Poker Table Rating Are to be hit with lawsuit by Pokerstars
PokerStars, reputed to be one of the best online poker sites in the world, recently announced that it would be taking legal action against poker data mining site: Poker Table Ratings or PTR as it is known in the poker industry.
PokerStars has had a long and contentious relationship with data mining sites, of which Poker Table Ratings is one of its biggest problems.
This is because the PTR site collects hand history and data from the PokerStars site and reveals it on its site for PTR members to benefit from.
This allows PTR members to view statistics, win records and losses of every player on the PokerStars site. It also tracks players on poker rooms like 888 Poker, Merge Poker, Party Poker and so on.
PokerStars is claiming that PTR has infringed on its intellectual property and has breached its terms of service. Only recently, PokerStars had sent out a “cease and desist” letter to Poker Table Ratings, demanding that it stop recording player activity on PokerStars. However, PTR does not appear to have responded at all to the site’s letter and as a result, PokerStars will be taking legal action.
Lee Jones, PokerStars’ Head of Home Games, explained that PokerStars was taking the matter very seriously and had assembled a legal team to follow up on the issue. The team is reportedly handling the matter from different jurisdictions. “We want a service which is fair to all not just those who want to find a way to cheat.. by having stats about a prospective opponent in advance this could be conceived as cheating and giving a unfair advantage to the player.”
PokerStars has taken several steps to prevent PTR from mining data from its poker room and has already managed to get the Internet Service Provider hosting the Poker Table Ratings site to drop the site. However, PTR has found a new ISP and is up and running once more. The PokerStars site is now looking to trace PTR’s new Internet Service Provider and get them to shut the data mining site down.
Jones appears to be ready to play hard ball with PTR and will quite likely win the battle if its goes to court. “We’ve been doing this for about 3 years. The new ISP will be taken down yet again. The bottom line: we, in the poker online community all agree that irrepressible system of online poker results is illegal and against our terms. We will continue to disrupt their service and do whatever it takes for them to stop there illegal activities,” he said.
