Poker Players Alliance: News and Articles
As we near the end of 2007, the fight for poker gains momentum. Since our last newsletter, the PPA has become more involved at the state level, received national media coverage, and we have become an increasingly active and influential force in Washington, D.C. Proud to play poker, |
Dec 2, 2007 2:22 pm
The problem here is in the definition of the word "rigged". Rigged, bad beat, getting caught in a bluff, being outplayed and making a move and getting caught are not synonymous. I doubt anyone who is even marginally on top of the stories of security and procedural breaches, admissions by the sites themselves, third party exposé's and paybacks* to players by sites themselves can say breaches don't exist. We all have to admit to that since recovering from being cheated is most often internally investigated and most don't have the legal and technical expertise to properly investigate and press for recovery you are effectively at the mercy and integrity of the site for redress. *Payback defined here as a refund to an account not associated with a promotion. All of these things exist. I bet no one here is going to deposit 1,000 of their own money in AbsolutePoker today and everyone has a heightened observation of "strange things" happening. Much of this can be resolved my regulation and penalties for malfeasance, insurance that sites have the financial ability to cover what they owe, are fined and penalized in cases of breaches and a uniform baseline of externally verifiable operational integrity of anyone operating a site is in place. All of this being in effect will have absolutely no effect on "bad beats" real or perceived, getting caught in a bluff or being outplayed.
As for being "rigged" there is scarcely an enterprise that humans participate in where if someone can cheat someone will. Proper procedures should be able to detect "rogue" employees and rogue sites certainly the environment for both exist now.
The only protection we have as players is the existence of verifiable methods of secure operations, enforcement with teeth to punish those who either purposely or through ineptitude operates outside uniform, external guidelines. It appears that the people involved in the Absolute scandal were all close-knit insiders (including Mark Seif) who blogged and held the position to the end that "this was impossible","be careful there may be a defamation suit". Who can say from a perspective of close, personal knowledge that there are no rigged sites, rigged games and that every hand dealt is perfectly above board? I am absolutely sure (pun intended) that everyone making this claim of "not rigged hold a position within the sites from which to make this claim from fact. Given the millions sites can easily make and the existence of technological means to establish secure operations I can think of no other reason than greed, stupidity or to rig the site for more and more profits (a combination of greed and stupidity) to advocate no meaningful oversight. In my view those who believe that linking security and legalization reduces the likelihood of removing prohibition are fooling themselves.
Notwithstanding the foibles of lawmaking in the US congress (foibles it appears to me all politicians of all parties and countries have) separating these issues strengthens the "prohibition crowd's" argument by letting them add "NO poker without oversight just so site operators can make millions and we can be cheated" to their mantra and it lets the "stop prohibition crowd" to add "I'd rather have NO Poker rather than poker without oversight so I can be cheated"to theirs. If the sites are not careful this "open environment" will be what kills online play.
Did anyone notice that just within the last few weeks the main sites just purchased and/or developed and installed software to detect multiple / defunct accounts? Having done this earlier would have given "PotRipper", "BullDozer" Et.Al. one less avenue to compromise their sites. I bet the cost of this was much less that the cost to site traffic, reputation and movement towards not being legalized.
This can be seen that a least some sites know the importance of having an honest, secure game.....but being forced into accountability by catastrophic event is not accountability ©2007 Jon Holt Merlin333 
