During the deliberations held today regarding legalizing and regulating online gambling by the House Financial Services Committee, a letter from the assistant director of the FBI’s cyber division was read in which Shawn Henry claimed:

“Technology exists to manipulate online poker games in that it would only take two or three players working in unison to defeat the other players who are not part of the team…The online poker vendors could detect this activity and put in place safeguards to discourage cheating, although it is unclear what the incentive would be for the vendor.”

Without going into detail it’s unclear whether Henry is discussing simple collusion, or something more nefarious. From the letter it would appear the former is the case, which shouldn’t play much of a role in the hearings since collusion is just as likely in brick & mortar games.

More important for the online poker community to prove to Congress, is how they will be able limit access to minors, protect against money laundering, and safeguard the players’ information.

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Tags: FBI cyber division, online poker cheating

This entry was posted on Thursday, December 3rd, 2009 at 11:24 pm and is filed under Legal Poker News. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.