Throughout most of yesterday and part of today, PokerScout.com went offline. This popular site provides traffic figures on internet poker sites and also sells player data to their clientele. However, people were denied the ability to visit PokerScout after it was down for a 24-hour period.
At this point, there’s no word on if the big interruption was due to server problems or Bodog. The Bodog brand has a long-running feud with PokerScout over the latter’s willingness to sell player data. Through their “Recreational Player Model,” Bodog has made it a mission to protect amateur grinders at all costs. The idea here is to block third-party data mining sites and eliminate the use of “heads-up display software,” which provides stats and tendencies on opponents.
PokerScout’s insistence on selling stats on players undercuts the Recreational Player Model by giving pros the upperhand. For this reason, Bodog has launched an anti-PokerScout campaign and tried to get them booted offline. But again, it’s tough to say whether Bodog had a hand in actually getting PokerScout kicked offline, or if this was some kind of technical problem.
There are still a fair amount of online poker sites that do allow heads-up display software and third-party data mining. But with online poker traffic slowly declining across the board, many rooms are seeing the value in keeping recreational players around.
After all, amateur players bring new money into the industry with their deposits. And if these players are getting beaten badly by pros right away, it discourages them from sticking around. So poker rooms like Bodog, Party Poker and Lock Poker have recently made efforts to help amateurs while limiting the resources that professionals can use to beat their opponents.