Why we must not play real money on skill games

[Openmind]

We, honest players, need to trust skill games sites to play our real money. We need to know they do all the needed to protect us against cheaters.

And the fact is they're not.

If you want to see how it's easy to cheat on these sites, and be convinced to use only play money, check this survey written by a research team on computer security:

The survey

[msufan]

I'm up six figures. I'm not stopping.

[Renaldo Moon]

I applaud your efforts with this, and Worldwinner is one which you could dig up a lot of information regarding-- I'm sure many players on here have testimonials about Worldwinner and the way they deal with cheaters.

However, your site has an awfully untrustworthy feel to it-- Many spelling errors, and the presentation of information, at times, seems a little unreliable/sketchy. All in all, you could really use a lot more of a professional appearance for the site if you want it to have any serious impact.

We have many webmasters and a couple designers here on the forum, so if you want some help in that respect (and, since your site seems to be non-profit), we'll probably be happy to give some advice in that respect.

[Openmind]

msufan > That's great for you. I'm not saying all the players are cheaters on these sites and you will loose all your money, but I'm saying that some are, and if you have to play against them you can't win. I think that a profesional game site may keep an eye on this problem.

Renaldo > Thank you for your proposition. I'm interested in some advices, as I'm not a designer and I presents my results as a scientist, and as english is not my native language.
I didn't think to publish these results first, but as I have no satisfying response from games editors I decided to directly warn users.

I like playing games, I like betting, but I need to be sure that games are fair. For now, when I loose against a player, I can't be sure I didn't loose against a computer.

Best regards,
Openmind

[thice]

Openmind, for a scientist, your methods are not very scientific, as you present the results of a single short term experiment in a pretty lurid way. I know from personal experience and reports from other players that both, King and SkillAddiction have several countermeasures in place, including webcam and identity verification.

http://www.cashgamers.net/forums/pla...ification.html
SkillAddiction.com • View topic - Verification process / suspension questions

At latest when playing for one of the bigger jackpots on King you will notice the "green light" of their Security AddOn. I know that it checks for programs in the background (as they asked me about a tool named "StokeIt" I had running during my verification, which then turned out to be harmless) - but it probarbly does more. Maybe it watches mouse movements or even takes screenshots (which I would find questionably regarding privacy). It probarbly takes a while, until they get aware of black sheeps, which is partly understandable given the large number of games played each day. Besides I don't want to know how many mails with suspicions they receive every day. However, I doubt you could last long with your tools.

Anyway, I still appreciate the work you put into this, and I do not deny that there is room for improment for all of the Sites.

[Jacob]

[Renaldo Moon]

I think the fact that he was able to cheat at all and still get the withdrawal successfully transacted speaks large quantities. While it's always possible for someone to find a way around the security, he was able to do it with just a google search and a little bit of time-- Not through some ingenious new software technology that he spent weeks developing.

The fact that a cheater can get by anywhere (especially in the lower ranks where new players would start out) is upsetting, even if they won't last forever.

On Worldwinner, however, some cheats did seem to last forever. A few choice cheaters in Scrabble Cubes were allowed to play from 2007 all the way to late 2010, despite some of us sending in hundreds of reports of suspicion.

In Price is Right on Worldwinner (GG can testify to this and give more information) there was a cheat that lasted for weeks-- he was blatantly cheating, took several thousand dollars, and Worldwinner wouldn't ban him (I imagine they were waiting for him to withdraw so they could ban him and seize the money for themselves, as their T.O.S. stipulates is their policy towards banned players and what is done with their winnings.) Now, when I say "blatantly cheating", I don't mean "Wow! This guy is unbelievably good!" I mean that he was putting up a score of 2200-2500 in a game which has a maximum possible score of 1850-- and 1850 could only be achieved if the whole game were completely in less than one second, which is impossible for many reasons. So there is a score barrier of 1850-- that is, the game will not register a score higher than that, so the player manually manipulated the score registration to a higher amount than is possible, and with hundreds of reports of this illegal activity, Worldwinner did... nothing.

[CreepyD]

The trouble is some cheats are very subtle, and can never be found no matter what happens.
A good example is the find the object games.. What's stopping someone simply having 10 people gathered around their monitor?!
I've been on King since 2004 and I must say seeing someone obviously cheating has been EXTREMELY rare.
Sometimes I'll see scores that I think are rediculous, but after some practice it's sometimes not long before I'm also able to score those scores.

I think King is pretty good at banning cheats.
If you join up and make a decent size withdrawal, your account WILL be blocked until you can provide proof of ID and a webcam session.
I know people get banned for using mouse bots and such. Cheats generally get found out.

I have only briefly played on Worldwinner, but it seems to be inferior when it comes to detecting or doing something about cheaters, I've heard that numerous times on this forum.

[Kworb]

Some games it's simply impossible to prevent cheating. All those programs that scan the board and tell you what to do are very difficult to detect. Just something we have to live with. I only fully trust players who put their stuff on youtube.

[dpaull414]

I have only briefly played on Worldwinner, but it seems to be inferior when it comes to detecting or doing something about cheaters, I've heard that numerous times on this forum.

It feels like at Worldwinner the elite players are the ones doing the policing. You see some new person pop up out of nowhere, usually on weekends and reak some havoc. The top players report the new person, and sometime Monday scores get 0'ed out and they are gone.

there are some exceptions tho. I think 2 dynomite survivals ago somebody won it and a day or 2 after their survival win they got banned. I believe the final survival match was for $400. The person who lost that final game to the cheater wasn't so happy. But it makes you wonder how somebody could be playing for a month or more and cheating and not get caught.

On King.com because of the ranking system, I never played a game long enough to get to know my opponents. On WW I know or recognize every dynomite or luxor player that shows up in any of my non-survival tournaments. So I can't really imagine on king.com how I'd ever personally suspect somebody of cheating because I don't know anybody! On WW anybody I don't recognize pops up and puts an awesome score up in several tournaments I'll probably go ahead and report them just in case, especially in dynomite if they only take 1 try to put up that awesome score in multiple tournaments.