Difference between revisions of "Online Poker"

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==Ethics in Online Poker==
 
==Ethics in Online Poker==
 
===Collusion===
 
===Collusion===
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A major issue within the online poker industry is collusion. This is when two players are sitting at the same table and give each other information about what hole cards they had in their hand, or other information that is unfair to the opposing players at the table. This is a very common technique and can be difficult to address. At Pokerstars and many other online poker companies, they can restrict two players from the same IP address from sitting down at the same table. <ref> P. (Director). (2014, November 25). Inside PokerStars 4: How does POKERSTARS protect the game? | POKERSTARS [Video file]. Retrieved from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d5upxYyeoQ8&amp;t=220s </ref>  This, however, is only a small blockade for players attempting to collude.  Players can play from different locations and still give each other an unfair advantage against the rest of the players at the table.  This issue is not much of a problem for live poker in comparison to online poker as there are fundamental computer science problems that are very difficult to solve relating to discovering the collusion. <ref name="research_gate"> Smed, J., &amp; Knuutila, T. (2006). Can We Prevent Collusion in Multiplayer Online Games? (Unpublished master's thesis). Conference: Proceedings of the Ninth Scandinavian Conference on Artificial Intelligence (SCAI 2006), Espoo, Finland. </ref>
+
A significant issue within the online poker industry is collusion. This is when two players sit at the same table and give each other information about what hole cards they had in their hand or other information that is unfair to the opposing players at the table. This is a widespread technique and can be challenging to address. At Pokerstars and many other online poker companies, they can restrict two players from the same IP address from sitting down at the same table. <ref> P. (Director). (2014, November 25). Inside PokerStars 4: How does POKERSTARS protect the game? | POKERSTARS [Video file]. Retrieved from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d5upxYyeoQ8&amp;t=220s </ref>  This, however, is only a tiny blockade for players attempting to collude.  Players can play from different locations and still give each other an unfair advantage against the rest of the table.  This issue is not much of a problem for live poker compared to online poker as there are fundamental computer science problems that are very difficult to solve relating to discovering the collusion. <ref name="research_gate"> Smed, J., &amp; Knuutila, T. (2006). Can We Prevent Collusion in Multiplayer Online Games? (Unpublished master's thesis). Conference: Proceedings of the Ninth Scandinavian Conference on Artificial Intelligence (SCAI 2006), Espoo, Finland. </ref>
  
 
===Bots===
 
===Bots===
 
[[File:bot.png|thumbnail|right|Representation of bots <ref> Rise Of The Machines: How Poker Bots Infiltrated The Online Game [Digital image]. (n.d.). Retrieved from https://www.cardschat.com/poker-bots.php </ref>]]
 
[[File:bot.png|thumbnail|right|Representation of bots <ref> Rise Of The Machines: How Poker Bots Infiltrated The Online Game [Digital image]. (n.d.). Retrieved from https://www.cardschat.com/poker-bots.php </ref>]]
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"Bots" are the term in the poker industry for a player who is sitting at your table who is actually not a real person, but rather a computer program.  This computer program can be programmed to play the most optimal <ref> M. (2020, November 08). Learn about Poker: What Is Gto (game theory OPTIMAL)? - 2021. Retrieved from https://www.masterclass.com/articles/learn-about-poker-what-is-gto-game-theory-optimal#gto-poker-and-mixed-strategy </ref> poker possible, making it virtually impossible to beat them.  In 2019, an AI named "Pluribus" decisively defeated six of the best players in the world over a long duration of hands played. <ref> Carnegie Mellon University, C. (2019, July 11). AI beats professionals in Six-player poker. Retrieved from https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2019/07/190711141343.htm#:~:text=The%20AI%2C%20called%20Pluribus%2C%20defeated,against%20five%20copies%20of%20Pluribus </ref>  While the bots played against aren't this computationally advanced, they are only increasing in term of ability as technology improves and are still far better than the average individual.
+
"Bots" are the term in the poker industry for a player sitting at your table which is actually not a real person, but rather a computer program.  This computer program can be programmed to play the most optimal <ref> M. (2020, November 08). Learn about Poker: What Is Gto (game theory OPTIMAL)? - 2021. Retrieved from https://www.masterclass.com/articles/learn-about-poker-what-is-gto-game-theory-optimal#gto-poker-and-mixed-strategy </ref> poker possible, making it virtually impossible to beat them.  In 2019, an AI named "Pluribus" decisively defeated six of the world's best players over a long duration of hands played. <ref> Carnegie Mellon University, C. (2019, July 11). AI beats professionals in Six-player poker. Retrieved from https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2019/07/190711141343.htm#:~:text=The%20AI%2C%20called%20Pluribus%2C%20defeated,against%20five%20copies%20of%20Pluribus </ref>  While the bots played against aren't this computationally advanced, they are only increasing in term of ability as technology improves and are still far better than the average individual.
  
