YOUR CHOICES MATTER
Privacy and cookies
Play without creating an account
You can play with a nickname. Black Sheep Poker creates a random visitor identifier to recognise your browser and associate it with your play chips, profile and active table. We do not ask for an email address or password to create a player profile.
If you use a hosted version that requires platform authentication, the hosting platform performs that check. When an authenticated identifier is available, it may be used to maintain your player profile between visits.
Data used to run games
The server stores your profile identifier, nickname, virtual balance, bonus claim time and room state. Other players can see your nickname, the chips you have at the table and your public actions. Private cards remain hidden from opponents until the rules of the game reveal them.
The visitor cookie is called river_player and can last up to 365 days. It is essential, uses HttpOnly and SameSite=Lax, and uses Secure on HTTPS connections. The server stores a hash of the visitor token. Deleting this cookie may prevent an anonymous visitor from recovering their profile. Deleting cookies does not automatically remove server records.
Preferences in your browser
Your choice about optional advertising is saved in your browser’s local storage under river:consent, along with its version and the time it was updated. This existing name is retained so that previous choices remain valid after the change to Black Sheep Poker.
Essential session and game features continue to work if you reject optional advertising. You can review your choice using the cookie preferences control. Withdrawing advertising consent stops future ad loading; if the ad script has already loaded, the page reloads to apply the change.
Language and country information
A language explicitly included in the page URL takes priority. Otherwise, the site uses your saved language choice and then, if available, a country code supplied by the hosting provider in CF-IPCountry. Supported Portuguese-speaking countries default to Portuguese; supported Spanish-speaking countries default to Spanish. Other countries, missing country information and unknown codes default to English.
Your manual language choice is stored in the bsp_locale cookie for up to 365 days. It is used to remember the interface language and is independent of your advertising choice. Changing language does not reset your chips, current table or saved advertising consent.
Language selection does not request precise location, contact an external geolocation service or write your country to the player profile. It does not use the browser’s language header to replace the English fallback. A country code is a suggestion for the initial language, not a statement about your nationality or exact location; you can change the language at any time.
Optional advertising
Black Sheep Poker has advertising spaces in the lobby, in the blog and above the table when the screen has enough room. Without advertising settings, these spaces show a placeholder. When Google AdSense is configured, its script loads only after you consent to advertising. Rejecting advertising keeps third-party ads from loading through this integration.
If you allow and load ads, Google may receive information such as your IP address, browser, the page you visit and its own identifiers. Google’s Privacy Policy explains how that provider handles information. In regions where the provider requires a certified consent management platform, the operator must configure it before activating advertising.
Blog administration
Publishing on the blog requires an administrative password separate from the game. The river_editor cookie lasts up to eight hours and is protected by a signature, HttpOnly and SameSite=Strict. It also uses Secure on HTTPS connections.
Login attempts are limited within a 15-minute window using a hash derived from the source address when available; local requests without that information share a limiter. These controls help protect articles from unauthorised changes. The administrative password is not part of a player profile.
Retention and control
Game and profile data remain stored so that play can continue between visits. This version does not automatically delete those records. You can remove cookies and local storage through your browser settings; this removes local identification and preferences, but does not erase records already stored on the server.
The operator responsible for this installation should provide a contact channel before opening the service to the public, including for requests to access, correct or delete data. This page describes the application’s technical behaviour and should be updated if new services or data collection are added. Any separate hosting or advertising services may have their own data handling policies.