Partypoker Seizes Another 16 Bot Accounts
Online poker giant partypoker has checked in with the latest update in its nearly year-long publicized battle against bot activity on its site. In the most recent announcement, covering September 2019 activity, party has clamped down on another 16 bot accounts on its global (dot-com) and France/Spain (dot-eu) networks.
According to the partypoker blog, ‘A total of 16 bot accounts were closed during the month; 13 deriving from partypoker’s global dot-com player pool and the remaining three registered to the poker room’s ring-fenced dot-eu market.
“Subsequently, $9,338 (dot-com) and €3,368 (dot-eu) was seized in associated funds, with the site currently in the process of returning the monies to affected players.”
This actually represents a significant downtick from August’s numbers, when 48 botting accounts were identified and their existing balances seized. The September seizures bring the running total of killed bot accounts to 665. Allowing for variance, roughly three quarters of the identified bot accounts have played on the global dot-com site, with the remainder coming from the dedicated France/Spain platform.
Party claims the downtick represents significant progress in its battle against the illicit botting activity. However, marked fluctuation have already occurred on a monthy scale, and it will take a run of several such months, along with at least some anecdotal report from players, to suggest party has truly gained the upper hand.
Nonetheless, any bot-battling results are good news. These latest numbers come just days after the smaller, grey-market Winning Poker Network deals with widespread public allegations that bot activity there has exploded out of control. It’s worth noting that even if driven off of the partypoker sites due to increased policing, botters are more likely to seek an easier place to continue the illicit activity rather than simply discontinuing the cheating.
Partypoker has dedicated a small internal team to its ongoing bot-fighting efforts. As its latest update notes, “The site continues to invest in resources aimed at safeguarding the safety of its players, spearheaded by a specialist Poker Fraud Team comprising a collection of former poker professionals whose duty is to investigate suspicious activity and aid partypoker in ridding the site of unscrupulous accounts.”
Though party’s latest update did not disclose whether any of the latest account seizures originated with player reports, as has been the case in earlier months, the site does continue to encourage players to report possible bot accounts as well. As its latest announcement reiterates, “partypoker encourages players to continue reporting all suspicious activity at its tables, by emailing [email protected]. partypoker promises to investigate all incidents reported.”
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