Why Do Online Poker Cheats Thrive

There is no doubt in my mind that those who cheat in online poker, be they individual players like Justin "Zeejustin" Bonomo or Sorel "Imper1um" Mizzi, or operators like Ultimate Bet and Absolute Poker, get off so lightly that they make a mockery of the naive dictum that cheaters never prosper. On the contrary the world of poker in general and online poker in particular is a veritable haven for the dishonest and amoral. So the question is not whether poker cheats thrive but why this should be so?

The first possible answer that springs to mind is that a lot of online poker players are deluded about their own abilities, so it doesn't matter if previous high-stakes games at Ultimate Bet were rigged from the inside because the guys who decide to sit down tonight are so good (in their own minds) that they're pretty sure they're going to win. Sure a $1 million online tournament is likely to feature a bunch of professional multi-accounters but that doesn't stop thousands of honest players from anteing up, even if they know the game isn't strictly on the level. The truth of the matter is that in a recent survey it was determined that 93% of all online poker players are losers overall, and this number may well be as high as 96%. And yet there are many online poker players out there who treat their pursuit as a legitimate full-time career and view themselves as brilliant players. They would swear that they're up overall, and that those sproadic losing sesssions, never the norm, were the result of awful bad beats. For every one Tom "Durrrr" Dwan out there able to absorb million dollar swings there are a thousand palookas who are going to drop out of college and flame out in one sick night of cards.

Poker cheats thrive in this atmosphere of self-delusion where we ignore rational arguments against sitting down to play online poker in the first place: There is a 96/100 chance that you'll end up losing; the five avatars you're playing against could all be in the same living room in Norway; the rake will eventually kill you slowly anyway without you even knowing it's there, much like asbestos in the walls. There is no rational reason to continue visiting Absolute Poker after they were exposed on 60 Minutes. There is no reason to sit down at the same table as Sorel Mizzi, provided you can identify him, and yet no one seems to care.

The second possible answer is that the game of poker is fundamentally about dishonesty. Players who tell the truth are rightfully pilloried as pathetic fish who deserve to lose all their chips. If you raise your strong holdings and fold all the weak ones while calling all the in-between draws and middle pairs you are the most coddled player at the table. No one wants to see you and your free and easy money leave, ever.

By contrast those players who fleece the rubes with artful deception are lauded as titans of the game. It's not really cheating if the mark is an idiot. And so when the managing editor of Bluff magazine cheats his way to a huge online poker victory couldn't we argue that Chris Vaughn was merely extending the boundaries of bluffing to the more or less logical conclusion that the guy you thought was Chris Vaughn was actually Sorel Mizzi? At least he was fired from his post but there is no real punishment for those who cheat in online poker commensurate with what used to happen to these rogues in old poker games - shooting them as soon as you spot the Ace up the sleeve was considered appropriate, but for some reason we don't even get outraged anymore. Instead we forgive and forget, and even worse a small part of us smirks and tips our hat at the deception.

All Ultimate Bet and Absolute Poker had to do was merge and rebrand as the Cereus poker network and lo and behold their online tables are full again. Besides the millions of dollars stolen by poker cheats who were employed there was eventually reimbursed so no real harm was done other than to the integrity of online poker. The word "cereus" derives from the Latin for wax candle, and that new name strikes me as apt. It's a vulnerable object, one that shifts shape over time, and ultimately burns down into something unrecognisable from how it started out.

I'd wish them luck with the new company but they don't need any; all any online poker rooms needs is a modicum of restraint guided by some sense of moral responsibility and millions of dollars will still be raked into their coffers on a daily basis because we're not going to stop playing poker on the Internet. Why on earth would we?

 Posted by Anonymous at 11:06 on 10 February 2009