This Security Policy has been established by PokerStars Live.
Your participation in any Event constitutes consent to this policy. If you do not consent to this policy, you should not take part in an Event.
We want you to have a positive experience at PokerStars sponsored events and live rooms. As part of that, here is some advice to help you ensure that you maintain good personal security while attending. While every individual at a live event or live room is responsible for their own security, and that of all belongings in their possession, we want to provide some advice to help improve your personal security. To the fullest extent permitted by law, we assume no responsibility or liability to you for any damage or loss suffered by you while attending any PokerStars sponsored events unless such damage or loss is as a result of our negligence.
When you travel to an event or live room, you are often in an unfamiliar environment, and may not speak the local language. Local thieves and criminals often target tourists attending large public events, and this can include players attending poker tournaments. Most crimes involving players at events are crimes of opportunity and the theft of personal belongings. Travellers can also be the targets of pick-pockets who operate where tourists tend to gather, especially in night-time entertainment venues.
If you travel with personal computer equipment, be aware that this can be an attractive target for thieves; not just because the electronics have a great deal of intrinsic value, but also because attackers may want to hack into your various accounts (email, bank, online gaming, etc).
Consequently, please read and follow the travel advice provided by your Government when travelling to foreign countries.
Key defensive measures you can take include:
High quality passwords, RSA tokens, and the like are useless if you give them to other people. If you wouldn’t hand somebody your ATM card and tell him its PIN, don’t give him access to your computer.
Don’t write down passwords. Memorize them or use a password vault. If you absolutely must write them down, do so in some kind of code that will not be useful to fraudsters.
If you believe your computer has been compromised, stop using it immediately and contact an expert as soon as possible. If you are at a live poker tournament, please notify hotel security. Assuming the computer is not needed by law enforcement officials, take it to a qualified computer security consultant and get it cleaned. And note that just changing your password(s) is not sufficient. There is a danger that somebody has installed a key-logger or other ‘malware’ on your device that will enable them to see the keystrokes you put in.
Keep all your data backed-up regularly so that should you have to clean a computer, you will be able to recover your data. This will make it emotionally easier to do whatever is necessary to clean a compromised laptop.
Keep the cost of a computer cleaning (or replacement) in perspective relative to the potential cost of somebody being able to access your Stars Account, or access your bank and credit accounts.
The good news is that it’s likely you’ll never need these security measures. But just like wearing a seatbelt in your car, it’s better to be safe than sorry. Have a wonderful time at your next event and thank you for your continued support.
We go to great lengths to ensure that games at PokerStars sponsored events, where PokerStars Live Game Integrity services are provided, are fair, and that everybody is playing on a level field. We routinely work with our venue partners and review events’ security procedures to continually improve in this area.
Our first priority is to prevent rules violations through educating players. PokerStars Live welcomes many new players to the poker world, many of whom are unfamiliar with the rules of live poker.
The vast majority of rules violations are caused by accident: they are non-malicious acts which are not deliberate, and cause little harm to other players. That’s why PokerStars Live educates players who accidentally and non-maliciously break the rules.
However, some players deliberately break the rules to gain an advantage over other players. For malicious actions, we employ three important practices: prevention, detection and enforcement:
As part of this three-pronged strategy to reduce the risk of malicious activity at the events, PokerStars Live maintains a private list of players who are prohibited (to the extent permitted by law) from participating in events.