Ever get the feeling that online poker is rigged?

On quite a few sites now they have independent auditors (usually Price Waterhouse Coopers), They say that:
"We have performed standard stastical tests on the records of the decks generated by the random number generator (RNG) contained within the log files provided to us by management. We confirm that based on our testing of these log files covering the period 1 July 2004 to 30 Sept 2004:
- Cards dealt in each poker game were selected from a standard deck of fifty two playing cards; and
- The cards were dealt from the deck such that each card had an equal chance of being selected unless it had already been dealt in the same poker game"

I suppose this goes some way to allaying fears, but I don't like the fact that managemnt supplied the logs, rather than PWC just getting them directly off the servers.. who knows if the figures have been diddled.

I also don't like the system of choosing the next card 'on-the-fly' rather than using the RNG to shuffle a deck first and then deal from that deck (just like in the real game). The on-the-fly method relies on time as well as the RNG, so taking a few milliseconds longer on a check or call will result in a different card being turned. If the whole deck was 'shuffled' (via RNG) first and then cards dealt from that, you know that the flop, turn and river are FIXED and cannot change (even though you don't know what they are yet).

As the cards are chosen 'on-the-fly' if the pokersites want to get up to some shenanigans then they can quite easliy (I'll get my broom . A card could be changed before it is dealt when using the on-the-fly method and there is no real signs to indicate any naughtiness - a different card can simply be chosen. If the deck is pre-shuffled though, you would have to change the whole deck to change a single card within. Logs would indicate which 'shuffled' pack was used to play with, and tampering would be IMMEDIATELY obvious (to auditor type dudes).

Just my 2 cents!

Buster Gonad
(minus 2 cents)

If so many of you are convinced that all, most, or even some poker sites are "rigged", why do you keep playing? How stupid would someone have to be to keep throwing their money away in a crooked game? Hands down, that is even dumber than the rigging allegations themselves!

I submit a new nominee for "Most Ludicrous Post of the Month".

it's not rigging the cards that let's someone win or lose. it's dealing the action flops to keep at least two people betting to the river. one person is delt k,k while the other is delt k,q...then the flop comes Q,J,10...if a flop like that doesnt give the house a bigger rake...i dont' know what does..too many sites have action flops that have flush, pairs, open end and gutshot straights on every hand. you almost never see a board such as this q,5,a,6,2...almost every flop is 6,6,7,8,a or something like that...if the site can get people betting to the river, they get a bigger rake...no question about it if you ask me...it's the action flops that do it for the sites

I have noticed alot of "action flops online" It seems that every time aplayer has a great hand preflop someone will have monster as well.and also some of the bad beats I have taken while waiting for mywithdrawl to clear r rediculas.They have the nerve to offer to cancel your withdrawl instead of making additional deposits that just seems kind of fishy to me.

I have put some real bad beats on people offline but i swear some of the ones online just kill me. After making approximately 200 in a week two weeks ago ive lost more than half of it and they all seem to be bad beats ( at least most of them lol). When you go on a bad run everything seems lk a bad beat

hey i hear ya i feel that way sometimes but i think alot of the time its just the way cards work sometimes.ive seen crazy things happen in live games too!!but i really believe that the casino games are manipulated to a percentage of payout(obviously)but when getting a no deposit bonus the site knows exactly how many hands you have to spin or play and have it calculated to the dollar to not be any cash left when you are finally eligible for the cashout..but poker sites i believe more honest their money comes from the rake so they really shouldnt care who wins!! unless there are bots or playwers that play for the site. my fweelings and thoughts anyway... racefanswife

I too feel like some fishy things happen online that wouldnt in a home game. I just think they are subtle enough to go undetected..

In my opinion, it is not rigged but the random num. generator basically is reshuffling after every card displayed..(difff between live and online) most important is the collusion aspect of multiple phone.. or ip addresses..or friends im'ing or talking on phone from across town or country ...known people who have done it ..but the sites keep track of certain things

We also see a much greater amount of hands online in an hour as compared to online ...so the beats look more frequent....and accumulate in your memory as such...it all depends on how you decipher that...realize its online..more hands an hour...and go on...use your normal statistic's such as how many times will i hit a flush n this scenario...etc. etc..to me this is why it looks rigged....

i meant to say we see more hands online an hour as compared to live...thanks...first day with my 10 thumbs

That's the first time I've heard that the RNG is active throughout the hand. I have always been under the impression that the RNG assembles the entire hand prior to the deal, then reveals the cards. Can anyone else confirm that the RGN is "reshuffling" the remaining deck before each card? If so, that only further diminishes the host's ability to stack a hand and cuts even deeper into the conspiracy theory.

