The battle over third-party poker software continues, as the UK Gambling Commission (UKGC) has announced that it will launch an investigation into such software as part of an overall review of online poker. In a brief news release, the UKGC said that the study of third-party software and bots is the first stage of the review. The industry governing body will turn to the online poker rooms for their input.

“We’ve been asking licensees who offer peer-to-peer poker for information and their views on current issues identified in relation to this product,” said a spokesman for the UKGC. “We want this information in order to assess whether the current controls in License Conditions and Codes of Practice and the Remote Gambling and Software Technical Standards are sufficient to ensure online poker is crime-free, fair and open, and children and vulnerable people are protected.”

Game integrity issues” are part of the focus of this stage of the review, but the interviews with licensees will also hit on broader, related issues. Essentially, while the Commission wants input on third-party software, it also wants to talk to poker rooms about successes and failures when it comes to game integrity in general.

The online poker industry has been trending towards favoring the recreational player over the last few years, but this year things have taken an even sharper turn.

At first, the desire to court more casual players was the result of a rather simple calculus. Casuals tend to be weaker players who play for fun and end up spreading their money around the poker economy. They then reload and repeat, injecting more money. Professional players, hardcore grinders, and serious amateurs, on the other hand, tend to be winning players, thus removing money from the poker tables. Poker rooms naturally want players who deposit rather than withdraw.

Recently, the backlash from the poker rooms against “sharks” has intensified, as they have been looked at not just as winners, but as predators. Some use third-party software to not only keep track of their opponents, but also automatically sit wherever their targets can be found. It is one thing to be a winning poker player, many believe, but is another thing to go outside the spirit of the game and use tools designed to abuse weaker players.

Both PartyPokerand PokerStars recently announced changes to their policies in an effort to curb third-party software use. On PartyPoker, players will still be able to see 12 months of hand histories, but they will only be able to do so from within the poker client. Hand histories will no longer be saved as text files, which is how third-party software typically imports player records.

PartyPoker players will no longer be able to table-select and will be required to join a general waiting list for their desired game and stakes. Additionally, the identities of players at a table will not be revealed to a newly-seated player until the first hand is dealt.

PokerStars’ policy changes are bit more technical, but the key takeaway is that Spin & Go seating scripts are now banned and while general seating scripts have not been, the writing is likely on the wall for them too. Restrictions have also been put in place on other third-party software, requiring many automated features to be removed. Read about the changes at PokerStars and PartyPoker.

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