COLLUSION IN POKER

Collusion is a type of cheating where two or more players work as a team by only playing the best hand and folding the weaker one after secretly signalling each other about the strength of their hand. After the hole cards are dealt, the colluders signal each other and they figure out who has the best hand to play. Even though they’re sure to lose a few hands playing this way, over the long-run, they’ll make money.

It’s the same as being dealt two hands (while their opponents are only dealt one) and picking the best one to play. Occasionally, a strong hand, which would normally win (and which most people would play), is not the winning hand, and if colluders see that their strong hand won’t win, they’ll fold that hand instead of playing it and losing. Because the colluder didn’t play the “strong” hand that lost, they lose less money in the long-run. Colluders who play the best hand doubles their chances of winning while cutting their losses by half.

Colluders have pre-determined signals that they use during the game to communicate with each other. In live games, these can be physical signals (such as scratching the back of your neck or tucking your hair behind your ear) or verbal signals that the colluders say in seemingly normal conversation. These signals can be subtle, which is why it’s hard to detect collusion.

Playing online presents a huge challenge to collusion because nobody can see each other – it would be very easy for two people at the same table to talk about the strength of their hand if they were in the same room or on the phone. Online poker sites are aware of this and have made it a top priority to prevent collusion to protect both their players and their bottom line (nobody wants to play at a site where cheating is a problem). Some things online poker sites have done to minimize collusion is:

Monitoring accounts for suspicious playing
Making sure the same two players aren’t always playing at the same table
Keeping a record of every game’s every move so it can be analyzed in case players are accused of collusion
Ensuring only one person is logged onto the same table per IP address (you computer’s unique number ID); you can’t have two players from the same IP address play at the same table.

Even if two cheaters aren’t in the same room as each other and are not talking on the phone, they can still communicate with each other through the chat box. What appears to be small talk between two strangers could actually be two cheaters discussing the strength of their hands and how to play them. This is why only one language is spoken at a table (live and online). If you hover over the chat box’s tabs at PokerStars.com, a pop-up window appears to remind players that the only language accepted at the table is English.

PokerStars.com has a policy to confiscate a colluder’s winnings and distribute them to the players whom were affected by the cheater. The cheater’s account is then closed and they’re barred from the site. PokerStars.com’s commitment to catching cheaters and maintaining the integrity of the game is one of many reasons they’re the most popular online poker site in the world to play Texas Holdem.

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