QQPK has confirmed that 893 accounts were involved in a coordinated online poker cheating operation, announced a $300,000 compensation fund and admitted that its security systems failed to identify the activity sooner.
However, the investigation has taken another unexpected turn. Poker researcher Vojtech Cervinka has published a list of 11,469 suspicious usernames, raising questions about the true scale of automated play on the platform.
The figures represent different investigations and cannot be treated as equivalent. Nevertheless, they reveal a substantial gap between the accounts QQPK has confirmed were cheating and those identified by independent researchers.
QQPK Confirms Coordinated Cheating Operation
The latest announcement represents a significant development since QQPK confirmed its first 724 permanent bans on October 13.
In its October 15 report, published on the Two Plus Two poker forum, QQPK acknowledged that a coordinated group had operated multiple accounts at the same tables, sharing information about cards held by accomplices.
The operator described the activity as collusive cheating involving knowledge of cards unavailable to legitimate opponents.
QQPK also apologised for its failure to identify the operation earlier:
We sincerely apologize to our players for our risk control system’s failure to detect this novel cheating method earlier.
Its latest investigation has produced the following results:
| Finding | Reported figure |
|---|---|
| Permanently banned accounts | 893 |
| Banned accounts from original flagged list | 567 |
| Additional accounts found internally | 326 |
| Original externally flagged accounts | 2,587 |
| Original accounts still under monitoring | 2,020 |
| Independent researcher’s suspicious usernames | 11,469 |
| Player compensation fund | $300,000 |
QQPK says 567 accounts from the original report were confirmed offenders, while another 326 were identified through its own investigation. The remaining 2,020 accounts from the original list have not been cleared outright and remain subject to monitoring. The much larger list published by Cervinka is a separate, unverified collection of suspicious usernames rather than a confirmed list of individual cheating accounts.
Poker Researcher Identifies 11,469 Suspicious Usernames
Cervinka, who operates the MTT Database Review account, has spent years analysing online tournament databases to identify suspicious behaviour. His previous work included identifying apparent bot activity connected to ACR Poker’s 2024 Venom investigation.
On October 15, he published a public database containing 11,469 QQPK usernames.
The names were selected using recurring behavioural patterns rather than independently confirmed evidence of cheating.
Among the indicators highlighted in his investigation were:
- Identical preflop bet sizes appearing across large groups of players.
- Unusually frequent limp-reraises with narrow starting-hand ranges.
- Repeatedly similar decisions across thousands of recorded hands.
- Highly unusual folding frequencies in specific situations.
- Naming patterns consistent with accounts potentially being created in bulk.
Cervinka’s analysis suggests that suspicious accounts may have participated in more than half the recorded tournament hands within his sample.
That estimate does not establish that half of QQPK’s tournament population was cheating. The database covers a particular collection of hands and usernames, and individual players may have used multiple names.
Even allowing for those limitations, the findings suggest that QQPK’s confirmed bans might not represent the full extent of its automated-play problem.
How Could So Many Bots Go Undetected?
One particularly concerning aspect of the investigation is the apparent simplicity of several identified patterns.
Modern poker bots can be designed to imitate human behaviour, vary their timing and use sophisticated strategies derived from solver calculations. Those systems can be difficult to distinguish from highly skilled human players.
Cervinka’s suspected accounts, by contrast, reportedly displayed repeated and sometimes highly predictable betting patterns. In some cases, the same unusual bet sizing appeared consistently across large samples. These are precisely the kinds of statistical anomalies that automated security systems might be expected to investigate.
Poker Type has previously examined open-source software for detecting poker superusers, including systems that analyse decisions across large hand-history databases.
QQPK’s experience raises a difficult question: if outside investigators can identify suspicious accounts from recorded hands, why were the same patterns not detected and investigated internally much earlier?
QQPK Announces $300,000 Compensation Fund
The operator has also provided the first substantial financial response to the scandal.
QQPK says it confiscated $64,627 from the 893 banned accounts and will contribute another $235,373 from company funds, creating a guaranteed $300,000 compensation pool.
| Compensation source | Amount |
|---|---|
| Confiscated account balances | $64,627 |
| QQPK’s additional contribution | $235,373 |
| Total compensation fund | $300,000 |
The company says payments will be calculated according to losses suffered by affected players and tournaments.
However, identifying exactly how much an individual player lost to a cheating operation can be considerably more complicated than refunding a tournament entry. A player eliminated by a cheating account might have gone on to cash, reach the final table or win the tournament. Those outcomes cannot be reconstructed with certainty.
There are also questions about how to compensate players who lost chips but were not eliminated directly by an offending account. Our earlier report on QQPK’s restrictions on 2,587 accounts highlighted the uncertainty surrounding refunds.
The compensation announcement is progress, but establishing a fund and actually distributing money are separate steps. QQPK has promised to publish its compensation calculations and information about affected events on October 17.
Researchers Challenge QQPK’s Explanation of the Results
The original investigation raised concerns about an extraordinary statistical deviation in all-in outcomes involving suspected cheating accounts.
QQPK now acknowledges that the initial sample produced a result approximately 14.6 standard deviations above expectation under the researchers’ calculation model. However, the company disputes the interpretation of that figure, arguing that duplicated records, incomplete observations and collusive play contributed to the unusual results.
Its explanation has already attracted criticism.
A verified Two Plus Two coach posting as yegor argues that sharing hole-card information can improve the selection of profitable situations, but does not necessarily explain why actual all-in results repeatedly exceed calculated equity. This distinction is important. Knowing which cards accomplices hold can influence decisions, but it is not the same as knowing which cards will appear on the board.
The researcher has also questioned technical features reportedly discovered in QQPK’s client, including encrypted deck information and a development-related dealing interface.
Those observations are not proof that anyone manipulated the deck. QQPK maintains that its random number generator is fair and says its investigation found no evidence of an exploitable backdoor.
Nevertheless, an operator’s internal conclusion is not equivalent to independent verification.
Five Questions QQPK Still Needs to Answer
QQPK has taken meaningful enforcement action, but its next disclosure needs to resolve several outstanding issues:
- How many of the 11,469 suspicious usernames identified by Cervinka correspond to accounts already investigated?
- What explains the remaining all-in equity anomalies after the reported data corrections?
- Were players able to exploit any vulnerability involving encrypted deck information?
- How will losses be calculated for players affected indirectly by cheating?
- When will compensation actually reach player accounts?
The final question may be the most important for customers who believe they lost money.
Our feature examining what happens when a poker site catches a cheater explains why identifying wrongdoing is only one stage of restoring financial fairness.
October 17 Could Be a Defining Date
QQPK’s handling of the scandal has moved from acknowledging suspicious play to confirming hundreds of cheating accounts and committing money to compensation.
That deserves recognition, but the scale of the allegations demands more than a list of enforcement actions.
Independent researchers have presented considerably larger estimates, technical questions remain unresolved and affected players have yet to see the full compensation methodology.
QQPK’s October 17 report will therefore be judged on what can be independently checked, not simply how many additional accounts are banned.
For the wider online poker industry, the lesson is becoming increasingly difficult to ignore: identifying suspicious accounts after a scandal breaks is not the same as preventing those accounts from damaging games in the first place.
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