PokerStars claims 90% bot detection to Pennsylvania regulators

In a meeting that was held on August 15th, PokerStars representatives put together an impressive PowerPoint presentation for the Pennsylvania Gaming Control Board in which they boasted about some of their achievements since they entered the market about 20 years ago. The presentation described how PokerStars has dealt over 172 billion hands and how it currently controls 70% of the global online poker market.

One of the more impressive parts of the presentation was when PokerStars claimed that they were able to identify around 90% of cases involving collusion as well as nearly 90% of all bots. Along with help from players who report suspicious activities, PokerStars’ proprietary systems and a staff of 65 employees who are dedicated to catching cheats seem to be proving quite effective at rooting out cheats and maintaining the site’s integrity.

PokerStars’ reputation took a bit of a hit when a bot scandal made headlines in 2015. An Eastern European ring of bots were unleashed on low-limit PLO games and they reportedly won over $1.5 million. PokerStars responded by giving refunds to affected players and they banned all of the suspected bot accounts. PokerStars even went as far as suspending suspicious accounts until video identity could be verified.

PokerStars claims that they have over 500,000 players online at any given time which they point out as being more people than could fit into Heinz Field and Lincoln Field combined three times over. PokerStars also told the PGCB that they had 1.85 million real-money unique actives in the 2nd quarter of 2018 and that they are committed to enforcing the rules to maintain their reputation as the largest poker site in the world.

If PokerStars gets approval from the Pennsylvania Gaming Control Board, and it certainly appears that they will, the Keystone State will become the 20th jurisdiction in which the poker giant operates.