Come, Let’s Apply!

A lot of my friends ask me why we build our brand or our casino and poker software in the particular way that we do. Why did we take the “perceived (by some others) risk” of jumping from 2D to 3D poker software, especially? Quite a few wannabe online gaming card room owners tell me that they get cheaper options elsewhere. I have had offers for setting up poker card rooms for people from two thousand USD to five thousand USD. I guess most people believe that the software that we develop is mass produced like Sega or Sony play station software and one can easily pick it off the shelf!

When you build anything – from a paper airplane to a bridge - the underlying theme always is integrity. Every productive process from shuffling a card deck to writing a path-breaking algorithm requires a form and a function. Hence every productive process is a creative process and the truer you are to your beliefs, the better your product.

Our transition from a two dimensional poker software to a three dimensional one, hence, did not cause us any philosophical issues, and we wanted to bust a lot of myths about three dimensional poker software that two dimensional card rooms feed their players with – chief among which is ‘lack of speed of operations and functionality’ – both are in fact superior in form and superior in function.
(Case of sour grapes?)

This is what we were taught by our board: Stay true to your brand! Your brand is constantly improving, MUST IMPROVE constantly, which is how you stay true to it in the first place. A dear friend SMS’d us to add the caption “Come Let’s Apply” anywhere on our website. Because we do!

A brand is something we DO, it’s ACTION sprung out of thought. The captain of the ship, the CEO, has to pioneer the effort for what one would call as “re-branding” from GROUND up – it is NOT limited merely to the marketing department but every aspect of the business right from the cleaning department to the product, finance, accounts, sales et al.
Without losing touch with reality and with smart positioning, “rebranding” works, especially when you apply your focus on deliverables and achievables. Rebranding a product in the right manner facilitates creation of several products with minimum expense and changes.
Ex. Mozilla Firefox rebranding is a perfect case study. China rebranded a NATION!

We take a product and build it well. There are several hurdles faced in this process. A product has integrity, just as the man who build it and just as rarely! It must be true to its own idea, it must have its own form and function, and must serve its own purpose! We don’t build products to have a market. We have a market in order to build a product :)

AND, in the words of Mr. Howard Roark (@ Ayn Rand, The Fountainhead): Before you can do things for people, you must be the kind of man who can get things done. But to get things done, you must love the doing, not the people! Your own work, not any possible object of your charity. I'll be glad if men who need it find a better method of living in the house I built, but that's not the motive of my work, nor my reason, nor my reward! My reward, my purpose, my life, is the work itself - my work done my way! Nothing else matters to me!

The Poker Software Cashier - Thumb Rules for Credit Card Processing

The cashier system of the poker software is the heart of the revenue model that works for online poker card rooms. With quite a few payment options including a lot of credit card companies and ewallets globally available, poker software developers are obliged to develop better and better payment systems into their gaming system. Any poker software cashier needs first to integrated fully into any poker game client or a interface which could also be web-based, to facilitate deposits and payouts from the user's play account.

The transaction management process is handled professionally by the operations team and a properly built poker software cashier is the financial brain behind the complete poker or casino business.

The Ansoff Matrix

I use the Ansoff Matrix quite often when I need to analyze, plan and develop growth strategies through my company’s product and market development.

Moving on to marketing, the Ansoff Matrix is used to develop and plan your growth strategy by considering your product and market approach. The matrix shows your current and future business as revenue from new and existing markets and revenue from new and existing products. Balanced growth in all four quadrants of the matrix gives you successful growth and long-term competitive advantage in the marketplace.

Here is a typical example of an Ansoff Matrix chart:

So, what exactly is an Ansoff matrix? Per Wiki, the matrix consists of four strategies:

• Market penetration (existing markets, existing products): Market penetration occurs when a company enters/penetrates a market with current products. The best way to achieve this is by gaining competitors' customers (part of their market share). Other ways include attracting non-users of your product or convincing current clients to use more of your product/service, with advertising or other promotions. Market penetration is the least risky way for a company to grow.
• Product development (existing markets, new products): A firm with a market for its current products might embark on a strategy of developing other products catering to the same market (although these new products need not be new to the market; the point is that the product is new to the company). For example, McDonald's is always within the fast-food industry, but frequently markets new burgers. Frequently, when a firm creates new products, it can gain new customers for these products. Hence, new product development can be a crucial business development strategy for firms to stay competitive.
• Market development (new markets, existing products): An established product in the marketplace can be tweaked or targeted to a different customer segment, as a strategy to earn more revenue for the firm. For example, Lucozade was first marketed for sick children and then rebranded to target athletes. This is a good example of developing a new market for an existing product. Again, the market need not be new in itself, the point is that the market is new to the company.
• Diversification (new markets, new products): Virgin Cola, Virgin Megastores, Virgin Airlines, Virgin Telecommunications are examples of new products created by the Virgin Group of UK, to leverage the Virgin brand. This resulted in the company entering new markets where it had no presence before.

The matrix illustrates, in particular, that the element of risk increases the further the strategy moves away from known quantities - the existing product and the existing market.