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Homeless



Joined: 21 Jan 2004
Posts: 2

Posted: Wed Jan 21, 2004 7:11 pm Post subject: HOW RANDOM IS POKERSTARS REALLY??????????????????

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Please let me know what your feelings are regarding Pokerstars randomness they said they have proof from randomness but i dont think it is so random maybe its just me! but alot of weird and bad beats more then anyother site

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EmpireMaker2



Joined: 04 Feb 2004
Posts: 6

Posted: Wed Feb 04, 2004 12:42 am Post subject:

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I have experinced this to, to the point that I have quit playing pokerstars. I have talked to a person that says the hand genarator that they have is far less then any other poker room. This causes posssible flushes on every hand, or straights. It really started bugging me when I played Omaha causing an amazing hand to win a pot.

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TexasGonzo



Joined: 06 Feb 2004
Posts: 1
Location: Waco Texas
Posted: Fri Feb 06, 2004 11:13 pm Post subject: Pokerstars is NOT random on the Shuffle

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Finally, I have searched for a place to voice my opinion about this site, Pokerstars is an easy to use site loaded with players. I have never played at their pay tables (and never will) because if the card shuffle is the same as their play tables then they are for sure corupt, i have played on their site and many others over the last year (daily) and I can tell you for darn sure that there is NO #WAY they are fair, flushes come up about every 3rd hand, much more often than straights, and at least 2 out of every 4 times I fold on the pre flop I have noticed that one or both of my cards will show up in the flop, after having played real poker for the last 30+ years and have a math background I know the odds of poker (real poker) if you want to gamble (and I do mean gamble) play on their site, because if sure is NOT real poker (Texas hold em are the games I have been talking about here) I would never tell anyone to play for real money on that site unless as I have said, you want to really gamble, because thats all you will be doing.

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2fouroffsuit



Joined: 27 May 2004
Posts: 23
Location: Arvada
Posted: Fri May 28, 2004 7:17 pm Post subject: once again may be old but...

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first of all, i firmly believe that it is random. With that said, let me explain a few things and feel free to correct me on anything that you believe is false.

the main thing that is different from "real" poker is that things are done at a much more accelerated pace... you will see 2-3 times as many hands as you will sitting at a normal card room. Therefore with the same amount of bad beats proportionally, you will expect to se 2-3 times as many bad beats.

Next, do you think pokerstars cares? do you think they have people sitting there on computers programming the next card to be a miracle card? that would require way too much effort. their code is as random if not more random than any other site. It would take entirely way to much work to get the code to favor any particular person or draw...

this is from pokerstars's security page:
A deck of 52 cards can be shuffled in 52! ways. 52! is about 2225. We use 249 random bits from both entropy sources (user input and thermal noise) to achieve an even and unpredictable statistical distribution.
Furthermore, we apply conservative rules to enforce the required degree of randomness; for instance, if user input does not generate required amount of entropy, we do not start the next hand until we obtain the required amount of entropy from Intel RNG.
We use the SHA-1 cryptographic hash algorithm to mix the entropy gathered from both sources to provide an extra level of security
We also maintain a SHA-1-based pseudo-random generator to provide even more security and protection from user data attacks
To convert random bit stream to random numbers within a required range without bias, we use a simple and reliable algorithm. For example, if we need a random number in the range 0-25:
we take 5 random bits and convert them to a random number 0-31
if this number is greater than 25 we just discard all 5 bits and repeat the process
This method is not affected by biases related to modulus operation for generation of random numbers that are not 2n, n = 1,2,..
To perform an actual shuffle, we use another simple and reliable algorithm:
first we draw a random card from the original deck (1 of 52) and place it in a new deck - now original deck contains 51 cards and the new deck contains 1 card
then we draw another random card from the original deck (1 of 51) and place it on top of the new deck - now original deck contains 50 cards and the new deck contains 2 cards
we repeat the process until all cards have moved from the original deck to the new deck
This algorithm does not suffer from "Bad Distribution Of Shuffles" described in [2]


although i do believe that it is typical for poor players to find things to blame their losses on... because obviously it could not be thier own fault.
Getting outdrawn and bad beats are part of the game... if you can't deal with that, than in the words of Doc Holiday, " Maybe poker isn't your game"

From one who has been outdrawn on more than anyone here except maybe juice...

-2four

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Juice



Joined: 16 Jan 2004
Posts: 112
Location: Probably at a poker table
Posted: Sat May 29, 2004 8:24 am Post subject:

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Quote: although i do believe that it is typical for poor players to find things to blame their losses on... because obviously it could not be thier own fault.

