How To Cheat at OnLine Poker

OK, the title was to posit this question:
“Should I play on-line poker for money given the likelihood of people cheating?”

Here’s what I think is a good summary I found summarizing cheating methods.

My conclusion is that where there is money involved, people are cheating. Always been that way, just more sophisticated now. So I won’t dip into that pool.

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While your right to say that dipping into real money online poker, and especially doing so at non major and unregulated off shore sites, is risky, etc, and While I respect what your saying, the fact remains, that if: 1. Your a very good player. 2. A very informed, aware player. 3. Only play at Major Sites like WSOP.com, WPT.com, Poker Stars, Ignition Poker, GGPoker, PokerGo, etc. 4. Have good bankroll management. 5. Dont play Ring, Single table Sit N Go’s online, and only play Multi table tournaments online.

If follow those 5 points above, then a player can, probably will be profitable over the mid term to long term.

Even if a rare, uncommon, single, 1,2 bots, etc slip through, remember that your not only playing against that, as your playing the WHOLE FIELD of many players, and that you may not run into bots, because of random, luck, chance, table draw. And if you do play against a bot, etc, you might get moved away from the table that has the bot.

And while the bots, other methods of cheating IF IF IF IF they rarely happen at a Big, major site, may add to the VARIANCE, and make it semi harder to overcome that variance, the better, best players, will still overcome, beat all that, and the creme will still rise to the top.

That said Recreational players should stick to Pokerstars, WSOP.com, and be very aware, and should maybe even consider not playing real money online poker because of how many sharks there are, and because of the RARE bots, cheaters, etc.

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Thanks. Since I am not 1. or 2. above, I’ve come to the same conclusion. I also agree about tournaments, especially larger tables makes it easier.

That’s what makes this site ideal. I hate to lose money more than I love to win it and that would affect my play.

I like Omaha Hi/Lo or Omaha the best and see WSOP.com has it. I’ll try that at some point once I’ve learned more.

Tom, your good enough to beat the bots, i have played many hours with you. See you at the tables soon :slight_smile:

Also, BETMGM is a very good poker site—been playing on it for years and as good as poker stars and others you mentioned.

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Thanks Fiber. I guess the only way to see is to do.

One other question. I live in Virginia and have a VPN. If I set the VPN to Phoenix and give them my son’s address in Vegas, will that get me in? It appears that on-line betting is only legal in some states (not Virginia). Also, I assume that I have to give my SSN so that any winnings can be taxed and losses ignored.

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Sadly, you are right on these things----I been getting 1099 forms for years from a few different sites as i kind of do fantasy sports for extra money and a little poker for money. Yep, now we can only play in our state and that makes it MUCH harder as less players etc…Miss the old days of playing with ppl. all over the world and BIG fields and you could win a lot of money with a little ( in tournaments with like 10, 000 ppl. or more ).

Tom, a legal work around is that some sites are what are called SWEEPSTAKES Poker. Sweepstakes poker is exactly the same as real money tournament, MTT poker. The only difference is that you are using money to enter a SWEEPSTAKES contest, and the way that win the contest is to win, cash the MTT, tournament. Winner(s) are then entered into a drawing to win the SWEEPSTAKES contest. There are also freeroll Sweepstakes poker tournaments. Some of the Sweepstakes poker client apps are NLOP, ClubWPT, etc. ClubWPT you pay a small monthly fee to play in both their SWEEPSTAKES Poker Tournaments, and their non sweepstakes poker tournaments. And since your paying a monthly fee to the site, and since the tournaments are free to enter, ClubWPT gets by, around most states bans on real money online poker.

A exception is WA St, and NLOP, and ClubWPT is still illegal in WA St, which is why ClubWPT wont let you play on ClubWPT if you live in WA St. You’ll have to find out if the same is true for Virginia. But there are states where real money online poker is illegal, but ClubWPT, Sweepstakes poker clients like NLOP is still legal.

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You can play small money and not worry about paying taxes. You only get that 1099 form if you won over $600.00 for the year.

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I think all of the regulated sites will have terms that don’t allow playing over VPN. It might still be possible, but you’ll risk having any winnings confiscated for violating their T&C’s.

Ignition, GG, ACR and a bunch of other sites aren’t regulated and you’ll likely be able to play on those without having to VPN in. They’ve all had their issues with bots/cheating though.

From my experience, the issues aren’t so widespread that you should avoid the real money games if you really want to play them, but there’s also not much reason to play on these sites either. It’s very difficult to win significant money, and the quality of the poker isn’t as different as people assume it’s going to be either, at least not at micro or low stakes.

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Yup! and Yup!

Wise advice on avoiding ring games and single-table tournaments. One easy way to cheat online is collusion. You have no way of knowing if there are multiple players playing at the table from the same location (or even one person playing on multiple machines), and sharing hand information with each other. In a multi-table tournament there is a pretty good chance that two people who intended to collude won’t end up at the same table, especially in a tournament with many tables.

I also remember one tournament I was in where two people had suspiciously similar usernames. I immediately sat out for several hands just in case I was going up against two people who were in reality one person. I saw some things that looked a little suspicious to me, like when they were the only people in the hand and one would fold to a small bet from another or they would just check to the showdown (since they already knew who would win the hand). I also saw some hand plays where their betting patterns seemed to be more about trying to get a third person to throw large numbers of chips in. Whether this was happening or not, I knew my best bet was to sit out until one of them got bumped to another table or I did.

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There is a lot of cheating nowadays, you’re right… I’ve been super leery of online cash poker as a result. Just getting back into it finally!

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Actually, there is NOT a lot of cheating at online cash poker today as you can only play in your state and much less players, and you get to know most of them etc…I still ONLY play small online cash games as wary of cheating-and save my bigger play for the casino.

Regulated online poker yes, but that’s not true for GG, ACR, Ignition and probably a bunch of other sites.

Also, there was at least one cheat that was an exploit of the site itself, and there really isn’t any guarantee that regulated sites will be more immune to that than unregulated ones.

I’ve played a fair bit on one of the sites that’s supposed to be the worst for bots, and I haven’t really seen much evidence of that at low/micro stakes, but given the high rake at these stakes, bots don’t need to be taking much extra out of the pool to make the games hard to beat.

Casino poker on the other hand really does seem to be booming. I never have enough time to partake myself, so can’t recommend it from firsthand experience, but that really does seem the way to go if you want to start playing for real money.

It really depends bill, on the stakes, type of games, the online poker clients, etc. If one is at least a semi good player, has at least semi good bankroll management, chip stack management, and plays semi low to semi mid stakes, and plays on Pokerstars, WSOP. com, WPT. com, ClubWPT. com, Ignition Poker, GGPoker, Poker Bros, PokerGO, Betonline. com, etc, and only plays semi large field MTT’s, and are good at semi large field MTT’s, etc, and if they are aware, careful, etc, they will probably be ok, profitable, etc.

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You forgot Betmgm-just as good as poker stars etc. been playing for a few years on these and only ring games ( 6 or 8 ppl. ) and being we can chat n say anything you get to know each other and awww the fish:)…me 2 old n tired for tournaments, only play them with free tickets i win and once in the money i let the wife take over as i need my rest:).

got a chuckle “let the wife take over”

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Looks like BetMGM poker is limited to MI, PA, NJ and Ontario. That will be a good thing if you do have access, because it will be regulated too, but sucks for the rest of us.

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Yep, i live in Pa…and honestly on my years on it never saw a bot or cheating.