5live Investigates Online Poker Cheats

[Gavster]

Interesting program on tonight from 9pm for those of you that use poker sites. Must say, any reports like this put me of ever thinking of starting.

Adrian Goldberg reveals the cheaters making millions from online poker. Recently one of the world's biggest online poker companies paid out more than $2 million in refunds, after it caught a Chinese gang colluding to win games. The programme hears from both victims and culprits and asks what can be done to stop the gangs who are ripping off players around the world.

[Gavster]

Quite an interesting program. Don't know if any of you tuned in, but worth a listen on iplayer if you get chance.

It centered around collusion on Pokerstars. Apparently they have compensated customers over £2m after numbers of players reported being fleeced by collusion gangs. One former employee suggested that security software could not cope with the demand during the online poker boom. Any suggestion that the security software was turned off during busy periods was denied.

Other reports focussed on poker-bots. So in this case a player can see the hold cards or their opponent's cards, which obviously gives them one hell of an advantage. This was prevalent on lesser known sites where security was not up to scratch.

The main point was to stay with the big providers, as they have the best security to catch these scammers out.