Full tilt Poker has cracked down on poker bot usage on the site. There has been no specifics given, but Full Tilt Poker has revealed that they have shut-down a number of poker accounts and confiscated the funds of poker bot users. The money will be redistributed to players who were affected by the bot users.
Full Tilt stated in an E-Mail sent to certain customers the following: “for a number of reasons, we are unable to provide additional information regarding this case, including the players involved and the game type where it occurred.”
Apparently the investigation revolved around a site called Shanky Technologies which offers a number of different “bots” for a variety of games including poker. Shanky Technologies markets Holdem poker bots, PLO poker bots, Omaha 8 poker bots, and even a blackjack bot (not sure how that one works). Considering their forum has over 6,000 registered members and over 126,000 posts I would say that poker bot usage may be a little more widespread than first imagined.
This comes on the heels of poker players learning that winning poker bots were being employed at PokerStars –the keyword being winning—and they were capable of beating small-stakes games, not just penny-limit games. Undoubtedly this has caused a major concern for the online poker rooms to crack-down on bit usage in order to protect the integrity of the game.
Two Full Tilt players had their funds confiscated back in 2009, which should have raised a Red Flag, since $80,000 was confiscated, suggesting they were winning bots. This news came to light when one of the players who was accused of using poker bots and had their funds confiscated took to the 2+2 poker forums to vent their frustration: Lary Kennedy and Greg Omotoy decided to sue Full Tilt Poker on a variety of charges including the unsubstantiated claim the Full Tilt Poker employs poker bots of their own!
The two filed a lawsuit claiming Full Tilt Poker was guilty of fraud, libel, slander false advertising and racketeering, but a California judge dismissed the case against Full Tilt Poker last April –keeping the poker site’s litigation record at a perfect 100%.
There have also been recent grumblings on the poker forums about winning online poker bots, but no proof of these claims has been submitted, although if Full Tilt has decided to crack down on bot usage it’s likely they were at least half-truths.
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