Rob Yong has made a suggestion that facial recognition be brought in to further the fight against bots. The partypoker key decision maker tweeted the idea last week and it was met extremely positively by his followers.
I am going to ask @partypoker to implement Facial Recognition on Sign in [+ randomly when ITM/Final Tables + Higher Stakes Cash Games to 1) stop cheaters/bots opening/buying new accounts 2) stop multi – accounting 3] Stop ghosting – Do you support this ?
— Rob Yong (@rob_yong_) January 30, 2020
Rob Yong Fights For Game Integrity
Ever since the beginning of online poker, the naysayers have claimed that it is not secure and this makes fair games impossible. While there have been plenty of scandals over the years, real poker players know that mainstream sites put in a lot of effort to secure game integrity.
There have been literally hundreds of bot accounts found by the partypoker security team throughout 2019. These accounts were closed down with their funds confiscated and divided between any affected players.
Rob Yong wants more, though. He has been on a long mission since becoming a highly visible figurehead for partypoker to do all he can to satisfy their customers.
Keeping It Fair
Multi-accounting is another problem. In December 2007, high stakes tournament crusher Sorel “Imper1um” Mizzi famously bought a friends account during the late stage of a $1 million guaranteed event on the now defunct Full Tilt Poker.
Mizzi went on to win the event but was later disqualified and forced to make a public apology.
This kind of underhand behaviour is what Yong wants to make impossible, and it looks like he has the support to make it happen.
An incredible 84.6% of 5,460 poll respondents were happy to see this idea in place.
Random facial ID checks during the final stages of big events will make sure game integrity remains in place. Also in high stakes cash games players might have to periodically verify they are who they say they are.
The high stakes player pool is incredibly small compared to the rest of the community. These players play their fundamentals so well they can only really gain an edge through specific reads.
If a player is able to utilise their own reads while using a second account, or even worse, that of a fellow high stakes reg, they will have a huge advantage.
Can We Afford to Make It Difficult For New Players?
As with every major change, there will be some negatives pointed out.
High stakes reg Faraz Jaka pointed out that this might put off new players from signing up.
“love this. I would worry it steers away new customers though. What about requiring it after a player has played 20+ games or some threshold? Gives them chance to form habit (if they want to) @ which point they’ll be more willing to adapt their personal infrastructure to continue,”
Rob Yong countered with,
“Don’t you think new customers are the MOST savvy for Facial Recognition security ? I think we some think new players are dumb, they prob way more tech literate than us!”
Yong also revealed that he uses this technology on another of his businesses, and it has proven to be more reliable than manual sign ins.
100% phones + laptops have camera. I would bet that we lose some players who have PC with no web cam but gain more who want to play in safer environment so + EV IMO
— Rob Yong (@rob_yong_) January 30, 2020
His only admission of negativity was the anticipated loss of players on older PC’s with no webcam. He did, however, think that these customers who moved on would be replaced by those who insist on playing in a more secure environment.
What will happen, remains to be seen. This was after all, only an internet poll on social media. Betting against the change being implemented might not be such a smart move though, given how much support the idea has so far.
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