VPN and Online Poker: Is It Cheating?

Nobody likes cheaters in any game, especially in poker. If you want to play it just to scam your opponents or game hosts, you are probably going to be banned from online poker sites or kicked out of poker venues for good.

Simply put, cheating kills the whole poker vibe that every poker player loves. In short — please, don’t cheat, as there are other ways to win money in poker that are completely legal.

It’s easy to catch someone cheating in a land-based venue, and there are strict rules that define what cheating is. On the other hand, online poker is a bit different from the one we play with our friends, and there are a couple of things that are still debated whether they are cheating or not.

Poker is not available in all countries. In fact, there are some places in the world where this card game is completely banned. So what choice does a person from one such country have? They either stop playing poker forever, or they find offshore poker sites that they can access.

These offshore sites are great, although they are not regulated well, and some of them can be scams. However, even the good ones are not that great as the volume of players is much lower compared to some professional and licensed poker sites.

The only option remaining for those players is to use the so-called Virtual Private Network (VPN). It basically gives them a new IP address so that they appear like they were actually residents of a country where online poker is available, licensed, and regulated.

Even in the US, not all states feel the same about online poker, so some of the players use a VPN to “move” to the ones where this type of entertainment is available. In fact, Daniel Negreanu recently posted a poll on Twitter, discussing this “issue.”

Poll Results

A total of 76 percent of people stated that they actually don’t consider using VPN cheating, whereas 24 percent confirmed it is a sort of cheating in online poker.

Other poker players started expressing their opinions about it and discussing whether a VPN is considered cheating or not. For example, Niall Farrell stated that he didn’t care where his opponents came from as long as they are using original accounts.

There are some players who did not like the idea of using a VPN. Chris Kruk stated that it was unfair towards people who actually follow the rules and go to another state to play online poker.

There was a lengthy debate on Negreanu’s Twitter post, with players and other poker lovers expressing their opinion about using a VPN.

Strictly speaking, using a VPN is considered illegal and against the Terms of Service of almost all online poker platforms. However, the platforms are definitely not going to make a fuss about it as they like having new players and increasing their network, simply because they earn more money that way.

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