PokerStars Datamining Update: Business as Usual

Despite a wave of policy moves aimed at denting the ability of datamining sites to gain access to PokerStars SNG and MTT results, it appears that it’s business as usual for sites such as Sharkscope, OPR and the like.

A few weeks ago, it appeared that Stars was aggressively moving to cut off access to results by restricting tournament lobby data of select SNGs to those players who participated. There was a fairly significant backlash against the policy from the online poker community (although more than a few voices were raised in support), and whether because of that backlash or a lack of a scalable solution, Stars backed off and re-opened all lobbies.

Sharkscope tracking of PokerStars results appears to be fully comprehensive at this point. PokerStars still does not allow the use of Sharkscope by players when the PokerStars client is running.

According to official PokerStars policy, datamining sites need to do two things to be in compliance: offer players a way to opt out of the data and have players opt-in explicitly before any profitability data about them will be shown. thePokerDB, OPR and Sharkscope all offer the first. According to an email from Stars, thePokerDB and OPR also meet the second requirement, but Sharkscope, to the best of our knowledge, does not.

The PokerStars management team offered the following comment on the future of their datamining policy: “At this point there is no definitive timetable for cutting off access to datamining websites that do not comply with the rules, but it’s something we are keen to do as soon as possible. Exactly when it happens will depend on
how effectively we are able to identify abusers and how effective are technical measures are against dataminers. We are improving in both areas all the time.”