Admins' potential to cheat

[cj144]

I'm a new player and play in local league that uses Mavens. I've noticed that the admins regularly play every tournaments and most cash games (for real money). Can the admins see my mucked cards immediately after the hand is finished? I'm assuming yes, and that this gives them a huge edge in the games. It's a rather soft league, so I don't want to walk away yet, but any advice on how best to call the admins out and make this known to the other players so we're not getting cheated?

[Kent Briggs]

Hole cards are written to the server-side hand history files after each hand completes. A site owner needs to be able to audit hands to settle disputes and detect collusion. Of course this could be abused by a dishonest site owner as is the case with any poker site, including the big commercial sites.

[navels]

It's probably worth adding (Kent correct me if I'm wrong) that access to the admin console does not provide access to the hand history files on disk. For that you need to be able access the server, which would typically just be one person (aka the "site owner"). So if there are multiple admins (for the purpose of cashing players in/out, for example), that can be done without giving them access to the hand histories.

That said, you do have to trust at least one person. You could, and it would be reasonable to, ask the site owner who has access to the server. If the answer is: "just me" then you only have to trust the site owner.

But also, in a local league (where I'm assuming you're not talking about tens of thousands of hands played), I'm not sure I'd say access to the hand histories is a "huge edge", but YMMV.

[Kent Briggs]

It's probably worth adding (Kent correct me if I'm wrong) that access to the admin console does not provide access to the hand history files on disk.

In version 7, it depends on the Admin Rights profile. And also who has the API password (if enabled).

[cj144]

It's probably worth adding (Kent correct me if I'm wrong) that access to the admin console does not provide access to the hand history files on disk. For that you need to be able access the server, which would typically just be one person (aka the "site owner"). So if there are multiple admins (for the purpose of cashing players in/out, for example), that can be done without giving them access to the hand histories.

That said, you do have to trust at least one person. You could, and it would be reasonable to, ask the site owner who has access to the server. If the answer is: "just me" then you only have to trust the site owner.

But also, in a local league (where I'm assuming you're not talking about tens of thousands of hands played), I'm not sure I'd say access to the hand histories is a "huge edge", but YMMV.

Thanks to you and Kent for clarifying some of this. I probably just need to be cautious with the site owners. There are other admin, but I think their role is limited to registration and bankroll stuff. There is one site owner, however, who is a pretty poor player, yet somehow seems to regularly finish in the money...thus my inquiry here.

[ftpjesus]

For the record this sorta thing can happen with any poker online site. If you don’t remember the infamous UB Potripper issues where a very well known poker Pro was printing money cheating against his customers. This involved WSOP Main event champion Russ Hamilton who was a super user in his own site on UB and AP. The same site that Phil Hellmuth was shilling for. That being said again if somebody wants to play dirty they can and will try and find a way to do so. I can promise though any site should reasonably not allow from an ethical standpoint anybody with inside information to play on the site in order to avoid even the appearance of impropriety or unethical action. It’s why state lotteries don’t allow employees to play the lottery in their state and there’s even strict rules on vendors who sell tickets.

I mean the worst example of a site owner who was playing on their site and did the ultimately shady was former forum member here Troumbomb who kept creating chips on Foxpoker and losing and thus essentially created literally a million dollar liability to the site that was untenable and ultimately brought down the site.

The morale amounts to if you want to run a site that actually plays for real money in some form don’t play on it unless it’s micros only and even then it’s probably a bad idea. Keep business and play seperate.

[BaxtersClub]

I don't access the logs, during or after a session, unless there is some reason I have to do so. I am the only one who has access to it. But if a player doesn't trust me, I am fine with them moving on to another site.

I also don't think there is great value in seeing mucked cards in a league-type setup, where you have lots and lots of hands played with the same players over time. If you showdown J3o on Monday, I can assume you are capable of playing that range on Tuesday too. And the scale of the stakes really makes it such that it isn't worth the effort. And it certainly isn't worth compromising my integrity. I have heard that everybody has their price, but getting a 1% edge in a $20 tournament ain't mine.