GGPoker Officially Launches Poker Integrity Council

To reinforce its integrity efforts, GGPoker, the world’s leading online poker room, has announced the creation of the Poker Integrity Council (PIC).

The world’s leading online poker site, GGPoker, has officially announced its Poker Integrity Council (PIC) launch. Detection of suspicious poker player behaviour may include collaboration, RTA, bots or ghosting. GGPoker Integrity Ambassador and poker pro Jason Koon will chair the committee and other big names in the poker world. All flagged activity is forwarded to the PIC for review, after which members decide whether to take action based on a majority decision.

There are different severity levels of decisions that can be applied. The PIC may proceed with a warning or a simple suspension for less egregious acts. Other activities related to abuse or a more serious breach of GGPoker Rules could result in a permanent ban and even forfeiture of funds. Any more severe case could result in a player being placed on an industry blocklist. GGPoker has partnered with some of the biggest brands and tournaments in the industry to ensure blocklist decisions. It can be applied more effectively.

A blacklisted player cannot participate in all major poker events, including the World Series of Poker, World Poker Tour, Triton Poker, Poker After Dark, Kings Casino and Asian poker tour.

GGPoker Created a New Poker Integrity Council

The new Board of Directors will seek to strengthen and protect the integrity of the poker industry. The PIC detects suspicious behaviour, including collaboration, RTA, bots, or ghosting. Once such behaviour is detected, it is flagged for review. The reported incident is then submitted for review by PIC members and GGPoker Integrity Ambassador Jason Koon. After that, based on a majority vote, the PIC members decide whether disciplinary action is required.

Ultimately, the case may be dropped, or disciplinary action may be taken. PIC disciplinary sanctions may be a warning or account suspension. Cases of serious violations or abuse of the Integrity Rules may result in a permanent ban from GGPoker or even a permanent ban along with forfeiture of funds. The harshest disciplinary measure is an industry blocklist. This means if the PIC detects a cheating player and applies this measure, the player will not be able to participate in major live poker tournaments within the industry.

Such live poker tournaments and events include WPT, WSOP, APT, PGT, APL, Triton Poker and many more.

Famous Poker Players Will Be Members of the Integrity Council

In addition to Koon as GGPoker Integrity Ambassador, other PIC voting members include Andrew Lichtenberger, the American poker player known as LuckyChewu, and Fedor Holz, the German professional poker player. Seth Davies and Nick Petrangelo will also be members of the newly formed Integrity Council. To ensure their neutrality in imposing a decision and to protect user privacy, PIC members will consider data “anonymized and encrypted” for analysis. In other words, board members would not see nicknames, bets, or hand identification.

Koon shared his excitement and revealed it was an honour to found the Poker Integrity Council. The council, he claims, will help make online poker safer for all players. Furthermore, Koon stated that the recent efforts complement his plan to “assist the GGPoker team in making their poker games safer and fairer than ever.” He stated that the “general community” is better protected as a result of GGPoker’s partner list and ability to block scammers from across the industry. Finally, Koon emphasized that the release of PIC sends a message to the industry that scammers will no longer be tolerated.