Swedish court finds 5 people behind a bot ring not guilty: "bots gave them no edge"

Well, this is really not looking good: the Swedish Court of Appeals recently had a case where state-owned gaming company Svenska Spel were suing five poker players for using bots on their site, which was considered a serious fraud by the poker room and most of the poker world. Turns out, using poker bots isn't a crime in the eyes of Swedish court.

Svenska Spel has done everything it could to uncover a bot ring on its site in early 2013. Site officials quickly suspended 14 suspicious accounts, made a broad research and moved on the case to the local police for an investigation before refunding 3.8 million Swedish Krona (approx. $450,000 ) to 25,300 different players who were deemed to have suffered losses by the hands of the bots. Perfect approach, isn't it?

Svenska Spel then sought legal ramifications in the District Court for fraud, seeking 2.5 million Swedish Krona (approx. $300,000) in damages from five people running the bots. The court instead found the five defendants guilty of aggravated fraud with a sentence of probation.

It seems the ruling was unsatisfactory to both the prosecutor and the defendants, as both parties appealed the ruling to the country's Court of Appeals. The court overturned the sentence, stating there was not sufficient evidence that the defendants "entailed harm to the plaintiffs" or that the threshold for fraud was reached, because using the bots provided "no extra edge in skill over the players".

A release published by the Swedish Court of Appeals stated that, "According to the Court of Appeals, the defendants through misleading persuaded a large part of the 25,000 plaintiffs to play poker on the poker robot. However, it is not proven that the procedure entailed harm to the plaintiffs or gain to the defendants in the manner required for liability for fraud. The Court of Appeals has considered that it is the question of a game where the outcome in substantial part due to chance. It is not proven that the software has been designed so that it has had a greater ability — skillful been — other than the defendants themselves when they have played without software. Chances of profit for the injured party has not been less because the defendants used the software at the game."


Wow. Just wow.

I mean it sux, but I don't see how any court around the world would find bot users guilty of anything in a legal point of view. It's not like the topic is regulated well by laws

Seems bots are everywhere, and it's never gonna end.

Just recently gave zoom NL a shot (100-200) after not playing for a while,

I simply cannot believe 25%+ of russians or chinesse aren't bots. So many of them are simply identical or so close to being identical. Annoying preflop but completely disorganised/weird/full of non-sense postflop. They seem to do fairly well also. Pre-programmed range, not really position aware except for utg and SB, 3bet 11% every position, automatically, no concern about stack of a player, who is in the hand, fishs in the hand, etc. Will do crazy non-rationnal stuff all day long, and I'm talking about 10+ different accounts rotating, very most of them russian or chinesse. Simply cannot think they are human, ever.

I guess it's been like this for many many years now, even tho we forget quite quickly. Used to play vs same same same same type of player on ipoker2 (the bad side of ipoker split), accounts from China, same stats, same tendancies, same non-sense, so positive it is the exact same programming.

I wonder why nothing more can be done. They put so much emphasis on bringing back the game to the casual players, but they get completely raped by bots 24/7. Doesn't compute.

That statement from the court is amazing in many ways

I remember pokertableratings before had a ton of bots playing, that TakecareAA guy for sure was a bot from China. Sometimes that account played 20k hands straight a day for a month lol. China was the worse at bot farms, they were all nits preflop but postflop they would just get it in always

idk i mean, whats the difference between a bot and a player using 3rd party poker programs while playing?

On February 25 2016 08:36 fira wrote: idk i mean, whats the difference between a bot and a player using 3rd party poker programs while playing?

a big fucking difference

On February 25 2016 08:36 fira wrote: idk i mean, whats the difference between a bot and a player using 3rd party poker programs while playing?

Not sure if serious, but yeah whats the difference, why do companies replace people with robots and all companies use automatic systems for production guess which factor it removes and what it optimizes

Now the company has to eat the 450k loss that they already refunded to players. How about it's against the "Terms of Agreement" that they agreed to when signing up? Wouldn't that be enough?

Sweden and Europe in general are way to lax with their laws compared to the US where we are too harsh.

