Poker Collusion

The most common form of cheating online is called “collusion”. Colluders work in teams to either bet other players out of the pot, share information about what cards they each have, or to “chip dump” to one another. Chip dumping is where 2 or more players will enter the same tournament or SNG, and one player will then deliberately lose his chips to the other player, giving that player a greater chance of winning.

Collusion over any length of time is can be detected by any experienced player, and also through site security teams. All good poker sites have automated software that interprets players’ betting patterns to detect if they are colluding, and this software is extremely intelligent. People are often caught when they attempt to gain an unfair advantage by collusion, and when this happens the poker sites ban the account, confiscate the colluder’s money and give it back to the players who were disadvantaged.

How to Detect Collusion in Online Poker

Sometimes collusion can be easy to detect. If two players each have 2000 chips, and one person raises to 1990, and then folds to the other players all in for only 10 more chips, it’s a pretty clear case of chip dumping (Yes, sometimes they are that obvious!). If you see 2 players at the same table constantly and never see them play a hand against each other, this is another common way colluders are detected.

What you can do about Collusion in Online Poker

If you have reason to suspect players are colluding or “team playing” against you, report the players involved to the site so that they can be investigated. It will help if you can record the players’ names, as well as the tournament or table ID number. If you are playing on a site where each individual hand is given a hand number, record that too if possible.

The other way to avoid colluding players is to make sure you are playing on a site with an active security team. The two best sites in this regard are Full Tilt Poker and PokerStars, both of which have state of the art software and full time security teams. I have personally had money refunded to me after reporting players for colluding in a Hyper Turbo Sit ‘n’ Go on PokerStars, so I can recommend them whole heartedly. The links are included below for your convenience.