Poker players are crazy. There’s so much trust in the game that it’s ridiculous, especially when the goal is to directly take the other players money. Unfortunately, there are a few bad apples looking to take advantage of these trusting players.
Here are some common scams I have encountered during my online poker poker venture.
Mild: The side-bet scam
Watch out for the players hovering around sit-and-go tables trying to make private side-bets on the results. For example, they’ll register for a $50 sit and go and offer their opponent a $100 side-bet that they’ll win. If the player agrees and loses, he would pay him $100. If the opponent wins, the scammer would just act like the side-bet never occurred.
This is a basic scam that I’ve seen way to many people fall for. It often happens in games that they’re not involved in from the online rail (chat box). Lucky it’s usually for a small amount.
Mild: All in on the first hand scam
This is a heads-up sit-and-go scam that a high limit player used to pull all of the time. Before each sit and go started, he’d suggest to his opponent that they both go all in on the first hand. Sometimes the opponent would agree and follow through with putting their chips in on pre-flop the first hand. The scammer on the other hand would break the agreement if he didn’t have a good starting hand and continue playing like normal.
Severe: “Send me $10 and I’ll pay you back $20 tomorrow”
This is a scam that you really have to be careful about, because the scammer has their eyes on making a lot more then $20 off of you. Little do you know that when you send that first $10, you’re getting lured you into a ponzi scheme.
It starts with a small amount and usually they get a few people involved(that only the scammer knows about). He’ll gain your trust by sending the promised money back, chatting with you, and becoming buddies.
Once he has a few people involved, he starts asking for a little more while still promising a high returns. He’ll pay the money back, but with other ‘investors’ money, not with money he earned from playing poker or anything.
Once the scammer has you eating out of his hands, he goes in for the kill. He’ll make up some story, like having money tied up somewhere and needing a large amount like $1000+ for a business venture. He’ll of course promise you a high return and you won’t have any reason not to trust him, because he’s always held his word to you. Then he will just keep getting you in deeper and deeper with false promises until he disappears with your money.
I’ve seen this particular scam unfold in a poker forum. The scammer was one of the most friendliest and active posters. Everyone liked him. He ended up taking over $30,000 from 5 other active forum members using the exact method described above. One guy even trusted him so much that he convinced his friends give him money.
Severe: “You know me. Loan me $20,000 and I’ll pay you back”
There’s a lot of trust between high limit players. If a known player asks in the chat box to borrow a large amount, like $20,000, their fellow high limit friends won’t think twice about hitting a few buttons and sending it over. Usually it works out fine, but what happens if the person you’re sending money to isn’t who you think he is?
A few months ago a scammer got a hold of a high limit players password. He proceeded to go to a few different tables asking certain players who knew the screen name to transfer large amounts to him. The scammer ended up collecting over $100,000.
Severe: “I’ll send you $200 on site A for $150 on site B.”
This is another one of those scams that can get you in a lot more trouble then you think. It starts out with a player asking you to do a favor and trade money with him from one site to another. He’ll even offer to send first and give you extra money for your trouble. You decide to help out and the transaction goes smoothly… until your account and funds are suspended for being involved in money laundering!!!
Yes, the money you received was most likely stolen from another players poker account who wasn’t to careful with their password. Since transfers between accounts usually aren’t monitored, they trade stolen money on one site for legit money on another with unsuspecting players. The innocent player who now has the laundered money in their account is left in a mess of trouble, while the crook simply cashes out of the other site.
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So if you got anything out of reading this, just be careful with your online poker money. Don’t lend money to anyone unless you can absolutely confirm who they are and keep your password private. If you spot any of these scams in the making, be sure to call the person out and notify the poker rooms support team so nobody else gets scammed
There’s also a phishing scam I’ve seen on Full Tilt, which I’ve described on my blog as well.
http://rast.org/files/online_poker_scams.html
Thanks Winston, I forgot all about that one. That’s another scam you gotta look out for. I can see how players can easily mistake that for a real promotion and hand over their personal info.
Just an updated link. I’ve been shuffling things around a bit.
http://rast.org/pokerdaze/files/online_poker_scams.html
another one i’ve seen on FTP lately is a phisher pretending to be support typing in the chatbox that you have won a cash prize and they need you to visit xyz site and enter your acct info. such an obvious scam, yet many ppl have fallen from it.
If it sounds to good to be true it is, not maybe, not probably, definetly.
I treat my online poker accounts similar how I would my online bank - VERY CAUTIOUSLY!
Jon.
scam?
When pokerroom.com freezes, and its been happening more lately, they refund your buy-in. What they wont tell me is whether or not they keep the buy-ins of those who went out before the freeze. If they keep that money instead chopping it and distributing it among the remaining players they stand to make lots of cash during the freeze.
