Bodog Poker Security Warning

[pokeraddict]

Bodog Removes Screen Names

I know there are not many poker players here but I wanted to warn people here about this...

Obsessed with running off winning poker players, Bodog has now made it so that players no longer see the usernames of the other players at their cash games and tournaments. Players lost all of their notes, can no longer take notes, and Bodog removed the points for cash promotion without notice. Players are also complaining about dozens of bugs in the new update that make the new software unplayable.

For those of you that are not poker players, tracking software has caught hundreds if not thousands of cheats over the years. The most famous ones are the Absolute Poker and Ultimate Bet insider cheating scandals. Without players catching them, they may have never been caught. Players have caught many bots and colluders this way. The poker forums are just about 100% against what Bodog did. Bodog is a ghost town tonight and according to PokerScout they are down over 80% in terms of traffic although Bodog blocked their ability to get exact counts a month or so ago because they thought traffic counts was somehow helping sharks. I guess Bodog does not care about what their players think or how players perceive the safety of their poker room now that they cannot be audited by a 3rd party. This calls into question the security of the entire poker network.

Maybe they think casual players will not care but they took the social aspect away from them which is among the important features in an online poker room. Casual players lost their virtual friends forever since they cannot be located anymore at the virtual tables. This whole thing just boggle the mind.

[Jasminebed]

Even if they switch back to having names, will players return? And turning off notes? Are a pen a pad beside your computer going to be considered cheating?

That's one of the most bone-headed moves I've heard of.

[jetset]

Thanks for that useful and interesting perspective, pokeraddict - you have to wonder what Bodog Poker management's objectives are.

Software uodates are supposed to improve aspects of a room, but that does not appear to have been the result here, and it will be interesting to see how Bodog responds to the players' criticisms of their latest moves.

The dip in traffic should send them a message - last week they were doing quite well, according to the Pokerscout numbers, so the decline you mention will certainly be noticeable.

[bpb]

While I recognize that many cheaters are caught by the players rather than the sites themselves, I also don't for a moment believe that game integrity is at the forefront of the minds of those vehemently opposing these changes.

They are complaining because these games are now going to be less profitable for the regs, who will no longer have HUD stats and be able to datamine. Games just got better for the casual player and fish.

Note that the changes have no impact on the sites ability to detect cheating and collusion. I don't know if Bodog is competent at catching cheaters. I do know that there have been 0 cases of cheating at Bodog caught by the players. This doesn't mean that there isn't cheating. This doesn't mean that the software changes will prevent players from catching cheating that would have been otherwise caught on non-anonymous tables.

But regs are pissed because they aren't going to make as much money. Period.

[pokeraddict]

While I recognize that many cheaters are caught by the players rather than the sites themselves, I also don't for a moment believe that game integrity is at the forefront of the minds of those vehemently opposing these changes.

I do not use a HUD or PT. The integrity of the games is the main concern here. The other concern is that this is not poker. Poker is a game of skill with tells and learning your opponents which is a different argument.

My point was really just to warn people what they were getting into if they deposited into Bodog. As Bodog is seeing right now, their site is empty tonight. Maybe that was their goal, if it was they should have just closed. The lack of testing on this software is pretty bad too. It took me three computers to even download it and have it launch. If you read the 2+2 threads you will see dozens that had the same problem. It is hard to imagine why downloading and installing the software was not done on hundreds of different machines first. That is just one of the dozens of bugs.

The software went years backwards, even if you ignore the anonymous tables. It is like they were intent on being in the headlines ASAP but did not test anything. Now the site is unplayable, even if you are not concerned about the potential security issues, due to all of the bugs.

[pokeraddict]

I do know that there have been 0 cases of cheating at Bodog caught by the players.

BTW, I am curious how you know this. Do you work for Bodog? You know for a fact that no player has ever emailed Bodog about suspicious play and been right? I would be shocked if that was true.

[jetset]

A lot of the coverage from Bodog on these changes emphasises that the goal is to make the site more recreational player-friendly, I see.

If the players are not flocking to the new offering could that be an indication of a preponderance of good players who are now staying away, or is it a case of time for the word to get out to recreational players that the new software gives them a better chance?

All of that to one side, pokeraddict (whom time has shown to be very knowledgeable in this area) points to several other deficiencies that Bodog will have o address.

[pokeraddict]

I realize people from outside the US may not know what Netflix is but that is what is being used to describe this situation by many US players. Netflix is a streaming and DVD company that ignored what their customers wanted and decided to try to tell their customers what they wanted by changing their business model. Their stock price lost $200/share in a couple of months and they had a mass exodus of customers. I realize now that I should have titled the post differently since so many will not be familiar with that situation. Mods feel free to change the title.

[vinylweatherman]

A lot of the coverage from Bodog on these changes emphasises that the goal is to make the site more recreational player-friendly, I see.

If the players are not flocking to the new offering could that be an indication of a preponderance of good players who are now staying away, or is it a case of time for the word to get out to recreational players that the new software gives them a better chance?

All of that to one side, pokeraddict (whom time has shown to be very knowledgeable in this area) points to several other deficiencies that Bodog will have o address.

I don't think anonymous tables have helped. This is something even the recreational players will worry about, even if it favours them. It smacks of a "secrecy lockdown" of every aspect of what is already a largely unregulated industry operated by secretive companies from obscure locations. They may worry that they are sitting opposite a table of killer sharks, but can't even see their screen names. A better move might have been to calculate a rating for each player, and display this alongside their screen names. This would have made it easy for recreational players to see whether they had joined a table that contained much more skilled players than they were. As regulars won, their ratings would increase.

The regulars already had the means to detect their prey, but making them wear the badge would warn the prey that they faced immediate predation.

Switching off datamining would not get noticed by recreational players, since they don't use it.

A "ghost town" would put off ALL players, even the recreational ones.

Skilled players would also worry that any chance of them independently verifying that no cheating was going on had been removed, leaving them 100% in the hands of the site operator to be honest, as well as proficient at detecting cheating. In the AP case, it was the room itself that did the cheating, so players were NOT protected by the room's own security staff, who were under orders to turn a blind eye to "house" cheats reported by players, or by more lowly monitoring staff.


Given that three major poker networks have been driven out of the US, Bodog may have thought they could make such drastic changes knowing that players would have to either put up with it, or quit playing poker altogether.

The 80% decline probably has more to do with the software being screwed up than players choosing to quit rather than accept the changes. However, if poker players are prepared to take a month or two off, they may be able to persuade Bodog to negotiate over the extent of these changes, and perhaps reverse the most unpopular ones.

[BodogBecky]

Thanks for that useful and interesting perspective, pokeraddict - you have to wonder what Bodog Poker management's objectives are.

Here is a message from the Bodog Network VP on the changes:

Jonas Odman talks on the Bodog Network software update