 
===Gambling Addiction===
 
===Gambling Addiction===

Revision as of 18:17, 1 April 2021

Online Poker is simply playing poker online. There are many different varieties of poker, such as Texas Holdem, Omaha, and Short-deck, with Texas Holdem being the most popular.[1]. Texas Holdem involves receiving two hole cards at the beginning of a hand, with four rounds of betting and community cards being revealed after each hand. A player's final hand is the best possible hand of five cards, using any combination of the two hole cards and five community cards.[2] A few of the most significant ethical issues related to the online poker industry today are collusion, bots, and gambling addiction risk.

Poker Stars logo, one of the most popular online poker platforms[3]

History

The rise of online poker has been evident in the last two decades, much due to Chris Moneymaker. In 2003, Moneymaker entered an $86 buy-in tournament on Pokerstars and came first, with the reward being a spot in the $10,000 buy-in World Series of Poker(WSOP) main event. He eventually won this tournament and $2.5 million in winnings.
Poker hand rankings[2]
This led to a boom in the online poker industry as by 2006, the field for the WSOP main event increased ten-fold and Pokerstars hosted more than 38 million tournaments.[4]

However, in 2006 President George W. Bush introduced the Unlawful Internet Gambling Enforcement Act (UIGEA), [5], which led to the illegalization of online poker in the United States. In 2011, Pokerstars was taken to court in the United States vs. Scheinberg, the founder of Pokerstars, for a multi-million dollar internet gambling business in violation of UIGEA. [6] This resulted in Europe being the powerhouse in online poker, evident still today.

Today, numerous big-name sites command thousands of players daily, such as PokerStars, Partypoker, and Americas Cardroom. This is a massive increase from the previous decade. There are cash games of stakes from $.01/$.02 up to $100/$200. Tournaments often have prize pools of over $1 million. Additionally, the emergence of Covid-19 in 2020 significantly hurt casinos but was highly beneficial for online gaming. The Stars Group, the owner of Pokerstars, reported sizable growth in their first quarter 2020 trading update, with the increased usage of their poker software as a major reason. The group's revenue of $735m for the quarter was a rise of 27% year-on-year.[5]

Regulations in the online poker industry have also become looser as time has passed. Most recently, Gretchen Whitmer passed the Lawful Gaming Act, [7] which legalized online gaming, such as online poker, in Michigan. The effects of this were recently realized, with Pokerstars being the first site available in Michigan, and their MCOOP (Michigan Championship of Online Poker) series have already awarded over $2 million to users.[8] This signifies that the current trajectory for online poker usage is only going upwards for the near future.

Online Gambling During the Pandemic

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Ethics in Online Poker

Collusion

A significant issue within the online poker industry is collusion. This is when two players sit at the same table and give each other information about what hole cards they had in their hand or other information that is unfair to the opposing players at the table. This is a widespread technique and can be challenging to address. At Pokerstars and many other online poker companies, they can restrict two players from the same IP address from sitting down at the same table. [9] This, however, is only a tiny blockade for players attempting to collude. Players can play from different locations and still give each other an unfair advantage against the rest of the table. This issue is not much of a problem for live poker compared to online poker as there are fundamental computer science problems that are very difficult to solve relating to discovering the collusion. [10]

Bots

Representation of bots [11]

"Bots" are the term in the poker industry for a player sitting at your table which is actually not a real person, but rather a computer program. This computer program can be programmed to play the most optimal [12] poker possible, making it virtually impossible to beat them. In 2019, an AI named "Pluribus" decisively defeated six of the world's best players over a long duration of hands played. [13] While the bots played against aren't this computationally advanced, they are only increasing in term of ability as technology improves and are still far better than the average individual.

Gambling Addiction

One of the psychological issues related to online poker is the idea of gambling addiction, or the uncontrollable, compulsive urge to keep gambling despite the negative impacts that result from it. Gambling addiction occurs because the actions "activate the same reward circuits in the brain as drugs and the clinical characteristics of gambling disorder are the same as those of drug addictions or alcoholism"[14]. While this is a major issue related to gambling in general, it is compounded by the accessibility and improvements of the online gaming industry. Playing poker has never been easier as all it requires is to sign up online and make a deposit, a task that takes no more than five minutes. This increases the urge to compulsively gamble as there are virtually no barriers to stop someone from doing so. Additionally, it is hard for friends and family to know that someone has a gambling addiction when they are doing it online as it is not as evident. This results in the downsides of a gambling addiction to potentially be much worse than if they had to gamble in person.

