Partypoker has announced its monthly update on its effort to eliminate bots from the online poker site. According to the update which was delivered on Wednesday, August 14, a total of 121 bot accounts were banned in July 2019 – this is by far the largest number of bots seized by the company since the initial wave of bans that began in March this year.
The information that was released revealed that 89 of the bot accounts closed in July were from the .com version of the online poker platform while the remaining 32 were from the .eu site. as it turns out, despite the lower number of bot accounts in the .eu site, the 32 accounts accounted for most of the ill-gotten winnings. The .com bot accounts had $76,267 seized from them while the .eu bots had a €88,351 (nearly $100,000) seized from them.
Since March, partypoker’s fraud team has closed down more than 600 bot accounts and seized over $1 million from all of them – this is a clear indication of how serious the issue of online poker bots still is. The online poker room has promised its players to keep giving monthly updates on their efforts to make gaming safer and fairer for all their customers.
No More HUDs and Hand Histories
While its efforts when it comes to purging the poker room of online poker bot accounts have been highly appreciated by its customers, partypoker has been heavily criticized for its decision to remove HUDs (heads-up displays) and hand histories. Many renowned figures in the online poker community have pointed out that the decision will deny the players the ability to conduct their own anti-cheating investigations. The company has however maintained that the move is meant to protect players and, so far, there are no plans to revert the decision.
Bye to Grey Markets
Improvements to the platform aside, partypoker has apparently chosen to remove other players from its sites even though they are not cheaters or bot accounts. From what we could gather based on emails that were sent to some of their customers, partypoker has plans to exit the gaming markets in some countries. The poker operator later gave an explanation that went as follows:
“Following a recent review, we have decided to stop offering real money games to players in a small number of countries. Players impacted by this have been advised. Player funds remain safe and secure and available to withdraw.”
As it stands, partypoker has not released the full list of countries that will be affected by this decision but considering the fact that only grey markets have been affected so far, the move is probably meant to sanitize its regulatory profile.
