Meet the Engineer Trying to Build AI That Reads Poker Tells

^{The interface of Luke Geel's AI technology shown on ESPN during a broadcast of the 2026 World Series of Poker. (Photo: Luke Geel / LinkedIn )}

Let’s face it – artificial intelligence is becoming prevalent in our society. Whether it’s school kids looking to avoid writing an essay, computer programmers examining lines of code, or even doctors diagnosing illnesses, AI usage has exploded in recent years.x

Even in the sports world, predictive AI is being used, sometimes to the detriment of the game. According to The Athletic, Major League Baseball recently restricted its 30 teams from using generative AI on league-provided iPads, after the tools became a go-to for club personnel making in-game decisions. A memo from the league's baseball operations office said the custom AI apps had expanded "beyond their originally intended purpose to include recommendations regarding substitutions, pitch calling, and other in-game decisions traditionally made by players and coaches.

Poker is also a sport (or game, depending on your interpretation) that has had a love-hate relationship with technology. Some players stick with old-school gut instincts and familiarity with the opponent. Others prefer to opt for strategies like game theory optimal (GTO) play and computer analysis. Now, poker very well may be on the verge of the next step in technological development: an AI built to read players’ physical tells.

That next step may already be underway, thanks to a civilian AI engineer named Luke Geel, who works with the military. Casinos.com sat down with Geel to discuss a poker-tells AI tool he’s been building that analyzes video of a player's physical behavior and predicts what they're likely to do at the table.

ESPN has already used his technology during its broadcast coverage of the 2026 WSOP Main Event, and Geel says a handful of players have reached out to see what it can do.

'I’ve Always Been a Math Guy'

Geel graduated from the University of Massachusetts – Amherst with a degree in math and economics. He told Casinos.com in a recent interview that working in AI has been something he has been doing for many years before poker entered the picture.

“I’ve always been a math guy." Geel said. "When I got my Master's in AI from Johns Hopkins University, I was trying to find a way to implement my work. Right now, I am a civilian AI engineer working with the military.” 

But one thing Geel wanted to do was to use his knowledge through another outlet that he enjoyed – poker. 

“I played a little with my friends, and I’ve always enjoyed the math and probabilities around the game,” Geel noted. “It started as a personal interest project, but it has expanded since then.”

Geel saw AI reshape the world of entertainment through song and video generation, leading him to reflect on his dalliances with poker. With about six years of experience in the game, Geel settled on the idea of an AI to read players’ poker tells. 

Decoding poker tells has been an area of interest in poker ever since the 1970s. Mike Caro, dubbed “The Mad Genius of Poker,” Mike Caro, wrote the influential "Caro’s Book of Poker Tells" in 2003. In that book (and over 320 pages), Caro broke down players' actions at the table and identified what their twitches, shrugs, and involuntary movements meant. 

Programming the AI 

What goes into the formulation of the AI? Geel says the process is similar to what Caro did when he wrote his book, but with the technology compiling and analyzing the data instead of a person.

“As long as I have the footage of a player from live play or online streaming, it can be something analyzed by the AI,” Geel said. “I don’t necessarily have to have played against the person previously for this information to be used.”

Likewise, the AI doesn’t generalize this to all players. Geel says it focuses on a singular player and their behavior to provide a reliable profile of that person’s tendencies.

The technology analyzes a player’s body language at the poker table, including facial expressions, mouth and eye movements, torso lean, and upper-body movements. The hands are especially critical to the analysis, according to Geel. 

Luke Geel's AI poker software displays squares around the different body parts and movements it observes. (Photo: Luke Geel / LinkedIn)

“Are they messing with their chips?” he said. “Are their hands loose? Or are they tightened? Every single possible movement and vocal action is useful information that can be analyzed.”

ESPN’s On Board, But What About Poker Skeptics?

ESPN has been integral to bringing attention to Geel’s AI pursuits. The sports network asked him if they could use it, and he gave them the green light. Now, ESPN has been using Geel’s technology during its 2026 WSOP Main Event broadcast coverage. 

A couple of unnamed players have even reached out to Geel about his technology, though he says that he has worked with other AI engineers working in the same space.

Technology and poker haven’t always been on the best of terms. There are movements in the tournament world to keep tech out of the game, through restrictions on “smart glasses” and other tools. But Geel is quick to state that he isn’t looking to develop this poker-tells AI for such use. 

“Smart glasses don’t have the computing power, and you can’t record on a cell phone at the tables, either,” Geel stated. “For my AI to work, it would be critical to have prior video information that can be input.”

Still, there has been some apprehension about Geel’s work.

“People online say that this is going to ruin the game,” Geel said. “I see it as net neutral. While you can use it on other players, you can also use it on yourself to help eliminate your tells, or perhaps even implement reverse tells that your opponents would think are true.” 

He says broadcasters would likely find the tool useful for its predictive value. For players, it could go either way: those who use it would have an advantage, while those who don't could be at a disadvantage.

Whether the poker-tells AI project grows into something bigger is still “up in the air” for Geel at this moment.

“It would take hours of input to come up with base information on the top players, a massive amount of time,” Geel says. “I’m still experimenting with it. I’ve got to see if it is worth investing more time on. If all I get out of it is seeing it on ESPN, then that’s a nice achievement. It’s up in the air as to whether it becomes a bigger thing or not.”

AI is simply part of life in the 21st century, and it’s here to stay in sports, including poker.  Poker players, who tend to be rather Luddite with technology in the game, may have one more thing to think about if Geel’s AI project continues to take flight.