Artificial intelligence could soon hold heightened influence in the poker world. As with many communities and spaces — including literary publications, for example — ChatGPT is already tangibly changing the way things work.
A new study conducted by online poker database Legal U.S. Poker Sites, using Amazon Mechanical Turk, found that online poker is seeing the impact of ChatGPT’s rise. Surveying over 1,000 poker players with at least three years of experience, the study consisted of 67 percent male respondents, and 33 percent women. Of those, the majority are Gen-Z (41 percent), while 34 percent are millennials.
The study revealed that poker experts overwhelmingly support the use of AI for the game, with 93 percent in favor of it. 40 percent of those surveyed said that AI has elevated their game while 45 percent said AI pushes them to be better players.
It’s important to note that artificial intelligence isn’t new in the poker world. AI systems and tools have appeared in the game, even at its highest levels, in past years — and they’ve been proven to be successful at winning.
When it comes to the actual game, 22 percent of those surveyed said they used AI to win, with millennials more likely to do so. That means 1 in 5 respondents have essentially cheated in online games with the help of ChatGPT specifically.
It’s hard to say, however, whether using ChatGPT to assist your game is cheating. Mashable checked a couple of prominent online poker sites and found no clear guidance on whether playing with the assistance of ChatGPT is against the rules. On the other hand, “botting” — which means letting an automated AI-based “bot” play instead of you — is against the rules on virtually all of them.
Larger chunks of players haven’t utilized AI to win, but turned to AI systems either to experiment with different strategies (57 percent) or to simulate different scenarios (52 percent).
70 percent of poker experts said they believe AI bots will eventually rule poker, making it near impossible for a human to win against them. Already, Gen Z players who have played against AI reported losing $1,025 on average, while millennial players garnered losses of $758.
Despite the supposedly growing overlap between ChatGPT and poker, discussions on Twitter and Reddit indicate that poker players are divided on the issue. Some aren’t completely sold on the concept. In response to a screenshot of ChatGPT’s situational guidance for a specific game, some said “that’s pretty bad advice” or “terrible advice from the bot”. On r/poker, too, several threads have criticized the advice ChatGPT delivers. Others also suggest the chatbot can be useful in simply learning the rules of the game, rather than guiding through specific games and tactics.
Still others, including those on the Reddit community, have posted screenshots of ChatGPT providing useful advice, with comment threads praising the tool. On Twitter, one user posted their experience of playing a popular variant of poker with ChatGPT, in which the bot walks them through a game.
While the relationship between technology and poker has previously existed, there’s the possibility of increased involvement thanks to ChatGPT. Respondents to the survey above recognized this, with seeing the future of poker as “bright” with the help of the chatbot and others saying AI has the possibility to “destroy” the game.
