Online Poker Bots Becoming Problematic? 613
scumbucket writes "MSNBC has a story about how poker bots have started to appear on internet gambling sites and the implications. It also talks about how a 'master level' poker-playing bot already exists. Could this proliferation of poker-playing bots undermine the almost $1 billion online gambling industry?"
Original twoplustwo article (Loic Dachary) (Score:5, Informative)
the end of the news. Despite the desperate tone of the article,
I'm not depressed (;-) and I'd be interested to see bots fighting
on the poker server (Free Software) I work on at http://gna.org/projects/underware/.
---
Disclaimer: I do not favor bots, I do not develop bots, I won't
be happy if there are more bots than humans in online poker rooms.
From a technical point of view, no poker client will ever be able to
detect a bot that analyzes the window layout (to find cards, bet
amounts, player names etc). It could attempt this detection when the
bot runs on the same machine although it is likely to require frequent
updates (think anti-virus software). However, if the bot runs on
another machine and watches the display remotely, it is just
impossible (VNC is a example software that watches a display from a
remote machine).
From a legal point of view, international and national laws in most
countries (+200 of them, including US and all Europe) strongly
protects interoperability between programs. It means that the author
of a program whose sole purpose is to encode/decode the protocols or
file formats used by another program can never be sued on this basis.
Online poker rooms can forbid the use of any computerized assistance
(except the mouse, the screen and the operating system
terms and conditions that each player accepts when registering. A
contract is a powerful tool to attempt to force people to forfeit
rights that cannot be taken from them. Although the poker room may win
a lawsuit against a player using a bot that plays on his behalf, there
are more cases where they would lose.
For instance, if my only machine is running GNU/Linux, the court may
rule that I'm entitled to use my own client because there does not
exist a client except for Windows. Ruling otherwise would mean that
the poker room can force me to become a Microsoft customer. A real
world poker room can force you to wear a tie but cannot force you to
wear a tie of a given brand. This can have precedence over contract
terms and conditions. Furthermore, the features provided by my client
software (such as automated play or statistics gathering) cannot be
restricted by contract. No matter what is written, no third party can
legitimately control or restrict the software you run on your own
machine. If that was the case, no doubt a large software publisher
would state in its operating system license contract that all software
running on top of it must be purchased from them.
Summary:
. Bots can't be detected.
. Bots can't be outlawed.
. Poker room terms and conditions are inefficient to forbid bot
usage.
Will there ever be a widely spread bot able to beat most players
currently playing in online poker rooms ? I think so. It may already
exist but is kept secret. It's only a matter of time before a talented
poker player who also happens to be a good developer decides she or he
wants to be remembered as the author of the first bot that changed
online poker forever.
~
Re:Good? (Score:5, Informative)
Maple Leaf Forever! (Score:3, Informative)
At last! We Canadians have a piece of technology that can make us as proud as the mighty Canadarm [space.gc.ca]!
Re:not quite so hard... (Score:5, Informative)
It's not like this thing wins games for you. It basically does what the good poker player can do, look at their cards, look at the cards on the table, and then compute odds.
It's less useful than the article makes it sound.
it's easy (Score:4, Informative)
Re:Undermine the gambling industry? (Score:3, Informative)
Look at it this way -- on any given night, in any given casino, there might be one or two players who play extremely well, several more who are pretty good, and literally hundreds who play like crap. The casinos make most of their money on that last group, and dole out a relatively small sum (compared to what they're taking in) to the truely gifted players.
The fact of the matter is, the odds aren't in your (the proverbial your) favor. Odds are, you (proverbial) play like crap, or in a game where there is a human element (poker), the dealer plays better than you do. If you happen to get lucky, or happen to be good, well, there are a hundred other people who aren't, and who don't.
yeah, I tried that once (Score:5, Informative)
turns out it was just some product promotion for a company that makes gambling bots.
I downloaded the software trial out of curiosity (I've never played online poker before, I just wanted to see how the program was set up.)
The way it worked (or claimed to, I never tried it) it would monitor my poker game and make calculations based on other people's bids checks or folds and give me tips about whether I should fold, check, bid, or bid high. It kept a percentage rating for probability of wining and stuff like that.
Basically it claimed to play the game for me, which would suck as I was looking for a strategy guide instead. I can't remember which one it was that I downloaded.
here's a link to one of them [holdem-winner.com]
Casino 101 (Score:3, Informative)
Actually, yes, they do...greatly. Casinos are based on gaming as entertainment and repeat business. They want to people to get hooked and then go to the casino once a month or once a year and keep spending money in their casino. Problem gamblers are regularly blacklisted since they drive away paying customers.
Sure, but problematic for whom? The casinos are notorious for putting a winning blackjack player on a blacklist, and not letting them in. Why? Did they cheat? No, they just won, and casinos hate to lose money
Casinos generate the majority of their profit from their interest on their cash reserves, not from actual gaming. The take on gambling alone would barely covering operating the average casino. They generate their revenue on the interest of their cash, an adequate reserve of which must be maintained to pay out all outstanding bets at anytime. The more bet, the more reserve, the more interest. The take from gaming is actually secondary now.
