Where is the "online poker is rigged/is not rigged" thread?

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May 23, 2012, 01:53:54 PM

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[zingbust]

Hi, I can't find any threads anywhere on this forum about people posting whether or not online poker is rigged, I'm interested to know, been playing a lot online, for years actually, and I still don't know one way or the other.

[villaridge]

Had the same questions myself zingbust. I have the following post that a guy named Bubba24 made at another forum, that I copied a long time ago. here it is:

Every once in awhile someone loses a large amount of cash playing poker online to successive bad beats and decides that online poker must be rigged. Someone must be out to cheat him, or a bug in the software got him, or players are colluding against him, or whatever. That’s nonsense. I’ve logged hundreds of thousands of hands and have encountered nothing except normal random fluctuations. My cards have been well within the normal range. Often times the downswings are my own fault.

Let’s tackle the idea that online poker rooms are rigged first. This is complete nonsense. Unless you’re playing at the Bloopers Poker Room(fictitious) which is hosted inside someone’s closet in a country you've never heard of, then I wouldn't worry about it. Look, take Poker Stars for instance; they make millions upon millions of dollars a year in rake from their players. They don’t need to cheat. It's not gonna happen. They have everything in the world to lose if somehow it was found out that they’re cheating their players. And it would be found out. Thousands of players track every single hand they play online with programs like Poker Office. I've mentioned this in some posts. To my knowledge no one has ever shown anything other than normal randomness in the cards being dealt them. If anything fishy was going on, it would become obvious real fast simply by looking at the combined histories of many players. And people have analyzed large databases of players' histories and have found nothing amiss. Poker rooms are not going to cheat you. They have so much more to lose than to gain by doing this.

Some people accuse online poker rooms of sweetening the cards. They believe online poker sites deal more premium hands more often in order to get people excited so they’ll play more. Again, this is nonsense. And again, the hand histories of players would show if this was happening. It is not. You have to remember that in a live casino you’ll see maybe 30 hands an hour. Online you’ll play far more hands. If you play four tables at once as I do, then you’ll see almost eight times the amount of cards per hour as you would see playing live Poker. This explains some of the weirdness we encounter. You’re much more likely to see quads twice in a row playing 240 hands in an hour than you are playing only 30. The mind is programmed to recognize patterns, not randomness. When you’re playing you don’t notice how random the cards are. When was the last time you said to your buddy, “Man, that was a good session, the cards were really random tonight!” But if your sets get beat a few times in a row by monster hands you’ll sure remember that. Or if god forbid you should see quads twice in a row. It must be cheating! No, it’s nothing but normal randomness. Taking a large enough sample, weird statistical anomalies are bound to crop up. The more hands you play, the more often you’ll run into them. There’s nothing at work here other than normal randomness.

Another concern is collusion. There is some collusion going on, but again, it’s not something I lose sleep over. To me it’s kind of like worrying about whether I got overcharged on my $150 grocery bill for .20 cents. I don’t care. First of all, online poker sites are very good at spotting players that collude. If you often sit at a table with the same player, they’re going to take a look at your account. There are patterns they look for. You don’t have to be playing from the same IP in order to get busted. If you and a buddy talk on the cell from two different points on the globe and think you’re not going to get caught, think again. They’ll notice that you adjust your betting pattern whenever you’re in the same room as your buddy, based on his play. They have programs that can spot this stuff quite easily. I know of a guy that once got a refund from an online poker site because it was determined that two players at the table he was sitting at were colluding. I also know of a buddy that was booted from a SNG because his wife was in the same game. They do catch this stuff.

Even if somehow people are able to pull it off, those players that need the extra advantage are often lousy players anyway and end losing a lot of money fast. It’s just not worth the hassle at low-mid levels in order to grind out an extra buck here or there. People that do collude would tend to target high stakes games, and again, their advantage is dubious at best. These guys will get caught, and often they’ll just lose their money anyway as the advantage they gain is small. You’d need to be a pro to really use the edge gained from collusion, and pros don’t need to bother with cheating.

I love playing online because you play far more hands per hour, and you don’t have a smelly drunk guy sitting next to you. You also don’t have to tip. I honestly think that the amount of money you’d lose over a lifetime of playing online poker to collusion is much less than that you’d pay in tips in live games. So don’t worry about it. If you suspect someone of collusion, just move to another table. Or just report the names and game and hand numbers to the poker site. They will run an investigation.

