The now defunct Excalibur Poker Room is a classic example of a room that was an afterthought of the casino.

Card Room Equipment Outdated

When you check out the tables, chairs, and even the chips in the poker room, what condition are they in?  Do they look like tables that are throwbacks to a past era of the casino?  Are they filthy and in clear state of disrepair?  Do the chips look like the words “chip washer” were never uttered?  If so, odds are the room is merely an afterthought of the casino.

Poker Dealers Are Normally Dealers in Other Areas of the Casino

There are a good number of smaller casinos that use dealers from other areas of the casino to run the poker room when demand warrants it.  You will discover this fairly quickly when you spot them dealing blackjack, running the roulette wheel, or dealing Pai Gow.  Many times I have been told by dealers in smaller card rooms that they normally deal blackjack and they have to rotate on the poker tables because they will not hire exclusive dealers for the poker room.

Your Dealer Performs Multiple Duties While Dealing Games

I have run across card rooms on occasion where the poker room supervisor was actually also the dealer.  At the Poker Palace in Las Vegas, the dealer for my tournament also served as brush, dealer, chip runner, and floor manager.  The other dealer in the room was from the blackjack table.

Poker Tables Are Electronic

A poker room that chooses to use electronic poker tables is clearly a room that isn’t there to cater to poker customers.  The casino has found out that 1 person can manage the tables and control disputes and they save money on dealers.  Chances are you will see no more than one game going on at any given time.  I am not a fan of electronic poker tables.

Many of the above signs are going to be found in smaller card rooms due to the fact that smaller casinos are going to focus on table game and slot revenue.  Poker for smaller casinos is usually a losing proposition and is only there to appease the few that my chose to play.

If you are a serious player, these types of rooms are ones to avoid.  Casual players may have a good time when there are games going, but serious players need to find rooms with more players and more action.

The stupidity of the large scammers was that they were taking huge sums of money from the top players. Players like Dustin Wolff and Todd Witteles were winning tens of thousands on some sites, but on the scam sites they were getting hammered for big losses. Naturally they could not understand this. They therefore requested hand histories and when those were not forthcoming, data mining websites exposed inhuman win-rates from certain new users that started to suggest something was not right. Eventually the scams, albeit never convicted, were exposed.

If a poker room authorises a player who has access to others hole cards to be used in a real game, this is an in-house security fraud. The time span for this super-user fraud to occur is short, and almost sure to be exposed due to data mining and hand playing patterns. The poker players with the most money usually analyse the hands best and put their time into analysing hands. It is hard to get a scam past them. The poker rooms also need to be earning millions from any fraud as the normal earnings through their rake are so high. It is better for poker rooms to simply play poker rather than be dishonest, they make plenty of money.

Full Tilt Poker, for example, would need to scam a quite staggering amount of money to be worth it to them as they have rake revenues of around $400 million a year. It is simply not worth it for them in my opinion. The larger sites are therefore safer to play on (that we know of) as they are successful enough to invest in the most data encryption technology so their site is trustworthy. They also have many named pros with ownership interests. Full Tilt is probably the most transparent in terms of ownership of every poker room.

Rather than focusing on the site ripping you off, you should be particularly careful when playing cash games where players could be working together. For example, if you play a hand where the same two players are raising then re-raising to expose you, report this activity to the room’s security who will investigate. Poker rooms have the ability and authority to refund you. Betting patterns of players guilty of cohesion are easily spotted and poker rooms have software designed to expose this behaviour. This is more common at the lower staked games where players just want to win money without the risk.

Another safety measure would be to minimise the amount of money you hold in the poker room’s accounts. Poker rooms are usually based offshore. I would rather keep money in my own personal account where it can still be part of my bankroll. It may be worth opening a separate personal account where your poker bankroll resides. There is nothing to suggest that poker rooms will scam your bankroll money, but the fact is most of the time we just do not know how they are operating. I trust the poker rooms, but I am careful nonetheless.

By Malcolm Clarke