Sporting Odds. Questions Answered.

[danno375]

I have received the following Email from that nice man at Sporting Odds, Joe Legge. He has been browsing some of the threads and has answered some of the questions that have popped up from time to time. I also think he may have seen some of my rants!!!!!! I have explained that they are a joke and I still would love to get the rake back and the great offers!!!!!!! What he says should explain a few things, and I do think that Jo is a good guy. He has always helped us when we have asked him. Dan, I'm glad we're winning you guys around. Below I've tried to put your mind at rest over a few points which I have seen you raise on the Punters Lounge. 1) Software Crashes - far too frequent for everyone's liking. The Boss upgrade last week has hopefully made the platform much more stable (the immediate problems afterwards we're unfortunate but predictable - unfortunately after major upgrades it takes a couple of days for things to settle down). I'm at the mercy of Boss and out IT team here so I don't like to promise to much but things are getting better...slowly. 2) Poker Response - i'm in Gibraltar for the next two days to meet the Poker Response team. The fact that we have three different teams in three different locations answering queries is not something I am comfortable with. I hope to lay down some guidelines for them which treat problems in a unified manner which doesn't always assume it's the customers fault. 3) Double Registering - motivated in large by our Fraud Team we do spend a lot of time closing down duplicate accounts based on bank details, IP addresses and such like. Our main problem, especially with the Hungarians who are harder to trace, is that while we do get players complaining they invariably don't actually name names. It's not an easy job trying to keep up to date with them so as much help as possible is needed from dissatisfied players. 4) English Only Chat - as above. It's Poker Response who are supposed to monitor this for us and this is something else I will be talking to them about tomorrow. Once again I players don't give us names it makes it harder. 5) Software Auditing - this is not something I have to hand but I have no problems with making the documents public when I find out who holds them. In the end it would be very bad business to have dodgy software and as we make rake no matter who wins it would have no financial benefit to us to fix decks. 6) Overnight Currency Conversion - we change our currency exchange rate at the end of every month to be in line with the Bank of England (this figure is taken to 6 decimal places) - this means that your balance could go up or down. However, in sterling you never actually lose any money to us if it does go down. For example, if you have £100 in your SportingOdds account on the 31st this may equate to $161.40 in the Poker Room. On the 1st once the exchange rate has changed you may now only have $161.28 in the Poker Room but this is still £100 in your account. All sites who bank in Sterling but allow play in USD have to do this as if they fell to far out of kilter with the exchange rates it would lead to problems which would cause many sleepless nights for accountants across the country. Regards, Joe :clap :clap :clap :clap Thanks Joe!!!!! Danno the ranter!

[Tweetypie05]

Re: Sporting Odds. Questions Answered. Great stuff Danno and SO! Nice to see a sensible response and to know that improvements are being done as a result of complaints. :clap There's always somthing 'wrong' with every site, or at least people find something to complain about so I would be shocked if SO or any other poker site didn't get them on a regular basis. The difference comes if they actually do something about it or not... in this case it looks like we have a friend in Joe :ok . Keep up the good work Joe... and keep up the e-mails all you players! :cheers

[Valiant23]

Re: Sporting Odds. Questions Answered. Where has Joe been for the last 6 months??? Its good to see someone finally understanding the frustrations, and then actually doing something about it! Well done Danno and thank you Joe! :clap

3) Double Registering - motivated in large by our Fraud Team we do spend a lot of time closing down duplicate accounts based on bank details, IP addresses and such like. Our main problem, especially with the Hungarians who are harder to trace, is that while we do get players complaining they invariably don't actually name names. It's not an easy job trying to keep up to date with them so as much help as possible is needed from dissatisfied players. 4) English Only Chat - as above. It's Poker Response who are supposed to monitor this for us and this is something else I will be talking to them about tomorrow. Once again I players don't give us names it makes it harder.

Just a thought, that could be open to abuse I know.... If SO rely on us the players to police their poker rooms, then why not reward those of us that take the time to bring these matters to SO's attention? I and many others on here have given many many duplicate acount holders details to SO.

[danno375]

Re: Sporting Odds. Questions Answered. Good idea Valium................I often see some of the non english and multi regging stuff and think....." aarrgh!!! can't bothered to say owt as nowt is ever done!"

[Blade]

Re: Sporting Odds. Questions Answered.

5) Software Auditing - this is not something I have to hand but I have no problems with making the documents public when I find out who holds them. In the end it would be very bad business to have dodgy software and as we make rake no matter who wins it would have no financial benefit to us to fix decks.