In Germany a young pregnant woman was lured in the the woods by the babies father, stabbed and set ablaze for a few minutes until she and her 8-month old baby died. He was 20, which is somehow special in German law, so he is getting just 14 years. In the thread on reddit, many europeans defended the ruling stating it's all about rehabilitation, let's fix these terrible people and put them back in society, don't throw them away. It's as big of a joke as people in the US getting 20 to life for MJ related offenses.

Botting should be illegal imo because it's a perversion of the game and form of cheating, but the law is the only thing that really matters and the risk reward ratio is too great for people to ignore, it's human nature to exploit afterall

On February 25 2016 13:39 goose58 wrote: Sweden and Europe in general are way to lax with their laws compared to the US where we are too harsh. In Germany a young pregnant woman was lured in the the woods by the babies father, stabbed and set ablaze for a few minutes until she and her 8-month old baby died. He was 20, which is somehow special in German law, so he is getting just 14 years. In the thread on reddit, many europeans defended the ruling stating it's all about rehabilitation, let's fix these terrible people and put them back in society, don't throw them away. It's as big of a joke as people in the US getting 20 to life for MJ related offenses. Botting should be illegal imo because it's a perversion of the game and form of cheating, but the law is the only thing that really matters and the risk reward ratio is too great for people to ignore, it's human nature to exploit afterall

you forgot to mention he was a muslim

On February 25 2016 13:57 dogmeat wrote: Show nested quote + On February 25 2016 13:39 goose58 wrote: Sweden and Europe in general are way to lax with their laws compared to the US where we are too harsh. In Germany a young pregnant woman was lured in the the woods by the babies father, stabbed and set ablaze for a few minutes until she and her 8-month old baby died. He was 20, which is somehow special in German law, so he is getting just 14 years. In the thread on reddit, many europeans defended the ruling stating it's all about rehabilitation, let's fix these terrible people and put them back in society, don't throw them away. It's as big of a joke as people in the US getting 20 to life for MJ related offenses. Botting should be illegal imo because it's a perversion of the game and form of cheating, but the law is the only thing that really matters and the risk reward ratio is too great for people to ignore, it's human nature to exploit afterall you forgot to mention he was a muslim

Goes without saying?

14 years doesn't sound very short does it? In sweden it's not uncommon to read about rapists getting less than a year, which is obviously absurd.

Always awesome when people who have no idea how something works, get to rule on important matters that affect said thing.

would really like more information on the arguments used by both parties.

the court claimed that the defendants didn't garner any skill advantage over other players. how exactly did the court even end up defining the word 'skill'?

seems to me it would be pretty difficult to argue against the fact that a computer's ability to be able to think for 24 hours straight and not make mistakes because of being tired or feeling any kind of emotion whatsoever isn't a massive advantage.

the "release" is translated into such poor english that it's difficult to understand the meaning of each word.

On February 25 2016 13:21 Nitewin wrote: Now the company has to eat the 450k loss that they already refunded to players. How about it's against the "Terms of Agreement" that they agreed to when signing up? Wouldn't that be enough?

agreed

Just a fyi, Svenska spel is not a private company its owned and runned by the state

Lol sweden

Lol

"poker isn't a game of skill therefore you can't cheat at it"

with reasoning like this in the Swedish legal system it's no wonder Assange won't go back

Sweden YES

On February 25 2016 13:39 goose58 wrote: Sweden and Europe in general are way to lax with their laws compared to the US where we are too harsh. In Germany a young pregnant woman was lured in the the woods by the babies father, stabbed and set ablaze for a few minutes until she and her 8-month old baby died. He was 20, which is somehow special in German law, so he is getting just 14 years. In the thread on reddit, many europeans defended the ruling stating it's all about rehabilitation, let's fix these terrible people and put them back in society, don't throw them away. It's as big of a joke as people in the US getting 20 to life for MJ related offenses. Botting should be illegal imo because it's a perversion of the game and form of cheating, but the law is the only thing that really matters and the risk reward ratio is too great for people to ignore, it's human nature to exploit afterall

Not fixable psychopaths are born not made.