We have had some very high-impact cases that have come out of this program already. We have awarded over $100,000 in bounties in whistle-blowing awards to people who brought issues to the table.
Ensuring a fair and cheating-free environment is an important challenge for any serious poker site, and with recent developments in technology, the issue has become more pressing than ever.
WPT Global, looking to position itself as one of the leading operators, is taking additional steps to tackle this challenge.
In addition to using AI and detection software, the site has introduced a model called Rewarding Integrity in Poker (RIP), which incentivizes players to help create and maintain a safe and fair environment for everybody to enjoy.
“We know our tools are effective 99% of the time. What are we going to do about the 1%?” Scott explained in a recent episode of the pokerfuse podcast. “What are we going to do about the highly organized cheating groups that could, in theory, cause a lot of damage that are very sophisticated, maybe we’ve not encountered their particular way of gaming the system before, something that’s new to us.”
That’s where RIP comes in — a novel concept introduced by WPT Global that offers financial rewards for those players who can provide information and evidence useful in tracking down and banning cheaters.
Its main goal, in the words of Alex Scott, the WPT Global president, is to ensure that cheaters can never feel safe, knowing that their coconspirators can turn against them at any point.
“In a highly organized group like that, we can get a lot of value out of having a whistleblower in the group,” Scott explained. “What our system does is gives you an incentive to whistleblow on the other members of that group.”
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Covering All Angles
The WPT Global platform was built using modern technologies and taking full advantage of AI capabilities and big data analysis, which means the operator’s game integrity features are very advanced, Scott explained.
However, no protection system works 100% of the time, and bots can sometimes do quite a bit of damage before they’re picked up. Hence, RIP, designed to help with that small percentage that would perhaps manage to stay off the radar.
All members of that group have an incentive to spill the proverbial beans. Whatever their motive, there’s a financial motivation to report their “colleagues” for cheating instead of staying silent.
“If I’m part of a cheating ring and maybe I’m not happy … maybe I have ethical concerns about what I’m doing or maybe I just fall out with some of the other people in the group and I really want to get them back,” Scott said. Whatever the reason, the system “does is gives you an incentive to whistleblow on the other members of that group.”
According to him, WPT Global has given out over $100,000 in bounties, rewarding people who brought up real issues and helped them fix the problems.
“I Want Them to Feel Constantly at Risk”
The RIP system isn’t there just to help WPT Global deal with the cheaters; it is also meant to serve as a deterrent. The idea of setting up your operation on a site that has this policy in place is not as appetizing when cheaters know that even if they do everything right on the technical side of things, there is always a heightened risk of someone from the group blowing the whistle on the operation.
“I want people who are part of these organized cheating groups to feel unsafe, to feel like any other member of that group could dob them into WPT Global and get a big reward. I don’t want them to feel secure. I want them to feel constantly at risk,” said Alex Scott.
Of course, there are certain criteria when it comes to what type of information qualifies for a bounty. In the broadest of terms, it’s the information that the operator wasn’t likely to uncover on its own, or it would take them substantially longer to do so without this insider info.
Adding this to the already robust underlying system for the detection of cheating and bots on the app should help WPT Global become one of the least desirable places for those looking to scam honest players out of their money.
In a period where recent scandals have shaken the trust of the players in the integrity of online poker, such reassurances can go a long way in helping WPT Global set itself apart from the competition.
