How to Prevent Online Poker Collusion

One of the main reasons why poker is such a competitive sport is that if you beat your opponents, you could win a lot of money. Collusion is one way that people cheat at online poker. It is when two or more players work together. So how does poker sites prevent collusion?

Poker sites often stop players from working together by making software that keeps track of every move they make in a poker room. By looking at all of the actions taken at a table, the site can get a good idea of whether or not collusion is happening or has happened.

You already know that when money is involved, some people will try to cheat others. Even online poker needs to stand out. Some players will do anything to get an advantage and increase their chances of winning, no matter how moral or legal. They also use the fact that online poker is a pretty anonymous way to do business.

What Is Online Poker Collusion

Collusion happens when two or more people at a table work together to have an unfair advantage. They work together by telling each other about their hole cards, talking about how other players play, and being nice to each other. The goal is for any player in their group to win the hand, and then they will all get the same amount of money.

Poker is a game where you can only know so much about the other players. The more you know, the better you can do against them. Most of the time, this informational advantage comes from having played the game before and learning what strategy to use based on information everyone at the table has access to. It is why collusion is against the rules. When a small number of players share extra information, it disrupts the balance with other players having an edge.

For example, if you get to the river with Q♠T♠ on a board of J♠6♠8♥3♦2♠ and your opponent makes a huge overbet to put you all in. You should be worried about a K high or A high flush. But if you and two other people are working together and they tell you that they folded K♠7♦ and A♠4♥ before the flop. You now know that you have the best flush and can quickly call.

Ways to Prevent Collusion on Online Poker Sites

Collusion is a big deal in keeping players safe, so online poker sites actively filter and ban people who do it.

One way they do this is by limiting table access for players with the same IP address. It only applies to cash games, not tournaments. If two players with the same IP address try to sit at the same cash table. The site won’t let the second person sit. They assume that two people playing in the same house will be tempted to work together, so they won’t let it happen.

But people still work together from two places or use a different IP address than their housemates. Poker sites like OKBet keep an eye on each account to look for suspicious activity, like bots or people working together. Because people who want to cheat need to be at the same table. The sites will look at accounts at the same tables more often than they should by chance.

How to Prevent Online Poker Collusion

How to Spot Online Poker Collusion

But it’s not just up to the poker site to catch colluders; you can spot them yourself if you know what to look for.

Chip Transfer

This article hasn’t discussed chip dumping or “dumping your chips” because it doesn’t hurt other players as much as regular collusion. Money can be laundered through a poker site by dumping chips in cash games.

A player will put “dirty” money on the poker site using one of the less reliable deposit methods. Also, join a cash game table where their recipient is playing, and then lose on purpose to that account. The player will then be able to take their “clean winnings” from the poker site and put them wherever they want.

However, chip dumping can be used in tournaments to give an advantage to a group of players working together. If a group of players is working together and one player is better than the others. It makes sense for the group to give as many chips as possible to that player to give them the best chance of winning.

Ganging Up on Players

Since the colluder people don’t care who wins the hand. They can be as rough as they want to try to push other players out of the pot. There are many ways that people who work together can get rid of players and win the jackpot without a showdown.

A common pre-flop situation is when the first colluder opens. The unwary player 3bets, the second colluder 4bets, and then the action goes back to the first colluder, who 5bets. Then forcing the unwary player to fold unless they have a great hand like AA/KK. None of these methods are foolproof because sometimes an unsuspecting player will have a hand that can go all in. But if the colluders keep the 4bets and 5bets small, they can fold when their target goes all in and only lose the minimum.

Conclusion

If you see any collusion or think players at your tables might be doing it. The best thing to do is tell the site you’re playing on. You can do this by email or chatting with someone on their support team. The sites take collusion and other forms of cheating very seriously, so they will look into any reports that come to them. Many sites will get back to you to tell you what they found. It gives you more peace of mind and shows that your question wasn’t ignored. Even though it doesn’t happen often, some online poker players are tempted to work together. Poker sites do their best to stop it, and now that you know how to spot it, you can help.