Blacklisting is reserved for cheaters and addicts, not winners. Casinos want winners to keep playing and turn their money over in the casino, game the system and bad things happen.
Software Scanning... (Score:2, Informative)
Re:Is This So Wrong? (Score:4, Informative)
No, counting cards doesn't apply to poker, just blackjack.
Re:Is This So Wrong? (Score:3, Informative)
Online and Offline the deck of cards is reshuffled everytime. If you only have 52 cards you can calculate odds based upon what you see on the table and what you have in your hand...
Re:Master level poker-playing bot (Score:1, Informative)
Here is a website for Texas Holdem [aces-wired.com] where people can review the different online casinos and discuss their experiences to help others out.
Re:Software Scanning... (Score:2, Informative)
Re:Master level poker-playing bot (Score:4, Informative)
Re:Is This So Wrong? (Score:3, Informative)
You're completely discounting the role of betting, bluffing and player reputation in a game of poker.
Re:it's easy (Score:5, Informative)
That's a very misinformed statement, coming from somebody who probably doesn't play much poker himself.
A large part of figuring out the "statistically" best move is having a good idea of what the opponent might be holding in his hand. That's the very difficult part.
Here's a quick example. Say you're holding KK, the you raise preflop and get reraised. Flop comes AK5. You bet, and you get raised again. Stats will tell you that you can beat 99% of the hands out there, so raise away, right? Most good players will consider that the opponent might have AA since he reraised you preflop and would adjust their strategy accordingly. A simple stat bot would raise until he's out of money.
Visit the UofA's poker research pages for more details on where the trouble spots in poker AI research are.
cheat sheets are allowed... (Score:3, Informative)
Secondly, depending on the casino, you can ask the dealer what the odds are, what the house's play would be, or you can even ask the dealer to play your entire hand as the house would. This varies from game to game and casino to casino.
Lastly, the house allows you to have certain materials available when playing. In Vegas, there are "player cards" or cheat sheets for black jack and other games that are about the size of an actual card, but show the plays that you should make based on certain stats (what you have, what the dealer/other players have, etc). Last I went to Vegas the only rule was that you had to set it down on the table before play began. As long as you weren't sitting next to some idiot that messed up the card distribution then it usually panned out. I believe there are some casinos that don't allow them, but most do, although you can't use them at the high minimum bet (>$50 or so) tables.
Basically I don't see the problem as long as this "bot" is really just a tool and the player is still interacting with the game, i.e., not automated play. I see it as a way to even the odds a bit and help the noobs not make so many stupid mistakes. Can't you remember a time when you just glanced at your cards and thought you had a certain hand and as you tossed them down in triumph you realized you misread the hand?... I can. Preventing those kinds of mistakes would save everyone some grief. Although I suppose poker wouldn't be the game it is if everyone didn't have a great story about a few hands.
Re:Is This So Wrong? (Score:2, Informative)
Re:I hope Internet gambling goes down in flames (Score:3, Informative)
Which was probably intended. The way these scams work is:
1. a credit card number is somehow acquired
2. the fraudster creates a poker account and loads up the account with the credit card
3. the fraudster plays poker at a table with a friend, trying to dump as much money to the friend as possible
4. the account gets suspended and the victim has the credit card charges reversed
Either the poker room or the credit card company gets stuck with the charge and the following the money to the friend is difficult to follow. That's why you usually get a call from the poker room *before* they charge the credit card.
Re:...another valid question: (Score:5, Informative)
I can't imagine trusting online Poker play. Even if the site/house is honest, players can share information secretly or use aids to calculate pot odds perfectly. They can do that in offline games as well, but it is much more difficult to get away with it.
Re:not quite so hard... (Score:2, Informative)
Re:not quite so hard... (Score:4, Informative)
"Player" Bots on the stock market - the big guys (Score:4, Informative)
Some random links on the subject:
and a random company link (haven't read this one):
Why settle for the poker table, when the markets are much bigger? Playing the markets is probably more difficult, but you're the best coder around, aren't you? ;-)
Re:Good? (Score:3, Informative)
Specifically, Missouri (where I live) made this claim. It is 100% true. Furthermore, as the state's gambling revenues went up, the state disbursed less tax revenue to education. Education funding didn't change, but the source did. I suspect that other states are similar.
More info from one of the sources (Darse Billings) (Score:5, Informative)
- Darse.
[begin excerpt]
(1) It is not easy to write a good poker-playing program.
It took us (the Computer Poker Research Group at the U of A, http://games.cs.ualberta.ca/poker/) a few years to develop a program that could win consistently in higher-level games against opponents who took the game seriously. It has been successful against human players of average skill for many years now, but it is the only known program that can make that claim.
