How Technology Is Making Online Poker Bots More Life-Like

Technology in poker isn’t new. From card shufflers to online poker sites, we have seemingly always looked for ways we can use the latest technological innovations to improve, enhance, or streamline the game. While for the most part, this has been to the benefit of human players, there is one area where technology could be the undoing of human players – poker bots.

Poker And Technology

Technology is obviously prevalent in the world of online poker, but it is also commonly seen in physical games. Card shufflers are fairly basic pieces of technology by today’s standards but not when they were introduced in the late 19^th Century. Hole cameras make tournament viewing more interesting for spectators, without interrupting the game.

But, it was in 1998, when Planet Poker introduced the first ever online real money poker game, that technology and poker truly merged. Now, the best offshore poker sites for US players have thousands of tables open at a time. They provide access to tournament and cash play against opponents from around the world. And, according to casino expert Cameron Dhaliwal, they offer a viable poker-playing venue for players who live in states where online poker isn’t fully regulated.

What Are Poker Bots?

Technology isn’t new to poker. And neither is cheating to get the upper hand. Whereas cheating once meant players hiding cards up their sleeves or marking cards, poker bots have become the scourge of some online poker sites. These bots use machine learning to study millions of hands of poker and adapt a statistical model to give themselves the upper hand.

They even adapt to the players at the table, formulating specific actions to fleece as much money as possible from unsuspecting gamers. And, as machine learning has advanced, so too has the poker-playing prowess of the bot. In 2016, Deepstack beat 11 top professional poker players, while another AI bot called Pluribus has shown, on numerous occasions, that it can outplay some of the world’s best players.

How Poker Bots Are Used

However, the likes of Deepstack and Pluribus have been used in organized, controlled events. All players and spectators knew what they were getting involved in, and the games were deemed experiments to determine the effectiveness of AI.

Poker bots are more commonly used as a means of cheating genuine players out of their money at online poker sites. All reputable sites have terms and conditions that prohibit the use of software, or poker bots. And some use AI of their own to help identify patterns that point to the use of bots and software. For the most part, sites do well at preventing and identifying bots, but some do get through the net.

Bots can be used to help train and coach players. Some sites even offer training and improvement programs designed to help their users hone their online poker skills. These typically use bots and play for fake or play money. Some professional players may even use more advanced bots to help learn new tactics or determine how to beat certain plays.

Poker Site Terms

The use of poker bots isn’t strictly illegal, in most cases. There are no federal or international laws that prohibit the use of software to win poker games. However, it does go against the fair use terms of reputable online casino sites. The sites know that if their games are packed with AI bots who keep fleecing players and taking their stacks, the players will go and wager their money on other sites. If a site determines that a player is using a bot to get the upper hand, they will likely have their account closed and be banned from rejoining.

More Sophisticated Bots

Bots are becoming more sophisticated. Machine learning bots have millions upon millions of games they can access, which is a huge data set for AI to learn from. Whether it is used for automatic trading or player card games, AI performs best when given access to huge volumes of data. This enables them to determine the most efficient play in any situation. And, because they learn as they play, specifically picking up on the tactics of players around the table, they will adapt their game to give them the upper hand against their current opponents.

AI Is Harder To Detect

It’s also reasonable to assume that AI can be taught to appear more human, which will make it harder to detect. A player who instantly bets and plays every turn is a bot, and it’s also reasonable to assume that most bots will avoid doing this, both to potentially build a pot and to avoid detection. AI is used to detect fraud of all types, including on poker sites, but it is effectively going head to head against itself.

Better At Bluffing

One area where humans have long had the upper hand over computers and bots is in the art of bluffing, or lying. However, even these lines have become increasingly blurred. Meta developed an AI called CICERO which ranked in the top 10% of players of the Diplomacy board game. All Diplomacy players start on a relatively equal footing and have to negotiate, lie, cheat, and bluff their way to victory. That CICERO could perform so well in this type of game is evidence of AI’s ability to outhuman humans.

Poker bots don’t bluff in the way we think of bluffing. They analyze hands, including the hands of players around the table. They use statistical modeling to predict the most likely actions of other players, and then make the actions that are most likely to win them the money. Statistically, what we perceive as bluffing will be shown to have the best likely outcome, and so, they will make the bluff play.

Conclusion

Poker bots have become highly advanced thanks to artificial intelligence and machine learning. Not only have they become good enough at the game that some of the more advanced AI machines are capable of beating some of the world’s best poker players, but they have also become more difficult to detect. Even the less advanced bots have become more powerful, making it increasingly difficult for poker sites to detect and prevent them, even using their own AI arsenals.