Betfair Official Blog

Poker Is More Sporting Than Athletics

WHAT kind of a press does poker get?

The game is more controlled than many others. Think of cheating in athletics and allegations of corruption in football.

But still poker can toss up the headline: "Online Poker = Cheating, Robbery, War, and Death (?)."

The story goes that an online poker player was winning. He then started losing. Over and over and over, he lost.

"This went on for weeks. And when we looked into it we realised that one of the other players at the table had sent him a tool. A calculator to help optimise the poker playing or whatever. And we found that the application included a Trojan."

A Trojan is a piece of software which appears to perform a certain action but in fact performs another.

The message is that you should not download anything onto your PC without checking who it is from. You should install a firewall and up-to-date anti-virus software.

That's it. But look at the headline. And listen to the words:

I'm not sure if this article is a good warning or just anti-online poker propaganda. It brings to light a case where online poker was apparently used to launder money to fund insurgents fighting against Americans in Iraq. Yikes.

Poker and war and crime. But poker is so tightly regulated, especially online.

And then wonder about the source of this information, a technology site listening to a technology expert. What odds that technology knows how to solve the problem, and for a small or big fee can do so?

Play safe and play online. And don't accept things from strangers.

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