The final concern that people ask about is hacking. They’re afraid someone will hack into their account and steal their money. Hacking the servers of online poker sites is not going to happen. The encryption that sites use now is almost bullet proof. It would be like trying to hack into the national bank of the USA , it's not gonna happen. A valid concern that I will mention is that YOU could get hacked. Your own personal computer. If you’re not using a good firewall with an updated anti-virus program, then you’re at risk for all kinds of nasty stuff. The worst of which could be a key logger that could record everything you type on your computer, including poker site account passwords! Although you don’t have to worry about online poker sites being insecure, you very much need to worry about the security of your personal computer.

The bottom line is that if you keep your own computer secure and play only at the top poker sites that have positive reviews, then cheating online is really a non-issue. There is no shortcut to winning at online poker.

[zingbust]

I’ve logged hundreds of thousands of hands and have encountered nothing except normal random fluctuations. My cards have been well within the normal range.

There could be a difference between players who have logged hundreds of thousands of hands in mostly cash games compared to players who have logged hundreds of thousands of hands in tournaments. What I would really like to know is are there any players like the one you quoted who are absolutely convinced that online poker is not rigged, who don't ever play cash games, only tournaments?

I too have logged hundreds of thousands of hands, but I don't see anything at all close to randomness. I don't play cash games, I only play tournaments. In private tournaments, I have average luck, I can win events occasionally, and am overall pleased with my results. It's the public tournaments I'm worried about. After logging hundreds of thousands of hands at sites like UB and AP, I don't think I need any more blanket statements telling me my opinions are nonsense.

What gets me wondering if it isn't just variance, though, is that we all know that UB and AP are honest and straightforward about their business practices. Those 2 sites are 2 of the biggest and most well-known sites around. Yet, in large public tournaments, I can't even finish in the money, let alone finish deep. And this, after logging hundreds of thousands of hands. If I'm good enough to win in private tournaments, where the competition is relatively tough, and luck seems to work both for me and against me, then why shouldn't the same be true of large public tournaments at UB and AP?

My stats are as follows at these 2 sites....

If the tournament pays 50 places.... I finish 51st through 75th 70% of the time and finish randomly between 76th and the number of players in the tourney (400-600 players) the other 30% of the time.

If the tournament pays 60 places... I finish 61st through 85th 72% of the time and finish randomly between 86th and the number of players in the touney (600-800 players) the other 28% of the time.

If the tounament pays 70 places... I finish in the money .5% of the time (one money finish), I finish between 71st and 95th 68% of the time, and finish randomly between 96th and the number of players in the field (700-900 players) the other 31.5% of the time.

Why is it possible for me to finish in the money in private tournaments 14.8% of the time, yet in large public tournaments only .2% of the time (1 out of 500 tournaments)?

The same is not true when I play at Stars or FullTilt, only AP and UB. Yet AP and UB are supposedly great sites with honest management, etc., right?

[witchywitchy]

Variance not only comes from the deal but the play.

In a large public tournament :

The beginning play maybe loose. People looking to double up quickly will play any face card, suited connectors, non-suited connectors, suited gaps, non-suited gaps... think you get the idea. There are people in hands that shouldn't be and that obviously affects the outcome of a hand, as they hit the one or two outer

Small, private tournaments :

You said it yourself, the play is better. For the most part, these are the players who play the odds, know the outs, look at position. Its a differernt poker game.


The deal hasn't changed... the players have. The outcome in any sport has to do with the experience of the players. If my Mom played centerfield for the White Sox - everyone would be hitting to centerfield... and would be getting doubles and triples. Now would you ask if the ball were juiced or the bat tampered with? No... you would recognize there was someone playing in centerfield who couldn't catch much less throw the ball. Hence every batter's odds of getting a hit had gone up... a lot

Poker - online or not is more than just the deal of the cards. You have to look at the entire picture and take all facts into consideration when looking at the results

[villaridge]

Just another thought on this matter. And that is that people play crazy hands. Who knows why, it could be a donkey or a pro that is bored. My point is that people play crazy hand's. I see it all of the time with online poker.

Instead of blaming the site and thinking it is rigged, I think it is the crazy play that produces amazing suckouts time after time. Mainly because I usually see crazy play EVERYTIME i play.

I have never played live (well, except once, but that's another story). But what I hear from live players, they also see, regularly, consistently see crazy play.

So you might chalk up your variance at UB and AP to the fact there are simply more donkeys there.  I certainly think so.