PokerStars To Tackle Spin & Go Data Mining Issue In 2016

In order to encourage recreational players to give online poker a try, PokerStars has made some big changes to its policy regarding third-party poker software use. This has included banning seating scripts, restricting the use of HUDs, as well as forbidding data mining on its site. As Eric Hollreiser, PokerStars VP of Corporate Communications, previously explained, these developments are deemed essential in order to preserve the online game as a “battle of wits and a test of heart.”
While PokerStars continues to find solutions to prevent outside sites from datamining its games, with Zoom games already benefiting from its efforts, it would appear the same cannot be said about its Spin and Gos. Apparently, players sitting down to a game are soon joined by interested parties on the sideline, and as one TwoPlusTwo poster called “1v1” wrote on a thread recently:
“EVERY PokerStars Spin and Go within 30 seconds has 2 viewers appear and stay for the duration of the match from .50-100$. It is data mining 500%. PokerStars HAS acknowledged this indirectly with a boilerplate response regarding data mining as a whole.”
Concerned that PokerStars is now dragging its feet regarding its November 1st statement to limit the use of third party software, “1v1” subsequently demanded an official response as to why datamining was still taking place on the site, and seemed to be getting progressively worse. Soon after, PokerStars Ring Game Manager Baard Dahl subsequently chimed in and acknowledged that while ‘there are sites that collect data from all our games’, PokerStars is continuing with its efforts to deal with the situation. Unfortunately, it needs more time to work on the problem, with Dahl subsequently explaining that it isn’t “as easy as flicking a switch”, although PokerStars is hoping to ‘roll out a solution for the Spin & Gos in Q1 of 2016.’