account selling

Account selling in online poker occurs when one player sells his seat in a tournament to another player after the tournament has begun. To let anyone else use your account is against the rules of every online poker room and is considered cheating. Account selling is unique to online poker because the anonymity allows different people to play without being noticed.

Whats the advantage in account selling?

The most common scenario is a novice player selling his account in the late stages of a tournament to a stronger player, or a professional who has a better chance of winning the tourny. You can see the advantage this gives to the professional buying the account, because:

1. The late stages of a tournament, such as the “final table” are where pro players have the most significant edge
2. Nobody at the table knows they are playing with a pro, they think they are playing the person that owns the account. Imagine playing against Phil Ivey for all your chips and not even knowing it.

How common is account selling in online poker?

Account selling and “ghosting” is common practice between friends but many say that it is commonplace among the high stakes tournaments as well. People “buying” accounts at the late stages of Million dollar prize pool tournament are surely paying out a hefty sum for that account. Following this logic one can assume that the people buying the accounts are professional players. This was shown in the famous case of Sorel Mizzi and Chris Vaughn.

WHAT DO SITES DO TO STOP ACCOUNT SELLING

Online poker sites have taken a hard stance with players involved in account selling. It does not matter if they are well known or not, as we have seen in the cases of Sorel Mizzi and Chris Vaughn, who were both banned and had their winnings confiscated.