Online gambling is an area that’s growing rapidly across the world, faster in areas such as India and now the US, with legislations being passed on a state-by-state basis. But with the development of technology and the amount of money that could be made, as a player in any of the different online gaming sectors, we are bound to see people trying to take advantage of this by any means possible, including the use of so-called bots or AI (artificial intelligence).

The use of items such as this will give the individual an upper hand against opponents, as these will be able to process equations, predict odds, see betting patterns and much more, way quicker than any human would be able to. This advantage then results in money and the only way they get stopped is if the gambling operator spots this illegal activity.

Trying to get the upper hand on a casino isn’t something new, as cheaters and card counters have been around just as long as the casinos have. The difference now is that the cheaters have become more sophisticated, challenging the “house” in more elaborate ways.

Sure, the different gambling operators, actively work on combating this issue and we have several times seen news articles on how the operator caught individuals using bots in online poker, costing players millions of dollars.

Back in 2015 the world’s largest poker operator managed to catch a bot-ring originating in Russia but only after this ring had played a massive 18 million hands and in the process winning just under $3 million while the operator had earned roughly $1,3 in rake. The ring had used around 30 bots to commit this fraud against the company. How much of their winnings they managed to cash out during these 18 million hands, hasn´t been made public.

The only difference today compared to 50 years ago is that instead of doing on the casino grounds, it’s now moved online. Doing so meant that companies were able to reach a much larger clientele compared to the physical casinos to which people needed to travel to visit. With this accessibility the revenues skyrocketed which resulted in a title wave of parties that wanted to get their piece of the market, flooding it with different options for players.

Through the click of a mouse, players now had access to their favorite table games like Blackjack, they could learn how to play poker in hopes of earning a substantial amount of money, much like the Chris Moneymaker story. Alongside this, players are now also able to place their favorite NBA bets through the numerous sport betting sites, like BetAmerica, or play on which team was going to win the Stanley Cup, Premier League or The Super Bowl.

Earlier in 2019, we saw poker-playing AI called Pluribus who went up against six professional poker players and beat them all in a game of Texas hold’em, the most popular poker variant played online today. This was groundbreaking news as it was the very first time an artificial intelligence (AI) had won in a game with more than two professional poker players participating.

Ok, to be fair, not everyone will have access to computer power or coding for an AI, at least not now but it is just a matter of time before they do and the question is if the gambling companies are ready to tackle such a problem? Will the application for the AI stretch further than just poker? Will regular casino games and sports betting potentially also be in the crosshair for such program once it arrives.

Below we have a video of this poker game between the AI and real players, provided by Carnegie Mellon University who was behind this experiment.