Online Poker History: Poker Deal Cracked

Thankfully it couldn't happen nowadays, but in the early days of online poker there were a number of vulnerabilities that were waiting to be cracked. It was way back in 1999 that it happened. Online poker sites, eager to show that they provided a fair and even game experience, published the algorithms that they used to shuffle cards. The motivation was to demonstrate that cards were dealt randomly. Unfortunately, the algorithms they used were fatally flawed, and it did not take the software community very long to discover this flaw and crack the deal in such a way that they could predict every card that was dealt in real time.

In a real shuffle, there are 52! (that is 52 factorial) possible unique shuffles. That calculates at a massive 2 raised to the power of 226 which is an incredibly high number. However, errors in the algorithm reduced this to the much smaller number, and generated skewed deals, increasing the edge for someone in the know. But there was worse to come.

The system used a pseudo random number generator which was called by the procedure randomise (). This particular function seeds the random number generator and it dies this by using the system clock. In fact it uses the number of milliseconds that have passed since the previous midnight. Once this was apparent completely cracking the system became possible.

The software gurus were able to synchronise their own system clock with that of the casino and so they could calculate the precise shuffle and so win every game. They did this by using the synchronised system to reduce the number of possible shuffles to around 200,000. They then examined the first five cards that were dealt and use this to search these possible shuffles; a relatively trivial task. Once this had been done once, the synchronisation was fine tuned so that all subsequent shuffles were 100% cracked.

Luckily it was a computer security company that discovered this, and the faults were immediately corrected. Rigorous procedures are now in place to ensure that such a problem could never recur.

Do you enjoy an exciting game of poker? Why not try online poker where you could win big money from the comfort of your own home. Visit Sky Poker today for some great bonuses.