PokerStars and Bots?

[VoodooAce]

Anybody here play online poker? I play at a couple of sites regularly, including PS. Now, I can't believe that they would be stupid enough to cheat people, because they make a whole lot of money legitimately and getting caught would ruin a very good thing. There have been a number of bogus sites in the past, but none have ever been caught using bots....that I know of. All previous scams involved sites popping up, letting people put money into there accounts, then disappearing with everybody's cash.

While PS is one of the larger sites, I have heard more rumors about them than any other sites combined. But I've played there for a long time and only saw anything that I'd call suspicious once....and that could have been any number of things. Besides, I play for pretty low stakes and, with the money they're raking in, I can't believe my little stacks mean anything to them.

But my stepbrother knows 'a guy' and he says most online poker sites don't use bots (fake players there to scoop your $$$), but that PS is cleaning up with them. This 'guy' has actually become kind of well known in the poker world but he stays away from online poker except a little here and there at Empire.

Needless to say, I moved my money to Empire, but I like PS more than any of the others and I'd rather keep playing there....if I only knew they were safe.

Does anybody know anything one way or the other about PS and online poker in general?

 

[bad_ronald]

You would get banned from most sites for using them - Party even checks to make sure that the string "Winholdem" or any derivatives aren't in memory. I wouldn't be all that worried though...

Around three years ago, before all the sites were concerned about bots (and before they were even banned), I tested Winholdem at a play money table at Party. I let it run while I had a long block of classes (4.5 hours), and it was down roughly 1/3 of its stack when I returned (and I gave it 300x the BB). I tested it twice after that in the same conditions (my schedule had this block on MWF), and it was up slightly once and down even more the other time. Bear in mind, that play money players, especially at Party, have no clue what they're doing, and this program couldn't even beat them. Granted, the programs have probably improved somewhat, but it's still not easy for a computer to play poker well.

The thing that most sites are much more concerned about (and something you should also be more concerned about) is collusion. They do check hand histories to ensure that players aren't consistently playing at the same table as someone else. If they find that someone has been, they'll check for telltale signs like folding a high pair preflop after sweetening the pot for the other player with an even higher pair, etc.

I have no experience with Pokerstars specifically; I prefer ten handed tables.

Edit: Party Poker and Empire Poker are just different skins for the same server (in case you didn't know)