We operate a free poker server where people can play against our bots. Hobbyist programmers can also have their programs connect to the server and play in those games, and more than a hundred programs have participated over the past few years. None of them has come close to being a winning player, so it is clearly not a trivial task.
(2) Is it *possible* to write a very strong poker program?
Absolutely.
Poker is a challenging and rewarding field for research in Artificial Intelligence (AI). There are many aspects of the game that make it more difficult and more interesting than games like chess and checkers.
It isn't simply a matter of computing probabilities and other numbers. A good program has to *think* about the game in the right way. Master-level poker requires an understanding of how each opponent plays the game -- you must observe and adapt as you play, and that turns out to be a rather difficult learning problem.
Nevertheless, these problems will be solved eventually, and the technology will become available for others to use. It took more than 20 years for chess programs to finally become a serious threat to the best players. It won't take that long before we see elite poker-playing programs, but it still might be a number of years before they participate in online games.
Of course, a practical program doesn't have to be as good as the best players -- it only needs to beat a game with average players in order to win money.
(3) Are bots playing in online games now?
I expect there are a few now, yes. Perhaps more than a few. But are they a threat? Probably not. Many of them will be losing players, at least for a while. Their authors will either lose interest, or have to invest a lot of time and effort to improve their programs.
If someone does succeed in writing a program that can grind out a small win, what difference should it make? It will be like any other solid player -- playing a conservative style (only good cards and good situations), and slowly extracting a tax from the weak players.
Look at it this way. Most people who play online poker lose money. That's an unavoidable mathematical fact. Considering the house cut (the rake), perhaps 30% of players can stay in the black, maybe less. Many of the losing players will lose slowly, so the cost is a fair trade-off for the entertainment value they receive. Some will lose much more rapidly, and they really shouldn't be playing at all (unless they happen to be independently wealthy).
Of the players on the winning side, most will only eek out a small win rate. A winning poker bot would just be another solid player at the table. Probably less than 10% of all players have enough knowledge and skill to win a significant amount of money, and I doubt there will be any poker programs in that category for quite some time.
Will the existence of good bots radically change online poker? I doubt it. Look at casinos (real and online) that offer the traditional gambling games like craps and roulette. Those games cannot be beaten -- there is no skill that can be applied to avoid losing in the long run. But that fact doesn't seem to harm the popularity of their business.
Instead of fearing bots, people should use them to help learn more about the game. Our research program is com
Re:Other ways to cheat (Score:2, Informative)
Re:A few facts (Score:3, Informative)
Depends on what you mean by that. Winning at BJ IS 100% luck. Losing is a certainty (in the long run, without counting cards).
There are hit/stand/double down tables crafted by those who play it. For example (a fake one): if the dealer has XYZ cards and you have 14, always hit.
The fact that there are optimal strategies doesn't make it deterministic. If you play perfect basic strategy, you merely reduce the margin by which you are losing. So you keep your money a little longer, but you'll still lose it.
Only using those "tables" can you closely acheive some kind of winning capacity.
Sorry, but this is wrong. The rules are set up so the players can't win. You can only move from losing by a small margin to winning by a small margin by counting cards, something impossible online (they "shuffle" after each hand) and very hard in casinos nowadays, with the 6+ deck shoes and low penetration.
It's all about odds, they figure that if you hit, or stand, at certain cards your *odds* of winning that hand are higher.
Yes, but they're still losing. For example, if you have a K6 (16) vs. a 10 showing, you have to hit. You're very likely to bust, but by doing this, you lose less often. BJ basic strategy, which is what you're talking about, is all about losing less often.
This is no different than with the Poker bots.
Yes it is. It is fundamentally different, because BJ has no element of deception. The dealer plays according to an unvarying algorithm that makes it possible to calculate odds of winning precisely. The only information you have in Poker is any upcards and the way the player bets, which is varied intentionally for the purpose of deception.
There is no resemblance between poker and BJ except that they're played with cards and chips and such. This superficial resemblance is why some idiot TV execs figured they could cash in on the poker craze by showing the "World Series of Blackjack." I like blackjack, but watching it on TV is horrible. The commentary always boils down to the idiot announcer complaining that someone's taking an extra card screws up the rest of the table. There just isn't any real strategizing necessary to play the game. The correct strategy can be written on a 4x5 card.
Re:Master level poker-playing bot (Score:2, Informative)
You would still get schooled in real poker (Score:2, Informative)
Anyway, you completely ignored the first part of my post. To repeat: you cannot play strictly by the odds and win at poker. You need to consider other player's betting patterns and behavior in order to win at poker.
If I know you always fold when the pot odds are against you I will clean you out. I know you only call/raise strong hands so I won't try to bluff with my weak hand. When you check on the flop that is an instant tell that your "good" start failed to improve.
If you still disagree please explain how you will win money by strictly playing the odds.