Security Never Sleeps on PokerBROS

Article sponsored by PokerBROS

At PokerBROS, The Game Integrity Bros work tirelessly to keep games fair; part of that work is developing automated systems that help the cause 24/7. We checked in with GIB to see how their unique mix of poker security specialists and high-tech tools keep PokerBROS free from cheaters.

What is the Live Alerts Engine and how does it work?

In essence, our Live Alerts Engine is a rules-based framework with various algorithms which scan all the games live, analysing incoming real-time data, events and player behaviour. It swiftly flags accounts which meet certain predefined conditions.

What happens when your Alerts System flags behaviour as suspicious?

We get instant notification into our lively alerts dashboard with highly detailed information about the event and involved players. Based on the nature of the alert and its priority and urgency, it is either instantly picked up by a team member for full review/investigation or if not urgent, it is left pending, to be picked up later in accordance with our daily workflow and internal procedures.

Some alerts have very high fraud hit ratio with a minimal number of false positives and reviewing those takes little time, as usually evidence presented is sufficient for an instant ban. However, there are certain types of alerts which need thorough and extended investigation and may lead to detection of more organised fraud syndicates.

Do you update the Live Alerts Engine regularly? Is it something that evolves along with cheats’ tools?

Yes, we have frequent updates to some of our alerts to adjust to the ever-changing arms race with villains and also to meet business needs. We have to be flexible and vigilant not to allow cheaters to get a good head start. Apart from modifying and amending existing alerts, we are also frequently brainstorming and developing fresh ones to cater for ongoing or new fraud trends of different types.

At the end of last year GIB reported a proactive detection rate of 97% – the vast majority of game integrity breaches were spotted by your team directly or flagged for investigation by the Live Alerts Engine, rather than reported by players. Has this rate been similar in 2021?

We are proud to announce that yes indeed, we have been able to maintain a very high internal fraud detection rate and looking at Q1 of 2021, we are standing firm at around 97-98% on a monthly basis. This great result is thanks to continuous team effort which puts us at the very forefront of this area in the poker industry.

Is there still a need for players to report suspicious behaviour when you have such sophisticated tools and a crack team on the case in the background?

Always. Those 2-3% of cases reported to us by our attentive customers still play an important part and may reveal incidents which apart from catching additional fraudsters, enable us to improve our tools and detection mechanism as well. Players see the games from a different perspective and should always report it if anything even slightly suspicious catches their eye.

Downloading and setting up for free with the PokerBROS app takes minutes and the best part is that your game will be protected by this incredible team of Game Integrity BROS 24/7.