The September issue of Wired Magazine carries and interesting piece on a former RealTime Gaming engineer who wrote WinHoldEm, a poker bot with an optional team module, allowing for computer aided collusion, or should we say fraud.
The former systems engineer and creator of WinHoldEm left RealTime Gaming, an Atlanta-based company that produces online casino and poker software, in 2003 to start working on WinHoldEm. The first commercial version of the software was available online in early 2004.
The software is sold on a yearly subscription basis. The basic poker bot can be licensed for $100, and for the collusion module you'll have to cough up another $100. The software's creator admitted to Wired Magazine he's making a living from selling the WinHoldem software, but didn't disclose how many copies he sold so far.
Most poker rooms have installed automated poker bot and collusion detection systems, and if you are caught you can forget about ever cashing out. A spokesman for PartyPoker commented: "They can dream about creating fantasy bots that will play for them or make them money while they sleep, but that's not going to happen."
Another interesting tidbit of information in the Wired article, was the revelation that hackers have stolen the program code underlying the University of Alberta's Poki program, a research project into artificial intelligence applied to the game of poker. It is speculated the hackers are now using the stolen code in their home-brewed poker bot programs.
Read the full 2 paged article at Wired Magazine.
A related, but older, article can be found on our own site: Are You Playing Against Poker Bots?, written by one of our feature columnists, Gary Steele.
Professional-Poker.com strongly condemns the use of poker bots and software that promotes collusion.