Is Americas Cardroom Down
Americas Cardroom Overall. Never underestimate deep online gaming roots and the online poker site industry’s ability to surprise you. Americas Cardroom is a very good example, beginning life as an obscure offshoot of now-defunct sports outfit Betcris in 2001. With the way US online gaming changes, that might as well be a million years ago. Players who are looking to get in touch with customer support should jot down the Americas Cardroom phone number. It’s toll-free, so dialing 1-877-314-4195 won’t incur any charges when poker players call from within North America.
What is Americas Cardroom?
ACR is an unregulated online poker room that offers real-money games to players in the U.S. It is one of the few online poker rooms where international players have an opportunity to play online against U.S. players.
Americas Cardroom originated as Doyle’s Room and was relaunched under its new name after being purchased by the Winning Poker Network.
The Accusation
In a video posted in February, podcaster Joey Ingram talked about player collusion, the use of bots and possible super users taking advantage of a lack of security on the Americas Cardroom for profit. “I can’t recommend anyone play ACR cash games,” he posted on Twitter.
The accusations aren’t the first of their kind for ACR. There have been discussions on poker forums about the site and some questionable practices for years.
And while Ingram talks a good game, he offered little proof to support the allegations he made. After posting the video, Ingram was called out for not providing evidence to support his claim.
Ingram was quick to respond: “Clips for the accounts will be posted. Information on the collusion I’ve received. The site has to check the back end. The bots are obvious as fucking day.”
Players are on guard
Players take cheating accusations seriously. After the Ultimate Bet, Absolute Poker and Full Tilt Poker scandals, players have been keeping their guard up.
But sometimes, the lure of playing online poker outside Nevada, New Jersey and Delaware (the states that have legalized online poker) is too great. Since April 2011, U.S. players have been taking somewhat of a risk playing on unregulated sites.
How you move your money in and out of a site can be subject to scrutiny under the Unlawful Internet Gambling Enforcement Act (UIGEA). To help get around any gray area, ACR offers deposit and withdrawal options in over 60 of the top cryptocurrencies, which may be offering a false sense of security to its players.
ACR tournament loophole
On Thursday, Ingram released a second video that highlighted banned accounts and the exploitation of the tournament registration process at Americas Cardroom.
Apparently, there is a loophole that allows players who late register for a tournament to sit down at the same table.
As Ingram explains (starting at 6:24 in the video), a team of players can late register together as the money bubble approached. They can then collude to ensure they reach the money, and then chip dump to one player after the money bubble bursts.
Ingram provided a list of players, both active and banned, with win rates previously in the 30 percent range suddenly posting win rates in the high 80 percent range. And again, while suspicious, it still doesn’t actually prove anything. But alarm bells are going off.
Ingram also posted the list of questionable players to his Twitter feed for all to see. He called on Americas Cardroom to investigate beyond the loophole and look into the relationships between the players.
These are just two (Zynovij & GodTierBluff) instances we know of accounts that were banned on the same date for using the ACR tournament exploit in the most obvious way.
86%
88%
In the money % pic.twitter.com/yjiECV2MHr
— DJ Joey Ingram (@Joeingram1) February 6, 2018
To which ACR responded:
Yes we caught these players NOT breaking T&C's but finding a loophole. Thanks for pointing out that we do police the games and ban when necessary!
— Americas Cardroom (@ACR_POKER) February 6, 2018
Responses to the allegations
The one thing that became evident when following the tweets, videos and responses to Ingram’s cheating allegations is that the accusations are surprising to some and not to others.
To one group, the allegations are confirming what they suspected.
To another group, the allegations are unfounded and Ingram is chasing another fifteen minutes of fame.
And then there are others who simply don’t understand the nature of bots and what Ingram is alleging.
You can feel the frustration in some of Ingram’s responses, but these two tweets seem to sum it up:
Yes, I am one man. No one else gives a fuck.
— DJ Joey Ingram (@Joeingram1) February 7, 2018
If you can't figure out the exploit from this video, god help the world.
— DJ Joey Ingram (@Joeingram1) February 7, 2018
While Ingram’s account of his observations is plausible, these types of allegations are hard to prove.
Americas Cardroom admits in their public response to Ingram that players took advantage of a loophole. They didn’t say they fixed it or had plans to fix it.
The big question: will the allegations be enough to keep poker players away?
Unfortunately, as long as regulated online poker struggles to make its way back across the U.S., players without other options will continue to play.
And as long as U.S. players continue to play on sites like Americas Cardroom, their bankroll could be be at risk.
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Mason Malmuth, head of popular online poker community TwoPlusTwo, has taken the decision to stop accepting advertising from offshore poker room Americas Cardroom (ACR).
The decision has not been taken because ACR continues to accept US players without any regulatory oversight in the USA. In a post on TwoPlusTwo, Malmuth explains that he has become aware of several security issues affecting ACR and that despite raising these in a letter to ACR and Winning Poker Network (WPN) CEO Phil Nagy, he has not had a response.
“… according to many posters on our site, some problems have developed on Winning Poker Network and we in Two Plus Two management agree that they need to be addressed.
So, to this end, on Saturday February 24, we sent their CEO Phil Nagy an email letter where we addressed four issues: late tournament registration (which we now understand has been addressed), bots, possible super users, and other possible collusion. We also made some suggestions as to how some of these issues could be addressed.”
TwoPlusTwo doesn’t make money from subscription fees and relies on advertising and affiliate income for its revenues, so it has a strong incentive not to reject ACR’s business, nevertheless Malmuth explained:
“As of the time of this writing, March 1, 2018, we have not heard back from them and have decided to take the following action. Two Plus Two Interactive LLC will not accept any more advertising from Winning Poker Network and their sub-forum will be closed. Of course, this can all change if we do get a positive response from Winning Poker Network and they still want to advertise with us.”
