The topic of cheating in poker is more relevant now than ever before with several allegations of cheating happening in the high-stakes poker world. PartyPoker and PokerStars have taken the unprecedented steps of banning players from live events that they have caught cheating on their online platform. In addition, GGPoker recently launched its Poker Integrity Council to help blacklist cheaters. Now, A5 Labs wants to employ high-tech methods to prevent cheating and fraud in online poker games.
A5 Labs is a team of tech entrepreneurs and artificial intelligence scientists who are, among other things, committed to keeping the world of competitive gaming fun and fair. They employ technologically advanced techniques to help their clients combat fraud and cheating in competitive online gaming, with online poker one of its main focuses.
Online poker sites have vast databases containing customers' details and all the hands played over a specific timeframe. Artificial intelligence created by A5 Labs can use all this information to help poker sites create a fair platform for everyone from recreational micro-stakes player up to the world of high-stakes grinders.
A5 Labs posted a white paper on poker.org that highlights how online poker operators can use technology to help prevent cheating, speed up verifications, and even share data between one another without falling foul of data privacy laws. That last point is a major sticking point when it comes to poker creating a global blacklist.
One option A5 Labs suggests is using NFTs, or Non-Fungible Tokens, that act as avatars in the online gaming world. This NFT would be unique to the player forever, and allow a player to remain anonymous on the outside but still enjoy all the benefits of being identifiable to poker operators.
For example, players could build their reputation rating much like someone does with their credit score. Having an NFT tied to a player would mean that person could play at say 888poker and then decide to play at GGPoker and both sites would instantly be able to share information with one another. In turn, this means players and sites would not have to go through lengthy "Know You Customer" verification processes multiple times. In addition, poker sites would know what games the player usually plays and how they play those games, and whether or not there has ever been any suspicious play or activity on that account, thus helping weed out so-called bad actors from the community by sharing information while retaining the player's anonymity.
The entire white paper can be read at poker.org and it does make interesting reading. Be sure to check it out if you have the time.