Show us the code!!! I'm sure it looks something like this: If(Username == "danno375") { DoBadBeat = true; } :lol :lol

[danno375]

Re: Sporting Odds. Questions Answered. ram it blade!!!!! hee hee

[Tweetypie05]

Re: Sporting Odds. Questions Answered. Probably a stupid question but how do you tell if some-one has double-registered? Surely you can't tell just by looking? Am I being naive or just stupid? :\

[Blade]

Re: Sporting Odds. Questions Answered. they don't disguise it. It's common to see: czeppy1 czeppy2 czeppy22 czeppy123 czeppy842 all from budapest and all in the same game. If they're not multi-regged then who are!!

[Tweetypie05]

Re: Sporting Odds. Questions Answered. Fair enough... I did think it was somewhat unlikely that there are so many szegeds or czeppys out there but assumed that due to issues with using same IP address this could not occur. (I have had problems before trying to play against people at work (all use common server) on PLAY MONEY tables on PartyPoker and assumed that this technology was being used by all the sites to stop multi-regging but obviously not.)) In which case I will start to compile a list...as long as I get paid for it!!:loon Cheers Blade!

[ThePro19]

Re: Sporting Odds. Questions Answered.

Fair enough... I did think it was somewhat unlikely that there are so many szegeds or czeppys out there but assumed that due to issues with using same IP address this could not occur. (I have had problems before trying to play against people at work (all use common server) on PLAY MONEY tables on PartyPoker and assumed that this technology was being used by all the sites to stop multi-regging but obviously not.)) In which case I will start to compile a list...as long as I get paid for it!!:loon Cheers Blade!

to answer your comment first tweetypie, although you can multi-reg, you generally can't play more than one user at a time (that's how the IP address block works). So, what these players do is play very, very loose and play any 2 cards. If they hit they quickly accumulate a large stack and then probably start playing tight. If they lose, no problem, just log in as one of the other users and start again. As Joe suggests, it is not always that easy because they may have registered the account on different computers which possibly gets around the problem. Similarly for registration of debit/credit cards... they may use different ones for different accounts (don't know whether you saw the thread about the cheat on either Party Poker or PokerStars who won a tournament in this way... but was found out and had the winnigs - all $140k of it - taken off him. A very expensive blunder! I would like to ask Joe (if he reads these posts) why is it so difficult to trace Hungarian multiple accounts? Why are they any different to accounts from any other country? And with regards to it being difficult to know whether there are multiple accounts in a tournament, it's not that difficult to spot obvious ones. If you sort the entrants in name order, there are ALWAYS a number of very obvious multiple accounts that can be easily picked out by a quick scan. As Mr. V said, many of us have sent numerous cases of probable multiple accounts, but they don't always seem to have been actioned. Case in point is Ozzy66 and Ozzy88 (I think they were the 2), both from Swansea, which look very suspicious. I highlighted these 2 accounts some weeks ago, yet the player(?) is still there. Now, either SO (or whoever does the policing) haven't done anything about it, or they have looked into it and can't tell or don't believe it to be a multiple account. The problem is that we are never informed either way, hence why we think very little is happening with regards to the suspicious accounts. In my view, where they DO find multiple accoutns in use, as well as being suspended, the players should be named and shamed, just like the $140k chappie was, and also notify all other poker rooms. This is the only way they will ever stop this sort of thing. Having said all that, I must ask the question... are multiple accounts illegal? And if so, why? Yes, I agree it givies those players a bigger advantage over others, but so long as they pay their money (and I know freerolls are free!) then what is the problem? It is no different to playing a number of hands on a blackjack table. Must add here that I don't agree with multiple accounts, but unless the poker rooms can do something better to stop them than they are currently doing, then those players who do stick to the rules are at a big disadvantage and registering multiple accounts all of a sudden becomes an almost worthwhile prospect. PS Can't be bothered to re-read what I have written (too long), so you'll just have to put up with any typing and/or grammatical errors. :D

[joelegge]

Re: Sporting Odds. Questions Answered. Just a quick response to the multiple account queries. For the UK we can cross check everyone's registration details against the electoral register to establish if everyone is who they say they are (if someone isn't register to vote at the address where they live then we can cross-check their driving licence number). This data isn't available for foreign accounts so unfortunatley it can become a big of a manual process - the reason czeppy may be up to 842 is probably because 840 accounts have already been closed. We use IP checks but as people can have the same IP address and not actually be the same person we use it as a guide to highlight suspect accounts and then look in to them rather than closing accounts purely on the basis of a matching IP. As for hiring you guys as 'Hungarian bounty hunters' the theory is sound but i'm not sure our budget would stand up to it. Hopefully better solutions are not far away.

[ThePro19]

Re: Sporting Odds. Questions Answered. Thanks Joe. I still think the poker rooms should actively monitor entrants BEFORE a tournament starts and suspend the obvious ones. And name and shame too. And has anyone looked into Ozzy66 and Ozzy88? And what about a response to my question in the final paragraph about whether multiple accounts are illegal or not? Both a legal answer and your view would be appreciated.