References: Ansoff, I., Strategies for Diversification, Harvard Business Review, Vol. 35 Issue 5, Sep-Oct 1957, pp.113-124

Poker Account Hacking

Have your poker accounts ever been hacked or hijacked? I receive quite a few emails of my friends around the world complaining about their poker accounts being hacked and their information or chips stolen. Though most of these friends are regular players on sites like Zynga where the chips are free, there are some buddies whose real money poker accounts are hacked sometimes as well. One famous case of poker account hacking is Fossilman Greg Raymer’s account in 2007. How do poker software makers actually look at this, and what is really their perspective on this? Should there not be any kind of safeguards against this from hardware, software and operations? The answer is: yes, there are.

The poker software system has a four tier security system built on authentication, channel security, firewalls and intrusion detection and it uses the best industry standard security protocols and encryption techniques to guarantee the complete safety of user information and privacy. On the operations level, every account is password protected and it is only possible by gaining access to confidential and restricted information that an account is accessed by a third party.

Our Perspective on Poker Account Hacking:

Once a customer becomes a real money player, all his dealings with the site like the depositing of his winnings and his rakeback are through his account. By creating an account with us he has agreed to abide by our terms and conditions.

One important point to remember is that no system in the world is foolproof and even though any site can take the utmost security measures to protect data and vital information, the probability of it being hacked over the internet is always there.

Players Perspective on Poker Account Hacking:

All that a player understands is that his account has been intruded and since he cannot determine who did this; his only recourse is to contact the poker site. He would contact Customer Service and demand an explanation. He starts assuming that the site has stolen his money. In such cases the trust he placed on the site takes a serious beating and he is not the only one who has to pay for it. The security promised by us is potentially tainted.

His expectations from us are twofold:

a) He wants the problem to be addressed, investigated and resolved.

b) He also implicitly expects a reassurance (even though our site has no part in the circumstances) and expects to be compensated for the loss.

Steps to resolve an account hacking case:

• Assure the player that thorough investigation will be done.
• It is imperative that we start by verifying the caller.
• Crosscheck the details, summarize
• Question player to get necessary details

Querying the player:

• How many computers did he use to access his account in the past?
• Where does he usually access his account from?
• Clear associations, with particular emphasis on IP/UCID on the disputed day
• If there are any deposits made on that day, total them as they can be denied or stopped by player.
• Find out what the player is denying, gaming/financial transactions or both.

Educating the player about:

Account Security:

• Ask the player to login and change his password and ensure that it’s more secure to have an alphanumeric password.
• Inform not to check the remember me field.
• Request him to restrict his access to only 1 computer.
• Inform the player that for security reasons his account would be on hold temporarily.
• Inform him that we shall send records of his gaming/financial transaction for his use to determine the actual time of incident.

Steps to be followed:

1. Use details to identify date and time account last accessed.

2. Check the time he logged out after that.

3. Check how many different computers he has used to login.

4. Check for the regularly used computer.

5. Once identified check for the UCID.

6. If this is different UCID from regular one then there is an intrusion.

These are the steps taken by our Customer Service team with input from our Risk Management team and support of our technical team in weeding out the actual reasons for the hacking and providing future precautions and support against poker account hacking.

Chat Abuse

Chat abuse in online poker is one of the important things that risk managers and the poker software maintenance team looks is on the lookout to avoid and ban. Since poker is a community game, players want to regularly communicate with each other. The existence of a lot of online poker forums points out the increasing importance of the chat feature, which enables players to share their views and talk with other players.

However, as every feature has its own pros and cons, this feature also can be misused. Hence this feature is not allowed to be used for any reason which would cause inconvenience to others players at the table or which would influence the game in progress or any other purpose that questions the integrity of the games or that of the poker site. Any violations would attract an appropriate action which would range from issuing a warning to the player to closing the account permanently.

The Chat Abuse cases are handled either by the Customer Service Team or by the RM & FC (Risk Management & Fraud Control) team based on the intensity of the issue.

Following are the cases handled by Customer Service Team:

• Usage of 'Foul language'/'Profanity'
• Spamming or discussing about Bonus Codes.

In either of the above scenarios, after a preliminary warning or two, the Customer Service team takes a decision to block the "Table Chat" feature for the player in question for a specific period of time.

Following are the cases which are handled by RM & FC Team:

• Disclosure of Pocket/Hole Cards
• Discussing the Actions to be Taken
• Collusion
• Spamming
• Advertising Any Third Party Software/Website
• Offering Rake Back
• Others

Typical Example of Disclosure:
Example: There are 5 players (A, B, C, D & E) playing a hand and A, B & C have folded the hand pre-flop, D & E went till the flop. The Flop was [As; Ad; Ac]. D bets $1000.00 and goes all-in and E is in a dilemma whether to call or not, as he doesn't have the other Ace and he will lose in case D has it. If B says "I have folded an Ace" at this point and E calls the bet, it has to be considered as a Chat Abuse by B irrespective of whether B had an Ace in reality or not, as he has influenced E on calling the bet.

If a similar hand takes place in a tournament, that hand can impact the whole dynamics of the tournament and hence a decision can be taken to change the ranks of the players as well or to refund.