Chicago Joey Ingram raises the alert
The current situation has come to the attention of poker players mainly because high stakes player and popular online poker blogger Joe “Chicago Joey” raised the issue on social media.
At the beginning of February, Ingram released the first of three YouTube videos attacking Americas Cardroom. He accused Nagy of failing to provide fair games that, in his opinion, were full of collusion and bots.
Is Americas Cardroom Down
Ingram presented prima facie evidence that there was a security weakness in the algorithm for seating tournament players and showed statistics on players that provide strong indications that bots were active in SNGs and cash games even at the lowest stakes.
The evidence was presented alongside clips of Nagy explaining in interviews what his attitudes were to running an online poker room. Joey also said that he had discussed the issues directly with Nagy, but that he was unsatisfied with the response, and their “friendly” relationship had now been ended.
Any streamers & players that continue to promote @ACR_POKER to their audiences I will never work together with, promote, want anything to do with, etc. until ACR addresses the massive security concerns & their overall not giving a fuck attitude changes.
— Joey [GTO] (@Joeingram1) March 1, 2018
In short, Ingram’s complaint is that ACR rightly prioritizes player fund protection and making sure that players always get rapid access to their money, but that this isn’t enough. To genuinely look after the players, ACR must also address the very real issues of game security presented by collusion and bots, mainly emanating from Eastern European countries.
Phil Nagy responds to USPoker
USPoker contacted Phil Nagy to get his side of the story. In a long Skype call, Nagy’s frustration with the situation was very evident. He clearly feels that the criticism is unfair and believes that he takes game security more seriously than most of his competitors in both the US facing and rest of the world market.
Firstly, Phil acknowledged that some of Ingram’s criticism was fair. ACR did have an issue with the tournament seating algorithm.
Players who entered a tournament at the same time would indeed find themselves sat at the same table – a loophole that was exploitable by colluders. However, this algorithm has now been changed with a “hotfix” that was not widely publicized, although some players who had been affected by the problem were emailed about the change.
Nagy said that it was true that Ingram contacted him about the issues, and that he agreed to speak further about the issue. But when he had the conversation with Joe, he was on holiday with his family at Macchu Picchu in Peru, and didn’t therefore get a fair chance to reply before Joe posted his first video only eight days later.
Nagy says that any claims of being unable to talk to ACR about these issues are unfounded.
“We take phone calls, we take live chats. He could have got on the phone and talked to me!”
Nagy explained that he had even given Ingram his own personal Skype details so he could make contact.
Privacy issues are a barrier to communicating on security
One issue which Nagy raised which definitely rings true is that ACR doesn’t publish details of any accounts that it has banned for reasons of privacy. Talking off the record with a member of the PokerStarssecurity team, I have been told that they are also caught in this trap.
The operators would like to name names, but privacy laws and data protection provisions as well as general law make this difficult for them to do. The PokerStars security guy told me that contrary to popular belief, the vast majority of bots and collusion are identified by their own procedures well in advance of any complaints by other players.
As at ACR, action to ban these accounts is taken privately and in line with the site’s terms and conditions. Using the law to prosecute is beset with problems and only works in the most blatant cases.
“It’s my job to investigate, but not to say. That’s privacy, just like if your ex-wife called me to find out if you were playing.”
Phil Nagy explained that while hand histories have a value in identifying bots and collusion, “following the money” is much more effective.
“I know exactly where the money comes from and I know where it goes,” Phil explained. “Have we banned people and their bots? Yeah! Have we caught them? Yeah.”
But, he continued, if ACR were to abandon its privacy policy to “out” these players, everyone would hate the consequences – and mistakes would inevitably be made as some honest players could be banned in error.
Phil stands by his emphasis on making sure player funds are safe, something that both Mason Malmuth and Joe Ingram have praised, but he thinks that his efforts to ensure game fairness have not been appreciated.
He explains that the reason he has not taken to social media to counter Ingram’s claims is that to do so would be counter-productive and simply give credence to claims which he rejects as unfair.
American Cardroom Shutdown
From a business perspective, this PR strategy makes sense. Phil, himself explains that despite the appearance of this criticism on 2+2 forums and social media, “it hasn’t hurt the business.”
The real problem lies with US politicians
Is America's Cardroom Down
Watching Joe Ingram’s videos, a viewer can’t help but feel that he has a point. Security at ACR isn’t able to prevent collusion and bots. But then again, there is a war between cheats and online poker operators, virtually an arms race where the crooks constantly seek new ways to abuse and evade security systems.
The question is whether ACR and the Winning Poker Network are doing enough to make the games as fair as possible. Phil Nagy would say “yes,” and he too makes a persuasive case.
In a free market, players would be free to make their own decisions, to enjoy the big money tournaments and VIP scheme that distinguish Americas Cardroom or to go to another site of their choice.
Unfortunately, that isn’t the case in the US.
As Ingram points out, for US players outside the states which regulate online poker, the choice is pretty much between ACR and Ignition – and Joe says that the problem of bots and collusion is if anything worse on Ignition.
Players who want to play online poker in the US still have little choice. In states where politicians have failed to establish a safe, regulated market, the consequence has been to hand over the market to offshore sites like Americas Cardroom and Ignition or real-money sweepstakes sites like Global Poker.
No matter how much personal integrity someone like Phil Nagy brings to running his company, players can never have the same legal protection as they would have if their state allowed online poker under a legal framework.