[joelegge]

Re: Sporting Odds. Questions Answered. Having two accounts is against our 'House Rules' and all duplicates will be closed. I have forwarded the Ozzy's on to our customer services to look in to - i will let you know what happens. We try hard to stop dup accounts but if we add too many checks to the registration process then regular customer start to have problems joining and depositing (as i've read on PL several times) due to the strictness of the regulations. It's a fine line to walk. I'll happily reponds to any other questions but you'll have to wait i'm afraid - much to do to keep the site running!

[GaF]

Re: Sporting Odds. Questions Answered.

And has anyone looked into Ozzy66 and Ozzy88?

I have challenged ozzy before and he claimed that one was him and one was his brother (at a different address I think!!) - so whilst it looks highly suspicious, it may also be legitimate ....... just because names are close, does not automatically mean that they multi regging

[ThePro19]

Re: Sporting Odds. Questions Answered.

I have challenged ozzy before and he claimed that one was him and one was his brother (at a different address I think!!) - so whilst it looks highly suspicious' date=' it may also be legitimate ....... just because names are close, does not automatically mean that they multi regging[/quote'] And I've no problem with that, but it would be nice if someone would come back to us with that type of response when we send them the query.

[ThePro19]

Re: Sporting Odds. Questions Answered.

Having two accounts is against our 'House Rules' and all duplicates will be closed.

Thought as much - house rules and not illegal. Therefore there cannot be any claims of fraud. A bit like football really... if you foul in the penalty box, you're sent off. But only if the referee sees it!

[rosco]

Re: Sporting Odds. Questions Answered. Fair play to Joe for explaining and justifying this. Played a few different sites and the Hungarians are slowly creeping in. Think sporting odds just got bombarded with them, although I do think it is a group and they are misusing the software. It’s in our interests to help and identify any cheats and duplicate accounts without any monetary reward. Suggest we start a thread, identifying the sites and users, the actual table time and a copy of the chat etc. Then we can refer the likes of SO, bet Fred to our link or sent proof in the e-mail

Infact See link below. http://punterslounge.com/forum/showthread.php?p=26031

[chelskired]

Re: Sporting Odds. Questions Answered.

Just a quick response to the multiple account queries. As for hiring you guys as 'Hungarian bounty hunters' the theory is sound but i'm not sure our budget would stand up to it. Hopefully better solutions are not far away.

How about this then joe: £20 a kill (not a vast amount and easily recouped through the goodwill generated by people realising you are proactive in keeping the integrity of your site top notch) By my (rough) calculation there are approx 50 - 100 multis about = £1000 to £2000 in bountys :ok As something like this is part of what i do for a living, I can see a trip to Vegas being paid for in short time :nana Mr V and i played about with something similar a while back and I proved how easy it was to Identify people to a VERY! exact degree ;) Comments? C.R. (Happy to help)

[ubermonkey1]

Re: Sporting Odds. Questions Answered.

Fair play to Joe for explaining and justifying this. Played a few different sites and the Hungarians are slowly creeping in. Think sporting odds just got bombarded with them, although I do think it is a group and they are misusing the software. It’s in our interests to help and identify any cheats and duplicate accounts without any monetary reward. Suggest we start a thread, identifying the sites and users, the actual table time and a copy of the chat etc. Then we can refer the likes of SO, bet Fred to our link or sent proof in the e-mail

Infact See link below. http://punterslounge.com/forum/showthread.php?p=26031

your dead on there rosco:clap its what everybody has been doing, but hopefully now guys like joe and vc matt are at least trying to deal with some of the problems we are haveing.:ok i think your thread suggestion is a very good idea and surely would be benificial to all if each site had a rep who dealt with the lounge. and if this thread was run it would take these reps next to no time to collect a great deal of data regarding cheating ,and deal with the complaint quicker(instead of someone in customer support getting hundreds of emails from us about it). i find it amazing that sporting odds agreed to televise the super sunday, watching the two commentators chat about the fact that there were two players with the same hungarian sounding amazed me ,if richard awful (sorry alford)noticed i dont think it takes a genius to find the cheats.

[DAC]

Re: Sporting Odds. Questions Answered.

3) Double Registering - motivated in large by our Fraud Team we do spend a lot of time closing down duplicate accounts based on bank details, IP addresses and such like. Our main problem, especially with the Hungarians who are harder to trace, is that while we do get players complaining they invariably don't actually name names. It's not an easy job trying to keep up to date with them so as much help as possible is needed from dissatisfied players

SO, Just have a look at the entrants on tonights Safety Net - Allin1,2 and 3 appear. It's not that difficult to clamp down on this if you really want to.