Bot Funnies, Part 2: Not Cracking the RNG

[An All-Cal weekend continues---]

PokerListings is one of those growing, second-tier poker-information sites, the type of site that's not too bad as long as you don't look too closely. But like a lot of these second- and third-tier places, there's no paid ad too questionable to run. In addition to links to sites of several software add-ons that are generally accepted by most sites, for better or worse, there always seems to be one or two links to programs of more dubious content.

Currently, PokerListings offers a link called "Power Poker Secrets," with the following brief description: "Power Poker Secrets is a system developed to give you an edge at online poker by viewing cards before they are dealt." Right. Haven't we been down this road before?

We've been down some neighboring streets, but not this one specifically. Clicking through here takes the curious poker player to a site with a somewhat different spin. The software site one encounters is for something called PokerRNG 6.0, which includes on its home page the following pitch:

"PokerRNG 6.0 is the first and only poker software of its kind that can actually determine future card values of Internet Texas Hold 'Em games. What would you do with the advantage of knowing upcoming community cards along with your opponents hole cards before the flop is even dealt? We're sure whatever you choose to do with this information will increase your winnings and improve your game as soon as you start using PokerRNG 6.0."

It's a slightly more high-tech spin on the old PokerBot Pro and PokerBotMax scams, this time trying to sell the gullible on the possibility that all these poker sites have had their RNG (Random Number Generator) algorithms cracked, and therefore that you can use this information by inputting your cards during the playing of a hand to help identify that hand against a huge online database of stored hands, which will then let you know what cards are coming, etc., etc. It's garbage, of course, as is the convincing but bogus "shocking, secret" video of the software in action found elsewhere on the site.

The bad part is the scam is rooted in truth, because there was an instance, many years ago, when an online poker site did have its RNG cracked. That site was Planet Poker and the cracking was done by a well-intentioned group of computer scientists who discovered that the pool of numbers generated by Planet's algorithm was in fact magnitudes too small to actually account for all the possible combinations of cards that could be dealt. The bombshell was devastating to Planet; even though the site quickly improved its RNG procedure to something that did assure the mechanical version of randomness, the damage had been done. Planet lost its early market lead to sites such as Paradise, Party and Stars, and limped on until it finally died just a few months ago.

So, in theory, RNG reverse-engineering could be done. But it's for sure not what's going on here. This is a scam, plain and simple.

We'll leave the exercise of why this software can't work as advertised to the curious reader. The video on the site offers several clues as to why it can't work as advertised, even as it's seeming to do just that. If you think you've spotted one of the flaws with the claims, go ahead and post a comment with your thoughts and questions. We'll respond to those over the coming days and weeks.

As to what's really going on with the software? To run PokerRNG 6.0, one must have this program running simultaneously to playing on a table at any of the listed sites. And by inputting your cards, you're likely communicating your holdings to the person or persons sitting on the other end of the PokerRNG software; I'd bet those guys would show up at your table very soon. Not only would you be telling them your hole cards, you'd be paying them for the privilege.