Security and fair play

1. A committed deal

Every hand on Riverline is dealt from a shuffle produced by hardware entropy and a ChaCha20 stream, committed to before the hand begins. The commitment for the next hand is published before the current one ends, so the deck cannot be chosen after play has started. How the shuffle is committed sets out the scheme in full.

A public per-hand lookup, recomputing a finished hand's shuffle in your own browser, is not open, and we do not describe the commitment as a cryptographic guarantee. Recomputing a finished hand needs the number its deck was shuffled from, and that number would also disclose every hole card folded and mucked at that table, to anyone, not only to the players who were in the hand. Cards you did not show belong to you, so that number is kept as evidence and is not published, before or after the hand. Holding it back and releasing it later would disclose the same cards later, so we do not do that either.

The scheme that separates the two is in cryptographic review. This section says so plainly, rather than promising a check you cannot make.

We never see or influence the order of the deck, and neither does any operator skin.

2. Prohibited software and assistance

The following are prohibited at every real-money table and, at our discretion, at play-money tables:

Real-time assistance (RTA): any solver, chart, equity or range tool consulted while a hand is in progress, whether software, a website, a document or another person.
Bots and automation: any software that acts, folds, sits, or selects tables for you, or that plays alongside you.
HUDs and tracking overlays at the table. You may review your own hand histories after the session with any tool you like.
Seating and table-selection scripts, including tools that alert you when specific players sit or leave.
Automated note tools that share or import notes on players.
Remote-desktop, screen-sharing or virtual-machine software running while you play, and multi-device controllers that mirror input.
VPNs, proxies or location spoofing to evade jurisdiction checks.
Data mining of hands you were not dealt into.

Riverline's client collects limited integrity signals while you are seated: summary statistics about the timing and shape of your input, how often the table window lost focus during a decision, and whether the browser reports an automation flag. Every one of them is listed, field by field, in section 2.4 of the Privacy Policy. Nothing outside the table window is read, and no pointer position or keystroke leaves your browser.

3. Collusion and soft play

Two or more players acting together against the table is collusion. It includes sharing hole cards by any channel, coordinating actions, dumping chips, agreeing not to bet against each other ("soft play"), coordinated sit-outs, whipsaw raising, and any agreement about bounties in knockout events. Legitimate exceptions: checking down a hand when a third player is all-in and everyone else is heads-up against them is normal play.

5. Predatory practices

Bum-hunting: repeatedly joining tables only when specific players are seated and leaving when they leave. Persistent patterns are sanctioned.
Hit-and-run and ratholing: leaving with a win and sitting back down short, so the money you took off the table is out of play. Governed by House Rules §3.5.
Buttoning and queue abuse: manipulating seating to avoid blinds.

6. Chip dumping and money laundering

Deliberately losing chips to another player, at any stake, is chip dumping. We treat it as both a fair-play breach and a financial-crime signal, and we report suspicious transactions where the law requires. All deposits and withdrawals are screened, and withdrawals go only to addresses you have verified.

7. How we detect

Riverline runs an integrity pipeline on every hand: timing distributions, action entropy, solver similarity, co-seating graphs, net transfer between pairs of players, funding clusters, device and session shape. Chat is classified for collusion language. Signals open a case for a human integrity analyst. We never act on a score alone: every sanction above a warning is decided by a person with the hand histories in front of them.

8. Sanctions

In rising order, depending on severity and history:

Warning
Removal of rewards and bonuses earned during the period concerned
Temporary suspension
Permanent closure across the whole Riverline network
Forfeiture of funds obtained by or used in a prohibited practice

Only funds obtained by or used in a prohibited practice can be forfeited under 5; the rest of a balance is never forfeited as a sanction. While a case is open we may withhold the whole balance of every account involved. Forfeited funds are returned to the players they were taken from, where those players can be identified. What cannot be returned is held by the operator and dealt with as the law requires; neither the operator nor Riverline keeps it as profit. This is the same rule as Terms of Service 7.2 to 7.4.

9. Appeals

A sanction can be appealed once, in writing, within 72 hours of being told of it, through the Help page, choosing Fair play report. The appeal is read by someone who did not decide the case, and the outcome of an appeal is final within the operator's internal process; it does not affect section 15 of the Terms of Service. This is the same window as House Rules §11, and the two documents mean the same appeal.

10. Reporting a player

If you suspect a player, write to us through the Help page, choosing Fair play report, with the hand ID and roughly when it was dealt, in Eastern time. Reports are confidential; we never tell the reported player who reported them.

11. Reporting a security flaw

If you find a security or fairness flaw in Riverline, tell us before you tell anyone else, through the Help page, choosing the topic Security vulnerability. We do not run a paid bounty programme. We will acknowledge what you sent, tell you what we did about it, and we do not take action against research that stops short of touching another player's account, another player's money or live play.