Some high-stakes poker players are cheating with an earpiece that's 'so small that you can’t take it off with your fingers' and looks like a 'James Bond movie device'

Three animal characters sit around a poker table holding each other at gunpoint

(Image credit: Curve Animation)

As someone who was once upon a time enthralled with TV poker in its heyday, it saddens me to see some of the ruin technology's wrought upon the game. Despite joining the online crowd some years ago (and considering myself the best UK-based, 5-foot-11, under-bankrolled, hazel-eyed, bearded, break-even micro-stakes player to ever grace the virtual felts of GG Poker) I never liked how technology—AI in particular—has changed the game, either.

Consider me vexed, then, to find out (via Wired) that high-stakes poker rooms now have to worry about hearing devices "so small that you can’t take it off with your fingers" and cheap DIY mirror contraptions that can seemingly best even specially designed casino shoes. All in the name of earning a few extra bucks... okay, maybe more than a few.

This was communicated using a "device is so small that you can’t take it off with your fingers", according to Stéphane Piallat, commissioner of the Central Racing and Gaming Service (SCCJ), who also said, "You need a magnet to pull it off, otherwise you can’t do it. It looks like a typical James Bond movie device."

It might be that the best solution is vigilance regarding how players are actually playing. For instance, Wired spoke to poker pro Matt Berkey, who spotted a cheater at some high-stakes cash games. What tipped Berkey off wasn't noticing any tech, rather it was how the cheater was playing, namely because they were winning all the Rivers they played—all the hands they played to showdown after all community cards are dealt.

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Berkey said: "Playing all rivers perfectly over an eight-hour sample—that’s an anomaly that isn’t really statistically possible, especially from a recreational player... When you start to see things that don’t add up, like the least skilled player in the game never showing down a losing hand, that kind of begins to trigger your suspicions."

Poker is the kind of game where those observations can be reasonably made over a large sample. Although you only want to be going to showdown when you're pretty sure you can win (or make your opponent fold), to win in all such scenarios in a game of imperfect and incomplete information is sussy, to say the least.

In which case, maybe cheaters need to get smarter with their play to hide their cheating. But that'd involve actually learning to play, something I doubt they'll bother to do. Mirrors and tiny earpieces it is, then. Let's hope casinos, dealers, and players can keep ahead of the curve.

Jacob got his hands on a gaming PC for the first time when he was about 12 years old. He swiftly realised the local PC repair store had ripped him off with his build and vowed never to let another soul build his rig again. With this vow, Jacob the hardware junkie was born. Since then, Jacob's led a double-life as part-hardware geek, part-philosophy nerd, first working as a Hardware Writer for PCGamesN in 2020, then working towards a PhD in Philosophy for a few years while freelancing on the side for sites such as TechRadar, Pocket-lint, and yours truly, PC Gamer. Eventually, he gave up the ruthless mercenary life to join the world's #1 PC Gaming site full-time. It's definitely not an ego thing, he assures us.