» Can people cheat in online poker?

 While Absolute Poker and Ultimate Bet have both suffered scandals, cheating is very rare. Of the billions of hands dealt, there are only a couple documented cases of cheating via players seeing the hole cards of others. More common are unethical efforts such as collusion. Not completely unheard of are two or more friends sitting at the same tables and sharing information about their hole cards with each other. Sadly, little can be done about this form of cheating. Most sites do have measures in place to track how often various players sit with other. This helps curb the problem somewhat but it is not entirely possible to eliminate it.

There have also been many accusations of "bots" being used. A bot is essentially a computer-controlled player programmed to make profitable decisions without the account holder being present. Some independent sites even go so far as to advertise bots for sale. The reality or effectiveness of these bots is very much in question at this juncture. The purported goal for a bot is to break even so it can take advantage of rakeback and bonuses. In that case, the only real victims are the poker sites themselves. To help protect themselves, the sites constantly monitor tables and players in order to reduce the use of bots.

Perhaps the hottest topic on the cheating front today is multi-accounting. The creation of a second account with a different screen name in order to "hide" from opponents has become more prevalent as games have become tougher to beat. A hot button topic to be sure, some contend using different names is not even cheating.

While Poker Curious does not wish to make a statement on our position, we would like to ask you to consult the rules of each site you play on before the creation of a second account.  For obvious reasons, the various sites do their best to prevent cheating and have done so with a very high rate of success. 

At Poker Curious, we are all poker players ourselves.  Most of us play most days and every day we play without worry.  There is no more cheating in online poker than there is in any other arena of human endeavor.