Chat abuse in online poker is a major issue at times to the teams handling operations, and has to be taken quite seriously to preserve the integrity and the sanctity of the game. I have seen cases where the ability to chat of a particular player has been permanently blocked by our teams due to repeated verbal abuse of other players. Yes, we could in fact write a book or two on this particular subject! Your online poker play is meant to be fun and profits – do not let it be abused in any way by that hot-headed individual baying for your blood or that colluder out to spoil that next assured win you’ve been waiting for a long time coming – report immediately to the card room authorities if you find any such cases as mentioned above.

Chip Dumping

What is Chip Dumping?

When a member of a card room deliberately loses his chips to another member, it is considered Chip Dumping. This is obviously a pre-planned activity and constitutes a major part of fraud detection in online poker room risk management. There are at least two parties involved in chip dumping, the “Chip Dumper” and the “Receiver.”

Chip dumping is usually done on real money tables to “Launder” funds from fraudulent depositing accounts that know they won’t be able to withdraw the money themselves; in most cases chip dumping is done because the funds deposited come from a stolen credit card or e-wallet account. In some cases, members that win some cash from freerolls will dump those funds to another account with a deposit so they can withdraw it with no hassle. It’s also done on tournaments to give the receiving member an unfair chip advantage over the rest. Well, I have seen it in action several times myself – it does get aggravating at times and one should immediately complain to the card room authorities.

In whichever manner it may possibly be done, Chip Dumping is not tolerated by any card room since it violates the Terms & Conditions agreed by the member at the time of the creation of an account, and it is often dealt with in a serious manner when it is noticed by the Princispoker authorities.

Suspected accounts are usually suspended for a period of 3-6 days, or until an investigation is completed and if found guilty, it could result in lifetime ban and forfeit of all cash in the offenders’ account left to Management’s discretion.

Our risk management manual clearly states that the operations team will investigate all allegations of chip dumping brought to our attention by players, employees, or as a result of suspicious activity flagged during regular payout or deposit report check-ups.

How to check for Chip Dumping

Our Operations manager Arin states: we can identify Chip Dumping by reviewing the hand history for the higher amounts won by the suspect and checking for patterns to prove the deliberate illegal transfer of funds between accounts. Another good way to identify a chip dumper and receiver is by checking the daily chip dumping report. On this report we can find players involved in chip dumping, but we must also check the player’s hand history to fully prove the act. Keep in mind that we must have irrefutable evidence before closing any account, since the player will always try to convince us that he or she were not involved in the chip dumping act.

We have what our ops team refers to as chip dumping reports generated quite regularly in the back office of the poker software specifically to weed out the miscreants who indulge in chip dumping.

DDOS ATTACKS On Poker Sites

When I joined the poker software company I am VP of now, the second call I had to take was a totally pissed Korean customer, shouting at the top of his voice; and though I do not understand Korean, all I could pick from the conversation was “ddos”, “ddos”!

I eventually managed to transfer the phone over to Robbie and our Korean-to-English translator, and I was invited to the closed door tech meeting which followed that conversation. What I heard in the meeting scared the hell out of me – the Korean customer’s business went bust! Just like that, and the reason was a ‘DDoS attack.’ We had merely provided our new badugi software to this customer and maintenance and security was being handled by a Canadian company. The customer originally had servers in Taiwan which were apparently ‘DDoS attacked’ and he then shifted his servers to Canada where he claimed he had total ‘DDoS protection.’ In less than two months there was another DDoS attack on these servers and his security consultants couldn’t save him; he went bust. Allegedly, his competitors were out for his blood.

Furthermore, according to statistics from February 10, 2008 to February 18, 2008, over 30 gaming websites were targeted by DDoS attacks including full tilt and titan poker. Each website was attacked for at least multiple hours if not days and these were only gaming related websites; also attacked were websites for dedicated hosting, financial earnings, advertising, e-payment and more. In September 2009 multiple sportsbooks like betphoenix and betcris were targeted.
DDoS is the acronym for Distributed Denial Of Service. I’m not going to re-invent the wheel; you can learn more on DDoS attacks here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Denial-of-service_attack. The purpose of these attacks ranges from having fun at somebody’s expense to full-scale extortion.

Cybertech DDOS Attack Protection:

Well, we had to make certain that we don’t go the route of full tilt or titan poker or our Korean customer, so our engineers devised a whole lot of methods to protect ourselves, our clients and our players. The gist of it is that our servers are protected from DDoS attacks through a number of specially prepared proxy servers that forward the traffic between the game server and client. That way, the real servers IP-address and location is never revealed to the player. Any number of proxy servers can be placed in various locations and they share the load of a DDoS attack, only forwarding genuine traffic to the real servers.

Our client software understands this proxy setup and can intelligently switch between proxy servers depending on load and latency, often without interrupting the game or the player even noticing. DDoS attacks on poker sites and gaming sites has been a high-end risk in the business and the industry as a whole, and those gaming software developing companies that have adequately protected themselves and their clientele from it, will eventually win the fight with extortionist hackers and their troublesome ilk.