 2003, revenues from online poker were estimated at US$34 million per month.
Traditional (or “brick and mortar”, B&M) venues for playing poker, such as casinos and poker rooms, may be intimidating for novice players and are located in geographically disparate locations. Brick and mortar casinos are also reticent to promote poker because it is very difficult for them to profit from the activity. Though the rake, or time charge, of traditional casinos is often very high, the opportunity costs of running a poker room are even higher. Brick and mortar casinos often make much more money by removing poker rooms and adding more slot machines.
Online venues, by contrast, are dramatically cheaper because they have much smaller overhead costs. For example, adding another table does not take up valuable space like it would for a brick and mortar casino. Online poker rooms tend to be viewed as more player-friendly. For example, the software may prompt the player when it is his or her turn to act. Online poker rooms also allow the players to play for very low stakes (as low as 1¢) and often offer poker freerolls (where there is no entry fee), attracting beginners.
Online venues may be more vulnerable to certain types of fraud, especially collusion between players. However, they also have collusion detection abilities that do not exist in brick and mortar casinos. For example, online poker room security employees can look at the “hand history” of the cards previously played by any player on the site, making patterns of behavior easier to detect than in a casino where colluding players can simply fold their hands without anyone ever knowing the strength of their holding. Online poker rooms also check player’s IP addresses in order to prevent players at the same household or at known open proxy servers from playing on the same tables.
The major online poker sites offer varying features to entice new players. One common feature is to offer tournaments called satellites by which the winners gain entry to real-life poker tournaments. It was through one such tournament that Chris Moneymaker won his entry to the 2003 World Series of Poker. He went on to win the main event causing shock in the poker world. The 2004 World Series featured triple the number of players over the 2003 turnout. At least four players in the WSOP final table won their entry through an online cardroom. Like Moneymaker, 2004 winner Greg “Fossilman” Raymer also won his entry at the PokerStars online cardroom.
In December 2003 it was reported that online poker revenues stood at around $34m (€ 40m) per month and were growing by 27% per month. By March 2005, at peak times approximately 100,000 people were playing for real money at the various cardrooms with a like number playing free games.
In October 2004, Sportingbet Plc, the world’s largest publicly traded online gaming company (SBT.L), announced the acquisition of ParadisePoker.com, one of the online poker industry’s first and largest cardrooms. The acquisition marked the first time an online cardroom was owned by a public company. Since then, several other cardroom parent companies have gone public.
In June 2005, PartyGaming, the parent company of the largest online cardroom, went public on the London Stock Exchange, achieving an initial public offering market value in excess of $8 billion dollars. At the time of the IPO, ninety-two percent of Party Gaming’s income came from poker operations.
The game of poker (or at least most of the variants) is considered to be computationally unsolvable. However, methods are being developed to at least approximate perfect strategy from the game theory perspective in the heads-up (two player) game, and increasingly good systems are being created for the multi-player or ring game.
