integrity · collusion
Poker collusion.
Poker only works because each seat holds information the others do not. Collusion is what happens when two of those seats stop being separate. It is the quietest form of cheating in the game, it almost never looks dramatic in any single hand, and it is caught by people looking at thousands of hands at once rather than by anyone sitting at the table.
source checked 30 August 2026
what it is, in four shapes
Each of these says what happens and why an operator treats it as fraud. None of them says how, and that is a deliberate limit on this whole section rather than an oversight here.
Sharing what you hold
Two or more players at one table who know each other cards while the hand is still live. The entire structure of poker assumes that each seat has its own private information, so removing that assumption is not a strategy, it is a different game played against people who do not know they are in it.
Not competing with each other
Playing softly against a particular opponent, usually a friend, a backer or somebody with a share in your result. Operator policies treat this as its own offence rather than as a lesser version of the first, because the effect on everyone else at the table is the same whether cards were shared or not.
Acting as one hand across several seats
Two accounts run so that the pair of them functions as a single position in the pot. The edge is not spectacular in any individual hand, which is exactly what makes it hard to see from the outside and worth catching from the inside.
Moving chips on purpose
Losing to a partner deliberately so that value ends up in a chosen account. This is usually about moving money rather than about winning a pot, and it tends to be treated as a payments problem as much as a poker one.
where an operator draws the line
It is worth reading one policy rather than summarising the genre. The one linked at the bottom of this page defines collusion as two or more users working together for an unfair advantage over their immediate opponents in a cash game, or over part or all of the field in a tournament. It then says the thing that actually matters, which is a positive obligation rather than a prohibition: each user must play his own hand independently and in his own interest.
Two details in that policy are worth noticing. The first is that sharing hole card information while the hand is live is forbidden without exception, in any circumstance. The second is that soft play is named on its own, defined as deliberately playing hands non aggressively against particular opponents, with a friend or a backer given as the examples, and with a narrow exception around the money bubble of a tournament where all in situations can make caution legitimate. The penalties listed run from a warning through suspension to a permanent ban and confiscation of funds.
That last exception is the useful part. It shows that the line is a line rather than a slogan, that it has been placed somewhere specific after thought, and that it can therefore sit somewhere slightly different on another site. The same is true of software during a hand, which is why the page on real time assistance ends with the same instruction as this one: read the rules of the site you actually play on.
the money version: backing and shared interests
The most common way an honest player ends up on the wrong side of this rule has nothing to do with signalling. It is having a financial interest in somebody else at the table. If a backer owns a share of two players in the same tournament, those two are not independent any more, whatever either of them intends, and that is precisely why operator policy names the backer alongside the friend.
That makes this a paperwork problem before it is an ethics problem. Anyone with money in somebody else's seat should know who else is in the same event, and both sides should understand the site rule before the money changes hands rather than afterwards. What can go wrong in those arrangements, and what an agreement needs to contain, is on the page about staking.
what you can see, and what to do with it
You are looking at one seat, and the people who resolve these cases are looking at all of them. The signal is never a hand. It is a pattern across very large numbers of hands, across accounts, devices, addresses and the money that moves between them, and every one of those is on the operator side of the glass. That is not a promise that they always look. It is the reason a report from you is worth considerably more than an accusation from you.
So report it where it can be checked: support at the site you played on, with hand identifiers, table names, dates and times, kept factual, with the conclusion left to them. Keeping your own hand histories is what turns that from a memory of a bad evening into something someone can actually look into. And be careful with the cost of suspicion itself, which is the argument the page on cheating makes at more length: an evening spent certain you were cheated is an evening you played badly, and that loss is real while the cheating usually is not.
in a home game, where nobody is watching
Around a kitchen table there is no operator, no data and no appeal, and the version that shows up is almost never deliberate. Two friends who avoid each other in the big pots are soft playing whether they would use the word or not, and the rest of the table pays for it. Money that is shared, whether that is a couple splitting a buy in or one player covering another, does the same thing from a different direction.
The answer is an agreement rather than vigilance. Decide before the first hand who is playing for whose money and what happens if two people at the table share an interest, and write it down with everything else your table has agreed. That is what the house rules are for, and it is much easier to settle over the first drink than over the last pot.
what this page leaves out, and why
There is no description here of how collusion is carried out, and there is no list of signs that a pair at your table is doing it. The first is a method, and nothing in this section publishes methods. The second is the omission readers notice, and it is the one we are most confident about: a list of what gets somebody caught is also a list of what the next pair will be careful to avoid, and while it circulates it hands ordinary players a false certainty built on a sample far too small to support it.
There are also no figures on this page about how much collusion is found, how many accounts are closed for it or how much money has been returned. Numbers like that circulate, and we could not read them at a source we were able to verify. On this subject a confident wrong number does more damage than a gap.
source
GGPoker, security and ecology policy, section 4
One operator policy, read in full. It defines collusion, requires that every user plays his own hand independently and in his own interest, forbids sharing hole card information while the hand is live, names soft play against a friend or a backer as a separate offence, and lists the penalties as warning, suspension, permanent ban and confiscation of funds.
One policy is one policy. It is quoted here because it is unusually specific, not because it is the standard, and the rules that bind you are the ones on the site where your account is.
next step
The rest of the integrity questions.
Collusion is one of several questions that decide whether the game is worth playing at all. The others are where the line sits on software during a hand, what machines can actually do, and how the shuffle itself is tested. Each page says what is known, names its sources, and says what it leaves out.
questions about poker collusion
What is collusion in poker?
Two or more players at the same table acting together instead of against each other. In the policy of one large operator it is defined as users colluding to gain an unfair advantage over their immediate opponents in cash games, or over part or all of the field in tournaments, with the requirement that every user plays his own hand independently and in his own interest.
Is soft play the same as collusion?
It is treated as part of the same rule rather than as a milder thing. Deliberately playing hands non aggressively against a friend, a backer or anyone else with an interest in your result is named separately in operator policy, with one narrow exception around the money bubble in tournaments, where all in situations can make cautious play legitimate.
What happens to players who are caught colluding?
Under the one policy read for this page the possible actions are a warning, a suspension, a permanent ban and confiscation of funds. Which of those follows is the operator decision, and other sites draw their lines and their penalties in their own places, which is why the only reliable version is the one on the site you actually play on.
How is collusion detected?
From the operator side, and not from a seat at the table. The evidence is a pattern across very large numbers of hands, several accounts, the devices and addresses behind them, and the money moving between them. Every one of those sits on the other side of the glass from you, which is why a report from you is worth more than a conclusion from you.
Why does this page not list the signs of collusion?
Because that list serves the wrong reader better than the right one. For a player it produces certainty out of a handful of hands, which is far too small a sample to mean anything. For anyone considering it, it is a list of behaviour to avoid. What actually exposes collusion is data across accounts over time, and no list on a website changes that.
Can collusion happen in a home game?
Yes, and it is usually not deliberate. Two friends who quietly avoid each other in big pots are soft playing whether they think of it that way or not, and it costs the rest of the table. The fix is not suspicion but an agreement made before the first hand, written down with the rest of the house rules.