NY Times runs story on poker bots

[The Buzz]

The New York Times published a pretty cool piece over the weekend about the emergence of bots in online poker. The article states that poker bots are winning tens of thousands of dollars on reputable poker sites, which are constantly in the process of shutting them down. The article even quotes the co-founder of a company that sells licenses for poker bots.

From the NY Times:

Yet poker bots are openly for sale online. Shanky Technologies sells licenses for the Holdem Poker Bot — the target of Full Tilt’s crackdown in October — for $129 per year. Brian Jetter, a co-founder of Shanky, said in an e-mail interview that more than 400 of his customers had been banned from Full Tilt. (Full Tilt did not respond to requests for comment.)

Mr. Jetter said that Full Tilt had seized more than $50,000 of his customers’ money, a figure that he called a “conservative estimate.” He added that the gaming site was forgoing at least $70,000 per month in revenue by shutting down his customers’ bots.

“They really must have wanted us gone,” Mr. Jetter said. “We don’t think the other poker rooms we support will make a similar financial decision.”

[cassy]

Bots are usual to every poker rooms as they are programmed to play whenever they were chosen with another player. But it doesn't mean that these bots will have the chance to get thousands of dollars from players. What i mean from this issue is that bots should be programmed properly and must be set with limitations. For the sake of both human and bot players, there should be equality in the game.

[best.hands]

I think it is time to satisfy the captcha string test first before you can place a bet, can be time consuming and can possibly spoil the adrenalin rush, but if it's a feasible cure, why not casino software providers program something like it. If bots can guesstimate a sequence and come up with a wise decision per round, I don't think they can answer a random string shown on screen everytime they make a bet, just a thought, or do bots have big eyes too?

[universal4]

Captcha's can be overcome, and if it becomes too difficult, and api will be written to send the captcha to one of a handful of places where people sit at a terminal and type captchas for $1.50 per hour.

Yes these places do exist, and that is the going rate that is charged to the client once the client shops aroud.

Rick
Universal4

[davenewgates]

Shanky must be very annoyed with the intense campaign of Full Tilt in shutting down poker bots, they are doing a good job!