Gambling addictions in online poker have been proved to be caused by certain psychological factors. One of these causes is “tilt,” which is also very common among gaming communities. Tilt is typically classified by the loss of rational decision-making during a game. The frequency of tilt episodes in an individual has been found to be one of the leading indicators of gambling addictions.[15] Another one of these causes is something known as “chasing losses.” Chasing losses is the result of trying to win back the money that was lost in previous rounds. As a result, people who chase losses will end up playing more than they originally intended to, and will even bet more money per round in hopes to win back their lost money faster. While poker is a game that involves strategy, many people justify chasing losses with a sort of false sense that the odds will eventually swing in their favor.[16] These factors that contribute to online gambling addictions could also be due to the demographic of players. A study done in Portugal showed that the average age for those who played online poker was almost ten years younger than the average age of those who played offline.[17] Players who are younger may be more immature and lack the emotional control that is needed for playing poker. This can make them more susceptible to tilt and chasing losses. As mentioned earlier, the accessibility of online poker is also a dangerous factor, especially coupled with these other psychological factors. The mental effects of gambling addictions are also not very pretty. One study showed that those with gambling addictions suffered from anxiety and depression as well.[18] This can create a vicious cycle for online poker players. Keeping a cool head to make smart decisions is very important, but having anxiety and depression can lead to having negative emotions and lead players to make rash decisions. The rash decisions could then lead them to tilt or start chasing losses.

Recent Developments in Sports Gambling Regulations

One of the most popular forms of online wagering has been sports betting, but this form of betting has been illegal in many states until very recently. On December 20, 2019, sports betting in Michigan became legal under bills signed by Governor Gretchen Whitmer. [19] In order to place a wager under these new laws, a player must physically be in Michigan when the bet is placed and you must use one of the approved sportsbooks. The recent explosion in online sports betting is due to the United States Supreme Court getting rid of a federal ban on sports betting. Since this action, about 75 percent of states have either legalized sports betting or introduced legislation to do so. [20] These moves have not come without some controversy. One of the states to legalize sports betting was Tennessee in 2020. During Super Bowl LV, Tennessee authorities announced that two of the four legal sportsbooks "experienced 'illegal' betting activity" during the Super Bowl. Although the activity has not been specified, it is clear that as more states continue to legalize sports betting, more issues like this one will arise. [21] In addition to legal controversies, ethical concerns of giving young adults easy access to sports wagering have been raised. A New York Times article spoke of a young man who became so addicted to betting that he had very few close relationships by the time he was 20, despite having played sports with his good friends growing up. [22] The article also goes on to note how the individual is often blamed for their gambling addiction and not the industry that seduced them into wasting their money. Additionally, Americans wagered $13 billion in 2019 and $4.4 billion was wagered in January, 2021 alone. [21] This is the sixth consecutive month that gambling has increased. Because online gambling seems like it is here to stay, the American public must educate themselves on the risks and dangers of gambling.

Future of Online Poker Ethics

Approaches to reducing issues in online poker ethics have relied on creating better algorithms to detect collusion. This is evidenced through the current software's inability to detect collusion at a relevant rate. There have been creations of bots who collude together where the poker software was unable to detect that they were colluding. [23] Similarly, the software was unable to detect that they were computer programs and not real people. It is possible to solve these problems through the means of either prevention or detection.[10] Advancements in these security aspects would catastrophically reduce the amount of cheating in online poker. Additionally, the effects of gambling addiction are prominent and as the current upwards trend for new online poker users continues, the likelihood of gambling addiction increases. Psychiatrists continue to research the effects of online gambling on gambling addicts but online gambling is just now starting to rise in popularity.

