Bots Infest Online Poker Sites

A recent report in the New York Times highlighted the issues that online poker sites have with a class of software known as the “poker robot”, or “bot”. A player can purchase bot software and enable it to play at an online poker table in his preferred style. The player then links the bot software into the online poker room and allows the bot to make the decisions at the tables.

 

 

The bot software agents allow the player to make money at a game where he may not be physically present at the computer to make each crucial decision during a game. Most major online poker sites have banned the use of bot software, especially its uses at popular no-limit Texas Holdem cash games and tournaments. 

 

 

The two biggest online poker sites, PokerStars and Full Tilt Poker, have either banned or limited the use of bot software. PokerStars banned the use of bots last July and froze the accounts of offending players. Full Tilt followed suit last October and seized more than US$50,000 from the accounts of players who used bots.

 

 

Unlike software used to simulate chess matches, or the “Watson” supercomputer used to compete on “Jeopardy!”, poker bots must deal with both incomplete information (not knowing the opponents’ cards) and disinformation (opponents’ bluffs). Many bot programmers have used the technology they have developed to stretch the limits of artificial intelligence. 

 

 

 

However, as the technology improves and online poker grows more lucrative, industry insiders suspect that the bots may soon reach the level of some of the world’s best online poker players. Sophisticated bot software could make the right (or wrong) people a lot of money in the near future.