< Previous | Home | Next > Online gambling – why you didn't win last night. Ever so often a story pops up on how robots are taking over online gambling, especially online poker and Black Jack sites. We have seen these stories, too, and we decided to try and find out what's behind them. Here's what we found, and we might as well tell you right now; we didn't like it much. Here are some excerpts from what we found:
In any reasonably friendly game of poker, you probably know the other players well enough to have some idea of their card-playing weaknesses and fortes. But when you log into one of the online card games there's really no telling who you're playing with. Or if they are even human. The word is out in the online gambling chat rooms, and the word is “'bots”. A 'bot (robot) is a piece of computer software written to analyze every situation in a nanosecond or less, having every possible combination hardwired into their memory, totally immune to intimidation and playing poker like you never could. These 'bots are, the word goes, being used to fleece unaware human players and with a 'bot at the table you can't win.
Gautam Rao, a Canadian poker pro, says to MSNBC. “It is pretty much a certainty that 'bots are playing online. What we don’t know is how strong they are.”
Widespread use of bots capable of beating your average player would pose a significant problem for the red-hot online gambling business, which is expected to top the $1 billion revenue mark this year. Without some way of verifying the identity, and humanity, of players, the business could be significantly undercut, if not destroyed. (Via MSNBC)
But there are of course skeptics, there always are. They argue that the game of poker is far to complex for anyone to be able to write a program that can “read” opponents’ cards (perhaps using screen scanning techniques) and respond in real time. At least it's years away. They point to the handful of commercial products that purport to give online gamblers significant advantage, which they roundly deride as woefully inadequate, as proof today's 'bots are no match for humans.
Rao and his fellow believers have a ready answer: A 'bot capable of playing against the best humans already exists. The University of Alberta’s Computer Poker Research Group has developed an artificially intelligent automaton known as “Vex Bot,” capable of playing poker at the master level, though as yet it can only apply its gambling genius to two-player games. Vex Bot has been used by researchers to test the frontiers of artificial intelligence (and as the basis for a commercial poker tutorial program, Poki’s Poker Academy), but some fear it may become a blueprint for programmers with more sinister motives.
Ray Bornert II, whose company makes WinHoldEm, billed as “a programmable pokerbot,” said his company developed a two-computer strategy to foil attempts to block its users. Bornert criticized poker sites for singling out his firm’s products (which includes a “Team Edition” that allows players to see one another’s cards, in violation of rules against collusion) while failing to ensure that others also are playing by the rules:
“We take issue with the poker sites because they do not do enough to communicate the fact that it is impossible to physically secure their no-bots, no-teams policies in an online environment,” Bornert wrote in reply to an e-mail question from MSNBC. “... If the poker sites cannot physically secure their no-bots, no-teams policies then they need to cease their persecution of players who are resorting to such measures in order to adequately defend themselves against opponents that have already seen the light. Players should be free to fight fire with fire without being bullied by the poker rooms.”
He also quarreled with those who say the software is ineffective, maintaining that it increased its original bankroll by 35 percent in a five-day test in January in which it was used to play 7,000 hands. He acknowledged, though, that its ability to beat human players depends on the user’s skill in setting the formula that it uses to play.
Rao, the professional player, also expressed doubts about the poker sites’ professed zero tolerance of bots, though for a different reason. He said site operators make for bad cops when it comes to policing bots since they still collect the house “rake” (the percentage taken from each pot) whether the player is human or software: “They’ll turn a blind eye as long as it’s trivial as long as that bot pays its rake for every pot and as long as it doesn’t undermine the confidence (of the other players)," he said. "Moreover", Rao said, "the proliferation of poker sites presents an excellent opportunity for anyone with a bot that can eke out a slim profit to fly under the radar of those looking for unusual playing patterns. If you’ve got a bot that can play 25 casinos, two tables apiece, even if you’re playing a (mid-level) $10/$20 game that’s $1,000 an hour," he said. “It’s only a matter of time before a talented poker player who also happens to be a good developer decides she or he wants to be remembered as the author of the first bot that changed online poker forever,” an author who goes by the screen name “loic” lamented recently in the Twoplustwo.com poker forum.
Billings, creator of Vex Bot, expects online poker to continue to thrive in spite of efforts to develop the “killer bot.” In fact, he added, it may grow even faster: “I don’t foresee a danger of bots killing the game in any sense,” he said. “More likely, there will be a large contribution of cash from people who try to create bots and fail.”
Robots plays good poker and can play several games at the same time, 24 hours a day, seven days a week, to make profit for their masters. Robots are probably the single largest threat to online poker's growing success. In fixed limit games, the best robots can consistently beat mediocre opposition. At the higher limits they still have a hard time. However, in heads-up poker the best robots are often extremely strong, only loosing to great physical players. Robot play has had a tremendous negative affect on real money online games in backgammon and chess, where the robots are literally unbeatable.
You might get a bit scared by hearing this. Thankfully, there are still very few robots actually playing in real money games and most of the leading poker rooms are investing huge resources in both automated and manual counter measures to track robot play as well as any other form of cheating. Fortunately writing a poker robot program that can beat a table of experienced players is a very difficult undertaking as the game does not lean itself well for standard game programming as there is so much hidden information and "contextual game theory" where a player must try to make his opponents make mistakes. So any program would have to " think" and know how to bluff and lay traps. Via MSNBC.
