Americas Cardroom to Make ScreenShield Default Across WPN on Nov. 4
Players can still disable the capture-blocking tool in the client, while WPN says a review of more than 2 million MeshAgent-linked hands found no hole-card use.
- ScreenShield will be enabled by default for Winning Poker Network players beginning Nov. 4.
- The client setting will let players disable the tool for legitimate uses including streaming, recording and coaching.
- WPN reviewed more than 2 million hands tied to devices where MeshAgent was detected and found no evidence of hole-card use in the examined hands.
- The network is considering, but has not adopted, tighter rules on third-party software used alongside its poker client.
Americas Cardroom will switch ScreenShield on by default across the Winning Poker Network on Nov. 4, extending a table-protection tool that had initially been applied to selected accounts after remote-access software concerns.
The protection is designed to prevent covered screen-capture and screen-sharing methods from exposing poker-table content, including hole cards. Players will still see their cards, action and tables normally, while a dedicated setting in the client will allow them to turn ScreenShield off for streaming, session recording, content creation or coaching.
As we reported in September, WPN initially activated ScreenShield for players whose devices met its remote-access or screen-control detection criteria. At that stage, any player could request the feature from support, with activation potentially taking up to 48 hours.
The network said its Game Integrity team has since reviewed more than 2 million hands involving players whose devices had MeshAgent detected. It found no evidence in those hands that reviewed players used knowledge of hole cards while playing on WPN.
About 200,000 of the reviewed hands belonged to Paul Gregg. WPN said it found no evidence that Gregg could see opponents’ cards or made decisions using hole-card knowledge on the network, but closed his account after considering broader investigative information and communicating with other operators. The company said the account action was separate from its gameplay finding.
WPN said its systems, poker software and official downloads were not compromised. It also cautioned that detecting remote-access capability does not itself establish a device was breached or that cheating occurred.
ScreenShield is not intended to solve every integrity risk. A cybersecurity investigator interviewed by GipsyTeam said the tool may help against some basic capture threats, but had not tested it and could not say whether it would prevent MeshAgent attacks. The company likewise acknowledged that the feature can affect legitimate recording and streaming.
WPN is also assessing, but has not finalized, a broader policy that could bar third-party software from running alongside its poker client. The network said it is weighing whether tighter restrictions can reduce security and game-integrity risks without unnecessarily disrupting legitimate player use.
