Column: Datamining - Where To Draw The Line?

Following the news that PokerStars has removed all their player profiles from PokerTableRatings, Barry Carter discusses the impact of datamining sites on the online poker industry.

PTR was used to find weak players

This week, the biggest poker room in the world, PokerStars, sent a cease & desist order to datamining site PokerTableRatings (PTR), which was quickly adhered to. In recent years many new initiatives have been introduced to combat datamining in online poker, but because of the sheer scale of PokerStars, this is probably the biggest single blow to sites that sell datamined hands.

Datamining sites like PTR sell hundreds of thousands of mined hand histories to players to use in their Hold'em Manager or PokerTracker databases. They give their users access to deep and reliable statistical data on the playing tendencies of players they have probably never met at tables before; giving them a significant advantage despite no prior history.

These sites can also expose who the biggest losing players are online at any time, meaning that subscribers will be fast-tracked to the softest table possible, again, despite having never met those players at the tables before. 

Killing the game?

Losing players were vulnerable

To put it simply, selling datamined hands is bad for poker for just about all concerned, including the people who buy them. Although it might provide a small edge for the player at the time, in the long term it is bad because it is contributing to making the games incredibly tough. Assuming other good players are also buying mined hands, then whatever small edge you can gain on a weaker player is offset by other regs having hands on you.

More importantly, they are making poker an uninhabitable place for recreational players. For new players to continue depositing, they need the feeling that they can win now and then - which is, of course, one of the magical things about poker

When a site like PTR alerts hundreds of players to the tables of new losing players and form a mile-long queue of grinders who can smell blood - the chances of those new players boasting a few early winning sessions is less likely. Most of us ran well when we first started, that's is why we are still here, but when all new players face these days is getting fleeced; they are less likely to deposit again - which is bad for the poker room and players alike.

My biggest issue with datamining is purely in how it impacts the reputation of poker. Before issues like this were even widely discussed in poker, I found myself having to defend the online game to outsiders who were worried about it being "rigged" or bots existing. Dataming sites are on a par with their very real fears about their vulnerability at online poker rooms. Tell any potential new player that sites exist that sell their information so good players can find them, and play optimally against them, and they will go running for the door.

In fact, this is exactly what happens, even at the tables. Some players actually use another player's datamined stats to insult them while they are playing. Not only does this create an unpleasant atmosphere at the tables, it is a completely -EV action by the player throwing the insults, as either these weaker players will decide not to play poker again, or use the ridicule as motivation to improve.

One argument I hear in favour of datamining sites, is that hand histories are not private property, and anyone has the option to buy these hand histories. This is a very weak argument, only the most serious of players are aware of sites like PTR. The average recreational player has no clue about them and just wants to have a little bit of fun and unwind with poker. There is no reason why they would know of, or have the impetus to investigate the possibility of, the existence of sites that sell hand histories. These players are being exploited, and we need to protect them.

Ethical datamining?

Are sites like PokerScout ethical?

But before I throw datamining sites completely under the bus, there are some stronger reasons cited for their existence. The debate on datamining is by no means one-sided; the question is where to draw the line. Some people, for example, consider tracking software like Hold'em Manager and PokerTracker to be unethical, whereas most serious online players would defend them.

There are some valuable services provided by datamining, ones which do not exploit other players, which are often cited as arguments for the practice. PokerScout is a good example of this; it is an industry resource that provides figures on the number of real money players across all the sites. Just about everyone who works in the industry uses this from time to time, and other than an unusual objection from Bodog, nobody seems to have a major issue with them. Most importantly, they do not give away any information that compromises the privacy of players or makes them vulnerable in any way.

Likewise, some sites use datamining largely for entertainment purposes. For example, the high stakes games are tracked by sites like HighStakesDB.com, which is a great resource for railbirds who enjoy following them and who choose to watch them for fun. It is fair to say that sites like this do make public the hands of nosebleed regulars like Isildur1, which is of course not fair on the nosebleed fraternity. However, their biggest benefit is entertaining poker fans, and it has proven a good marketing tool for players like Viktor Blom, and the sites that host the biggest games like PokerStars.

Then there are a number of examples of "ethical datamining", where a third party has harvested information from a poker room in the best interests of the poker community. Exposing cheating is perhaps the biggest positive outcome of datamining, and the UB and Absolute Poker superuser scandals are the most high profile example of this. Collusion and bot rings are also examples of cheating that regularly gets exposed by datamining.

Software vulnerabilities and site fairness is also said to be independently policed by datamining. Whether poker rooms are breaching your privacy, whether they can be hacked, and whether the site's RNG is in order; these are all things that datamining sites claim to be monitoring for us. 

Harvesting data, in and of itself, is not a bad thing, economists do it all the time. In fact, recently, we published details of a report by economist Ingo Fiedler which was collated by a very sophisticated datamining programne, and which showed how online poker in the US was a profitable, $3.6 billion industry. This information has the potential to help get online poker legalised in the US, and few could argue that is nothing but positive. 

Drawing the line

Although some of the sites may not like it, there are clearly positive outcomes from datamining. I don't think it is such a bad thing that there are third parties out there who are helping to stop cheating, expose security issues, and compile industry information that helps further our understanding of the market.

Where do we draw the line between acceptable datamining and that which is completely out of line? I actually think it is pretty simple. When the information that is mined makes poker players vulnerable, when their privacy is compromised, their skill leaks are exposed, or their location at the tables is highlighted, to players who have never played a hand with them before, then it is completely unacceptable. These services exploit new, losing players, which makes the games tougher for everyone, discourages redeposits, and significantly harms the reputation of the game.

Those datamining sites that do this cannot claim the moral high ground that they expose cheating, when at the same time they encourage another (Possibly more harmful, long term) form of cheating. I'm all for datamining sites to continue with these wonderful, ethical, services they can provide, but not when they are funded by the exploitation of recreational players.

by Barry Carter