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This scenario is quite common for many land-based poker rooms. Marco is fidgeting while Leon raises an eyebrow as Al slowly thumps his foot; a sign that he is itching to raise. However at the turn of the century, as the good old poker migrated over the Internet, an online poker player is in for a more challenging game without the visual aid of your opponent's reactions, even more so without the slightest hint of whom you are against with, a human or a robot?
A growing concern is evident in online chat rooms and news groups devoted to poker that sophisticated card-playing robots--commonly known as "bots"--are being used on commercial gambling sites to gouge newcomers and even the veterans. If this is true, then the widespread use of poker bots can pose a significant problem for the online poker industry. Without the ability of being able to verify the "humanity" of the players, could this ultimately destabilize the prolific industry of online poker?
While the issue on bots is a pressing concern for the online poker industry, some skeptics say that the creation of such a program is many decades at best. Poker is a complex game and the strategies are constantly changing. Unlike for chess wherein the best strategies can be calculated, in online poker a software developer would have to develop a bot that can actually think about the game and reason. The supporters of this standpoint put a finger on the variety of commercial programs that purport to help players, but with no actual effect. However Darse Billings and the rest of his team have developed an artificially intelligent program named "Vex Bot." It is capable of playing poker at master level in a game with two players. The new system is already used to investigate the frontiers of artificial intelligence, as it will be the groundwork for a commercial poker tutorial program. When the news about "Vex Bot" erupted, the developers began to receive letters of protest stating the probable danger the system pose in making illegal online gambling business more convenient.
The veracity of online gambling sites using bots to unfairly keep the favor towards the dealer is vague. There are no sufficient evidence to support the claim however, according to Darse Billings, the probability that commercial sites use bots is 50:50. He is also certain that all of the modern programs can unlikely match Vex Bot, which is an end product of a decade of hard research. Yet, there are certainly two sides of a coin. Poker bots are not only a players' concern. An online casino even came out and once commented on this problem, enumerating the instances it has banned its players for the suspicion of being more of a robot rather than a human. Identifying, with certainty, whether the player is a robot or a human is impossible, however a company prefers to be assured and protect itself rather than risk losing thousands of dollars to a bot.
Despite the issues on legality and bots, online poker will continue to become more popular. It's only a matter of time before more people would want to create their own bots to be remembered, but all of these attempts are doomed to fail. "I don't foresee a danger of bots killing the game in any sense," Billings said. "More likely, there will be a large contribution of cash from people who try to create bots and fail."
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