Online poker rooms spend heavily on detection software, but some of the best tips still come from players who notice something odd at the table. WPT Global has built a formal system around that idea. Its Rewarding Integrity in Poker programme, abbreviated RIP, pays players who help identify cheaters, and as of October 23, 2026 the room has removed the fee for reports sent by email. With cheating allegations dominating poker headlines this autumn, the details of how a player can actually report a suspected cheat, and what happens next, are worth knowing whichever site you play on.
What the RIP Programme Is
According to PokerListings, RIP is an internal WPT Global programme designed to reward active members of the player community who help the room identify cheaters. It is one of a small number of rooms that attach a financial incentive to fair-play reports.
The process works like this:
- A player files a report through the in-lobby feature or by email.
- WPT Global reviews each report. Reports made with malicious intent or containing misleading content are not processed.
- If a violation is confirmed, the room penalises the cheaters and compensates the players who were affected.
- The reporter then receives a bounty from any remaining funds.
The ordering is important. Affected players are compensated first, and the bounty to the reporter comes only from what is left over. That structure keeps the incentive aligned with the real goal, which is recovering money for victims, rather than paying for volume of reports.
How to Report a Suspicious Hand From the Table
The in-client tool is straightforward. PokerListings outlines four steps:
- Click Hands in the bottom-left corner of the client.
- Select a suspicious hand from the full hand history.
- Click the exclamation mark in the speech bubble above the miniature table.
- Select the players you want checked, enter an email address to receive the results, and click Submit.
Anyone who has ever tried to dig through a hand history after a strange session will appreciate that the report is tied to a specific hand rather than a vague complaint. Specific hands give investigators something concrete to examine and make it easier for them to compare patterns across many hands.
The Fee Structure and the Email Loophole
Here is where the programme has an unusual feature. The first in-lobby fair game check is free. Each later in-lobby report costs $25, deducted from the player's account. According to the article, the fee exists to discourage abuse of the system, including attempts to harm innocent players by flooding the room with unfounded reports.
As of October 23, 2026, reports sent by email do not carry a fee. PokerListings therefore recommends that players use the free in-lobby check once and send any later reports by email, or go through their affiliate manager. The article also lists what an email report should include: as much tournament or table data as possible, player nicknames, the relevant hand history, and a detailed explanation of why the reporter believes fair play was breached.
A $25 charge is small compared with the stakes some players play for, but it is a real deterrent for casual spite reports. The decision to waive the fee for emailed reports suggests WPT Global would rather make reporting easy and rely on the review process to filter out bad-faith submissions than put a financial barrier in front of honest players.
Why This Matters Now
The timing is not accidental. Poker's integrity problem has been the biggest story of the last month. Our earlier coverage of the poker superuser scandal and the warnings sent to sites described how malware-linked software updates allegedly gave a suspected cheater access to the screens of high-stakes players, and how a poker coach sent an analysis of the suspect account to GGPoker in September. Operators have since rolled out technical responses: ACR is switching on ScreenShield by default on November 4, and GGPoker has introduced Screen Guard and win-rate anomaly detection along with a ban on a long list of third-party software.
Those measures are largely automated. RIP is a different kind of tool: it formalises player reports as a source of intelligence. In the cases that have drawn headlines this year, human observation played a significant role. The suspect account at the centre of the superuser case was flagged after multiple players reported unusual activity, which in turn led to malware details being released publicly. That is a reminder that statistical detection and player vigilance work best together.
WPT Global is also not new to the topic. We previously covered the room's bot-ban announcements and its partnership with GTO Wizard on anti-cheating. RIP adds a community-facing layer to those back-end efforts.
Strengths and Limits of Paying for Reports
Rewarding reports has clear advantages. It encourages players who see something suspicious to say so, rather than leaving the table or quietly stopping play. It can surface patterns that detection algorithms miss, particularly collusion between players that looks normal on a hand-by-hand basis. And it gives affected players a route to compensation.
It also has limits that players should understand:
- No guarantee of outcome. Reports are reviewed, but not every report leads to action, and a room is not obliged to share its evidence.
- Risk of false accusations. The fee on additional in-lobby reports and the rule against malicious reports exist because the system can be gamed. Reports intended to harm a rival will not be processed.
- Incentive distortion. Any bounty system can encourage players to over-report. WPT Global's approach of paying only after victims are compensated and only from leftover funds mitigates that risk, but it does not remove it.
- Limited visibility. Players are told results by email, not given full investigation files. That is standard practice across the industry, but it means players must trust the room's process.
What This Means for Players
Learn the reporting tools on every site you play. Whatever room you use, find out in advance how to flag a hand and whom to email. In a live situation you will not want to hunt for the option. Our safe poker sites page lists what to look for in a room's security and support.
Document before you report. Take note of the tournament or table, player screen names, the date and time, and specific hand numbers. A report that explains why a hand looks wrong, rather than simply stating a suspicion, is more likely to be actionable.
Protect your own machine. Cheating in the current wave has involved compromised third-party software rather than the poker client itself. Keep your operating system updated, only install tools from trusted sources and read the software rules of each room. See our guide to how poker sites catch bots and real-time assistance for context on what operators are watching.
Do not accuse in public chat. Use the formal channel. Public accusations can breach site rules and make a genuine case harder to investigate.
Keep perspective. Most of the time an unlikely beat is just variance. Our poker odds page is a useful sanity check before assuming something is wrong.
Final Thoughts
WPT Global's RIP programme is a pragmatic response to a trust problem that no operator can fully solve with software alone. By paying reporters from recovered funds, compensating victims first and dropping the fee for emailed reports, the room has built an incentive structure that is easy to use and reasonably resistant to abuse. Whether it produces a measurable drop in cheating will depend on how transparently the room reports outcomes, but for players who want to take an active role in protecting the games they play, it is a useful tool, and a model other rooms could copy.