Saturday, April 17, 2010

Is There a Connection Between the Video Game Cheating World and the Online Poker Cheating World?

You may have heard about the major cheating scandal that has engulfed Blizzard Entertainment's hugely popular StarCraft video game. you may have also noticed a plethora of online websites offering cheat programs for this video game as well as many others. And then as well, you may have noticed that many of today's hotshot young poker players, both online and in the real brick and mortar poker world, have come to the "cheating game" (poker's original name in the Wild West) via online computer video games like StarCraft. To name a few: Justin Bonomo (multi-accounting cheat), Eric Froehlich, David Williams, Brock Parker (2 WSOP bracelets), Bertrand “ElkY” Grospellier and Daniel “rekrul” Schreiber. And there are of course many, many more.

The cheating scandal that has hit Starcraft seems to involve the Korean video games community more than any other, but this does not mean that the Koreans coming into online poker are more apt to be online poker cheats than the rest of the players coming from the video game world. Justin Bonomo is not Korean, neither are most of the known online multi-accounters and colluders who´ve had vast online video game experience. One thing to take note of is that video game popularity has grown at about the same rate as online poker popularity, so we have a general crossover of the young generation excelling in both worlds.

The StarCraft cheat scam began in 2006. Illegal gambling cheat rings have been using top-notch pro StarCraft players to throw matches. Also, camp directors and coaches have been collecting fees, and league and tournament organizers seem to have known about it all and are even tinkering with the possibility of coexisting with the cheat rings responsible for all the corruption.

As many of StarCrafts' big names are currently under investigation, we may see a mass emigration from that world into the online poker world, which in my opinion will absolutely boost the online cheating incidents we are all sick and tiref of! And take this a warning! And heed it in the brick and mortar cardrooms too. If you learn that one of your opponents online or off is an ex-video games pro, BEWARE!

In fact, get out of the game.