Full Tilt bots busted

[jetset]

FULL TILT POKER BOTS BUSTED?

Players refunded as bot cheats exposed

According to player posts on several message boards and a story on the Poker-King portal, an "unauthorised software" bust - widely interpreted as a bot incident - has been made by the Full Tilt Poker website security experts.

Players reported receiving emails from Full Tilt Poker advising that refunds will be forthcoming following the discovery by management of numerous accounts that had been caught using "unauthorized" software. Reliable information on the total amount of cash involved was not available at press time.

Reports indicate that FTP is using a calculation based on number of hands played against the "bots" as well as the amount won/lost to them in working out the refunds.

Apparently the bots have been encountered in Heads Up Limit Hold'em cash games for some time, with suspicions growing as patterns emerged in timing, tactics, opposition and hand histories.

This led to an intensive investigation by Full Tilt, which exposed specific accounts alleged to be involved in the scam. These accounts have now been frozen and all funds seized, with the intention of distributing the ill-gotten gains among aggrieved players.

[Simmo!]

These accounts have now been frozen and all funds seized, with the intention of distributing the ill-gotten gains among aggrieved players.

That sounds like a godo example of how to deal with this type of situation. I don't know a lot about FTP but that strikes me as very fair. It must be hard for poker rooms to detect cheaters like this I'd have thought.

On another note, does this not cast a shadow over the practicalities of online poker, or are these things, as above, readily identified and prevented?

[Mousey]

an "unauthorised software" bust - widely interpreted as a bot incident - has been made by the Full Tilt Poker website security experts.

And if they've got bots playing at FT, they're at most all poker rooms. Don't ya think?

[paul02085]

This is what scares the online poker industry more than any other thing. Could potentially be devastating if players lose confidence in a fair game. There is surely more of this going on that just at FTP.
The poker rooms need to stay ahead of the curve re bots as much as possible because there will always be a better built bot.

I would like to here poker addicts comments on this. He may know more details. In the meantime i am off to 2plus2 to get the lowdown.

Looks like this happened quite awhile back.

[Pinababy69]

Just as Simmo said, this is a textbook case of the proper way to handle situations such as this. Pinpoint the problem, admit the problem, fix the problem and compensate those affected. That's the only way to build and maintain player confidence and trust.

And as others have also stated, you do have to wonder how much of this does go on regularly. It's not very reassuring.

Absolute Poker should take a page from FullTilt's procedures manual, IMO.

[paul02085]

nevermind

[Mousey]

This is probably already here on the forum somewhere, but I couldn't find it right off hand...

Cybercrooks use bots to deal winning hand
By Jon Swartz, USA TODAY
SAN FRANCISCO — Bots, the millions of compromised computers remotely controlled by crooks, are doing more than spreading spam and phishing.
Increasingly, they're agents for various forms of fraud, such as money laundering.

Over the past five months, RSA senior researcher Uriel Maimon has witnessed a spike in the use of bots on gaming sites to move money overseas.

An estimated $200,000 to $300,000 has been moved monthly — a reflection of a crackdown on online gambling in the U.S. after the passage of a federal law in October.

"Bot nets are the BlackBerrys of the fraud world," says Maimon. "You can't do anything without them." According to Maimon, one-in-20 to one-in-50 PCs worldwide are bots. A year ago, it was one-in-200 to one-in-500.

Here's how the gambling scam typically works: A fraudster steals a batch of credit card numbers and, for each number, opens an account in an online payment processing service for the purpose of gambling.

At the same time, the fraudster opens accounts on an online payment-processing service with credit cards with minimal cash balances — either under their name or that of an accomplice. The cybercrook goes to such lengths because they want to move the money of the victims, who are usually in the U.S., to accounts overseas, where they are located. The banks in these countries have less stringent banking laws and accept the transfer from the U.S.

The fraudster then floods the poker forum of small-to-midsized websites with "players" in the form of bots. These are compromised PCs loaded with poker-playing programs that play poker, but not necessarily well. A human in cahoots with the crook then enters the same room as the bots to compete against sub par competition. The odds are heavily in favor of the human, who wins the pot. The money from the losers is transferred to the winner — in this case, the fraudster.

Cybercrooks are going to elaborate measures in this use bots because ....

[SlotsWizard]

Absolute Poker should take a page from FullTilt's procedures manual, IMO.

Be careful how you word that! AP has already stolen content from at least one other web site.

Personally, I think AP should be rogued... and kudos to Full Tilt for doing the right thing.

[pokeraddict]

Poker Stars is the only other room I've ever heard of giving money back randomly to unsuspected players. I've never heard of another site being that proactive until now. Obviously this is what all poker rooms need to be doing. I'm sure this is happening at almost all medium sized and bigger poker rooms but I do not think it happens to the extreme some think. Of course I could be way off as it is anyone's guess. I bet only the higher ups at the biggest poker rooms know how bad the problem is.

There was a thread a while back at 2+2 about bots in high stakes games at FT. I wonder if this was the resolution. Regardless good job FT.