Beware Online Poker Chat Spam

Anyone familiar with online poker knows to expect to see anything and everything typed into the chat box at the virtual tables. From expletives to taunts to foreign languages, the chat box can be a source of both frustration and entertainment. Lately, however, online poker chat has become a vehicle for a new type of scam.

It is quite simple, and while it seems that one would have to be truly naïve to fall for it, online poker novices could reasonably expect to be fooled.

In the scam, someone not currently seated at the table, also known as a railbird or observer, types a tempting message into the chat box, which would look something like this (real example from Full Tilt Poker):

Dealer: FullTilt Poker giveaway $50,000 today.
The first two players from this table who visit the
website http://50k-fulltiltpoker.com/ will be
awarded with $25,000.

The “prize” may vary (the more believable scam attempts will opt for a lower dollar amount), but will always contain a URL containing the online poker room’s name in order to present a look of authenticity. Additionally, the offender may add an “administrator’s” name to the end of the message to make it look more official. In the above example, the phrase, “Admin: Chris Ferguson” was tacked on. And, of course, by leading with “Dealer:” it also looks like an official message.

As tempting as it might be, DO NOT go to the web page listed. It will, of course, say you are a winner and then ask for your login name and password. The password is the key to the scam. What the scammers are trying to do is gain access to your online poker account so that they can login and clean out your funds. While this is bad enough, you also never know with a phishing attempt like this if a virus, keylogger, or other malicious software might find itself to your computer.

You may ask, “How did someone make the message look like it came from the Dealer?” All the scammer does was type one line of text followed by several blank lines before the main message. This causes the main text to appear in the chat box by itself, while the first few lines scroll off the top. If you were to scroll up to see the beginning of the message, you would see the actual screen name of the wonderful individual who wrote it. In the example used, this was the beginning of the message:

voxon (Observer):
========================================

Because of the formatting and length of the message, those first couple lines were tough to detect by someone not staring at the chat box, as they scrolled off the screen quickly.

Here are a few things you, as a player, can remember to avoid falling into one of these traps:

1. If you see a promotion advertised in a chat box, do not go directly to the URL listed. Instead, first go to the online poker room’s main site, then find the promotion there. Alternatively, if the poker room has a promotions button of some sort from within the software, that would work, too.
2. Official poker room messages, be they from the Dealer or an Admin, are generally in a different text color than messages from players and observers. There is no way a player can fake a different color. Be aware of what colors mean what at the different online poker rooms.
3. The only place it is safe to enter your password is on the poker room software or directly on the poker room’s website.
4. Sometimes online poker rooms do award random prizes to people playing at certain times. In these cases, the funds should be deposited into your account automatically.
5. If it sounds too good to be true, it probably is.

What can the online poker rooms do to combat this growing problem? Besides color-coded chat, the easiest solution, one which many have already adopted, is to turn off observer chat. This would not only eliminate these scams (as people who are actually seated at a table are almost never the perpetrators – it is easier to just hit and run without sitting down), but it would also eliminate abusive chat from disgruntled railbirds. The online poker rooms could also restrict chat to players with a certain amount of money on deposit, even if it is a very small amount, like ten dollars. Most scam artists simply create bogus, “ghost,” accounts, never intended for play. Requiring a real money balance would slow them down.

And remember, you, as a player, should be proactive in stopping these crooks. Report any such chat to the poker room immediately so that others do not fall for the scam.