Artificial intelligence is giving PokerStars greater ability to prevent illegal bots
For as long as the Internet has been around, there have been individuals intent on breaking it. It’s simply in their misguided nature to believe that rules don’t apply, and Internet security has been at the forefront of all online operations since even before the world wide web first saw daylight.
As poker began to take advantage of the benefits of Internet gaming, these same individuals didn’t waste any time and started to find ways to develop software that could cheat and swindle other players out of their hard-earned money. This was the birth of the poker bot; however, artificial intelligence (AI) is making it easier than ever to search out and destroy the illegal programming. PokerStars has built a dedicated team of professionals that lead the gaming operator’s bot-destroying efforts, and they have become very good at what they do.
Bots are a disruptive force in poker that have been present in poker since the game moved online about 20 years ago. The software is designed to analyze everything about the game – the tables, bets, cards, raises and even chip stacks – in order to determine what move should be made. It then makes the move, with virtually no human intervention needed. However, those bots are illegal on all reputable poker sites, and PokerStars has spent millions of dollars to ensure a safer, fairer poker game is available for everyone.
The bot-detection team at PokerStars uses AI to analyze hardware and software integrity. The tools developed by the team are able to instantly spot anomalies across millions of hands, allowing PokerStars to take the appropriate action. They have a success rate of around 95%, and more than a handful of individuals have suddenly found their funds frozen for violating the no-bot rules.
Once a suspected bot is detected, PokerStars will freeze the account and investigate further, relying on its team of data scientists, former players and analysts to uncover the root of the fraud. Once it has been confirmed that a bot was used, PokerStars will then permanently seize the account’s funds and re-distribute them to the players who had been affected by the illegal activity. The offending user will be banned and will suddenly find all their hard work ultimately served no purpose.