References

  1. ↑ Cluff, M. (2020, June 15). Top 13 poker variations for beginners. Retrieved from https://www.888poker.com/magazine/strategy/poker-variations
  2. ↑ 2.0 2.1
  3. ↑ PokerStars Review & Marketing Code for 2021 [Digital image]. (2021). Retrieved from https://www.onlinegamblingsites.com/poker/www-pokerstars-com/
  4. ↑ Vardi, N. (2020, January 25). The Incredible Rise Of PokerStars Cofounder Isai Scheinberg—And His Surrender To Federal Agents. Retrieved March 12, 2021, from https://www.forbes.com/sites/nathanvardi/2020/01/24/the-incredible-rise-of-pokerstars-cofounder-isai-scheinbergand-his-surrender-to-federal-agents/?sh=45d6c0ed4fb0
  5. ↑ 5.0 5.1 Insider, G. (2020, July 24). Online poker: A great comeback story. Retrieved from https://www.gamblinginsider.com/in-depth/9636/online-poker-a-great-comeback-story
  6. ↑ USAO - New York, Southern, Department of Justice. (2020, March 25). PokerStars Founder Pleads Guilty [Press release]. Retrieved from https://www.justice.gov/usao-sdny/pr/pokerstars-founder-pleads-guilty
  7. ↑ LAWFUL INTERNET GAMING ACT, MI, §§ Act 152 of 2019-432.301-432.322.
  8. ↑ PokerStars launches in Michigan. (2021, January 29). Retrieved March 12, 2021, from https://www.pokerstars.com/en/news/pokerstars-launches-in-michigan/69124/
  9. ↑ P. (Director). (2014, November 25). Inside PokerStars 4: How does POKERSTARS protect the game? | POKERSTARS [Video file]. Retrieved from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d5upxYyeoQ8&t=220s
  10. ↑ 10.0 10.1 Smed, J., & Knuutila, T. (2006). Can We Prevent Collusion in Multiplayer Online Games? (Unpublished master's thesis). Conference: Proceedings of the Ninth Scandinavian Conference on Artificial Intelligence (SCAI 2006), Espoo, Finland.
  11. ↑ Rise Of The Machines: How Poker Bots Infiltrated The Online Game [Digital image]. (n.d.). Retrieved from https://www.cardschat.com/poker-bots.php
  12. ↑ M. (2020, November 08). Learn about Poker: What Is Gto (game theory OPTIMAL)? - 2021. Retrieved from https://www.masterclass.com/articles/learn-about-poker-what-is-gto-game-theory-optimal#gto-poker-and-mixed-strategy
  13. ↑ Carnegie Mellon University, C. (2019, July 11). AI beats professionals in Six-player poker. Retrieved from https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2019/07/190711141343.htm#:~:text=The%20AI%2C%20called%20Pluribus%2C%20defeated,against%20five%20copies%20of%20Pluribus
  14. ↑ Chóliz, M. (2018, January 31). Ethical gambling: A necessary new point of view of gambling in public health policies. Retrieved March, from https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5797763/
  15. ↑ Moreau A., Chauchard E., Sevigny S., Giroux I. (2020, July 13). Tilt in Online Poker: Loss of Control and Gambling Disorder. Retrieved from https://www-ncbi-nlm-nih-gov.proxy.lib.umich.edu/pmc/articles/PMC7400001/?tool=pmcentrez
  16. ↑ Gainsbury S., Suhonen N., Saastamoinen J. (2014) Chasing losses in online poker and casino games: Characteristics and game play of Internet gamblers at risk of disordered gambling. Retrieved from https://core.ac.uk/download/pdf/20322462.pdf
  17. ↑ Hubert P., Griffiths M. (2017, November 29). A Comparison of Online Versus Offline Gambling Harm in Portuguese Pathological Gamblers: An Empirical Study. Retrieved from https://link-springer-com.proxy.lib.umich.edu/article/10.1007%2Fs11469-017-9846-8
  18. ↑ Barrault S., Bonnaire C., Herrmann F. (2017, January 19) Anxiety, Depression and Emotion Regulation Among Regular Online Poker Players. Retrieved from https://link-springer-com.proxy.lib.umich.edu/article/10.1007%2Fs10899-017-9669-3
  19. ↑ Shefrin, Sam. (2021). Michigan Sports Betting: Top 8 Sportsbook Apps (April 2021). https://www.lineups.com/betting/michigan-sports-betting/#:~:text=Michigan%20sports%20betting%20was%20legalized,signed%20by%20Governor%20Gretchen%20Whitmer.
  20. ↑ Legislative Tracker: Sports Betting. (2021). https://www.legalsportsreport.com/sportsbetting-bill-tracker/#:~:text=Legislative%20Tracker%3A%20Sports%20Betting,even%20prior%20to%20that%20decision.
  21. ↑ 21.0 21.1 Florio, Mike. (2021). Tennessee investigates illegal betting activity during Super Bowl LV. https://profootballtalk.nbcsports.com/2021/02/23/tennessee-investigates-illegal-betting-activity-during-super-bowl/.
  22. ↑ Fazio, Marie. (2021). It’s Easy (and Legal) to Bet on Sports. Do Young Adults Know the Risks? https://www.nytimes.com/2021/04/01/sports/sports-betting-addiction.html
  23. ↑ Langner, T., Locher, T., Dr., & Wattenhofer, R., Prof. Dr. (2012). Collusion in Online Poker Pays Off (Unpublished master's thesis).
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