When you’re the biggest in the business, providing online poker services to hundreds of thousands of players around the clock, it’s perhaps inevitable that you will have to confront cheating issues from time to time, and that has apparently been the case at Pokerstars this week, with reports that players are receiving refunds in respect of incidents of cheating on the mid-to-high stakes PLO virtual tables.
The online poker giant has a reputation for quickly identifying cheating scams and making the right moves to expel and punish the cheaters and ensure that victims are made whole again.
Reporting on the latest attempt at cheating Friday, the online poker information site Pokerfuse said it had been in contact with Pokerstars after players expressed dissatisfaction that the cheaters had not been named and shamed.
Pokerstars responded that its lawyers have advised that it should not release this sort of information, although it should cooperate with law enforcement agencies investigating such matters.
The legal advice was that the company should also not release information on how or on which games the cheating occurred, although it acknowledged that by combining their experiences, it was possible that players could zero in on the likely culprits.
Interestingly, the Pokerstars statement revealed that it, and presumably other Isle of Man licensed operators, are required to report any media reportage on cheating that involves them to the Isle of Man Gambling Supervision Commission, which may elect to exercise its powers in conducting an investigation of its own.