Why do they not want to answer my question?
WARNING!!! FULL TILT POKER AND ITS ONLINE ASSOCIATED POKER SITES ARE TOTAL AND COMPLETE SCAMS!!!SEVERAL SHOWED ME HOW THWEY CAN EASILY GIVE ANYONE ANY CARDS THEY WANT.ITS A COMPLETE AND ABSOLUTE SCAM.WOULD BE BETTER OFF DONTATING YOUR MONEY TO SOME WHACKED OUT CAUSE THAN ONLINE FULL TILT AND ASSOCIATES POKER SITES.
Not so much a scam as such, but something that really got on my nerves. I registered onto a freeroll on full tilt, and something was fishy. none of the other players were playing realistically, they were folding everyhand, and every hand i was dealt was brilliant and i won every time, nobody would reply to my chat, and i realised soon that every other player was automated. I got out because i thought it seemed dodgy. wasted my time tho and i was pissed off!!!
The biggest scam of all is Full Tilt poker. Since I have a Mac, I am more or less a captive audience to FT. I have tracked exactly 13,626 hands, and please tell me how the following is statistically possible. But this is exactly how it has transpired:
Number of times I had AA: 51
Number of times I lost with them: 47
(not once did I slow play AA or any other hand for that matter.)
Number of times I had KK: 47
Number of times I lost with them: 41
My QQ lost 86.4%
My AK’s held up to win about 50%
A straight or flush was realized by someone 71% of the time.
These were tourneys or s-n-g’s, usually a $24+2 buyin.
This is fraud, my friends. The sheer odds of losing 88 times out of 98 with either AA or KK is 26,440,872 to one.
pokerstud, as usual, is right on the money. industry experts have tracked 100’s of millions of hands on FT, and they have discovered a QQ will beat AA, heads up, all in, about 74% of the time. any pair, all in, heads up, will lose to a lower pair 66% of the time.
well lets see if you try to email full tilt they will not get back too you whats worse they do not deal with e passporte will see if i get paid they owe we will see
I found a robot on paradise poker on the cash 5 card draw tables. Every time i raised and then stood pat and raised he would fold every time. i got like 200 bucks off him one nite and a player named paradise, with some numbers behind it, sat down and he left. After that you could still rob him but it was harder. eventually they blocked me so when i sat down at his table he would leave. I dont think many people knew about it but i watched him take alot of money from people because if you played passivly he would be aggressive and vice versa. just thought it was wierd that they can have a bot for the site to create action and make money off it
Hey guys, fulltilt. hehe big time scam.
the idea behind the game they give you is to have patience. but try this now…….
When you win a hand….. raise every hand after that untill you get really bad hands….. and you will see you get a picture card everytime 2 to 4 hands consecitively. and keep following the same structure as soon as you hit raiseable cards. I think the game is pre-calculated by the computers sitting as the dealers.
one more point….. does anyone know how does or what algorithim do these people use to draw cards…..
i dont know…. do you?
therefore think about it….. it could be pre-calculated…..e.g.
table of 6
player 4 is given 2 n 4
player 2 & 3 get QQ and AA
flop comes out: JK242
does that not mean the computer cannot pre-calculate the hand….. since we havent a clue wht in the world are they doing on their end.
i HATE online poker.
but i love poker otherwise. hehehehe
m3
another one… for poker lovers… i was on ftp first hand on heads up, players raise pre flop, I had AQ Spades i re raise, he goes all in, I called him… it was a $26.00 heads up… he had 5,7 (h,s) flop was 6,7,7 ..
I was shocked and started following him on different tables, he was winning on the worst cards any body can have… i have stopped playing on ftp since then..
I also searched him on market pulse online poker listing, his name was unknown to the website..
Are there ppl who get paid to do this on these websites?? Or is it automated??
ftp is really big scam. I lost about 1k on this site in 3 weeks. Its not really against me its just that i will get up a few hundred then i will loose just a little more than i won before going up and then going down just a little more than i just won. it seems to be geared to the river card that gives two people a really great hand and this happens a whole hell of a lot. I am a real life poker player and have played on many online sites and have never found any bigger scammers than the full tilt poker site. I am not a sore looser I am just pissed that I gave my trust to Full tilt and was betrayed. This site should be shut down. They make me sick. I believe they are crooks that only go popular after some sites stopped letting us players load cash on them.
fulltilt poker is a scam i have depositied almost 600$ over the course of a few months.. deposited 50 at a time and the most ive ever won was over 50 dollars which i eventually lost by the infamous SUCK OUTS of full tilt poker.
i will never deposit to ftp again
the amount of suck outs that have happened to me would never happen to my in real poker.
full tilt poker = scam