Hey, is that a crack at me? 8)

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2fouroffsuit



Joined: 27 May 2004
Posts: 23
Location: Arvada
Posted: Mon May 31, 2004 5:50 am Post subject: nah never

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nah it wasnt a crack it was saying that, we all had our fair share of suckouts against us and i think that you would have more than me because you have been playing longer and i think that you are usually holding the better hand and people having to outdraw you to win...



nah juice i wouldn't makee a crack like that on you..

-2four

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bubaseballfan
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Posted: Sat Jun 05, 2004 2:43 am Post subject: fairness of pokerstars and others

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Posted: Fri May 28, 2004 7:17 pm Post subject: once again may be old but...

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first of all, i firmly believe that it is random. With that said, let me explain a few things and feel free to correct me on anything that you believe is false.

the main thing that is different from "real" poker is that things are done at a much more accelerated pace... you will see 2-3 times as many hands as you will sitting at a normal card room. Therefore with the same amount of bad beats proportionally, you will expect to se 2-3 times as many bad beats.


Next, do you think pokerstars cares? do you think they have people sitting there on computers programming the next card to be a miracle card? that would require way too much effort. their code is as random if not more random than any other site. It would take entirely way to much work to get the code to favor any particular person or draw...

>>>This last paragraph is exactly where you and others who believe in the randomness of the cards being generated. The obvious reason why the site provides outs for so many people is to keep more people in the hands, and thereby increasing the rake on each hand ever so slightly. With the 10s of thousands of hands being dealt daily, if the poker site can manage to increase the action enough to raise the rake $.10 per hand, that's $100,000 per million hands, and I believe that the sites go through about 1,000,000 hands every week or so. That's a 5.2 million dollar increase in revenue a year. It's about money, not about programming the code to work for a particular person.
On another note, I have taken my hand history from these sites and done a statistical analysis on the amount of flush possibilities, straight draws, and rainbow flops, none of which come close to live poker hand percentages...so I guess I disagree with you that online poker-rooms are exactly random, and yes, it is obvious that they are not.

If any of you find any that are not "rigged" please post, the most faithful until recently was pacificpoker.com, but recently they required a "software update" and they too have turned hot. Others who have been proven to be somewhat unrealistic are: pokerstars, party/empire poker, pokerroom

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Juice
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Joined: 16 Jan 2004
Posts: 112
Location: Probably at a poker table
Posted: Sat Jun 05, 2004 6:56 am Post subject:

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I have played over 100,000 hands at Poker Stars and have them all stored in a PokerTracker (an awesome program used to analyze your play) database. Virtually everything is statistically as it should be. It should be noted that when I only had 20,000 hands in the database there were a lot of statistical anomalies. My point being that you must analazye a lot more hands that you'd probably suspect in order to get an accurate representation of the kinds of hands being dealt.

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Widersacher
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Joined: 23 Jul 2004
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Location: Paderborn, Germany
Posted: Fri Jul 23, 2004 10:08 am Post subject: Re: once again may be old but...

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Quote: [color=darkblue]A deck of 52 cards can be shuffled in 52! ways. 52! is about 2225.

I don't believe that this is right.
My calculator says 8,0658175170943878571660636856404e+67.
But this figure is about 2^225.5 perhaps that is meant.

Widersacher

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Okay, thanks for sharing all of the above, but isn't that just another excerpt from another forum group discussing the same subject? I'm looking for documentation from a recognized, authoritative third party poker source. We can quote other poker geeks all day if we want to. Gets us nowhere.

I usually hear people suggest the game is rigged when...

1) Someone goes all in with say, 4 7, and makes a str8 - the game's rigged then for the noob to win. If they wanted the noob to win, I would think they'd give him decent starting hands, not reward the fact he played crap. That makes no sense.
2) The big stack wins more. Duh. The fact that they have the big stack proves the poker gods are on his side today (but who wants to admit luck is actually a factor, oh, no, it's entirely skill), Plus the big stack can afford to play more marginal hands.
3) (my favorite) all tournaments end at the same time, so obviously the game is rigged to end after a certain time. Hello? the blind determine the game ending. How long is a tourn going to last once the blinds are, say, 100k? I was at Absolute once (the king of technical problems) when the blinds stopped going up after around 3 hours. 5 hours later we were still playing, with people rarely getting knocked out (we were some serious addicts).
Though I am curious about what, if any regulations there are. For example, at the casinos, video poker has to have the same odds of certain hands hitting as there would be if the cards were dealt from a deck. Are there any regulations at all on line? Are there any for US based ones, but not European?
Oh, and as I mentioned in a different posting, I don't know anyone who got their free $20 at Royal Vegas who didn't win for the first couple weeks. So I think that program's set to give the noobs better hands.

i often wonder this same thing. it would certainly appear as such. or maybe i'm a sore loser, lol. but it does make you wonder if the random seating ends up ........less than random, and the predetermination of winners, there is a whole new topic. hagd

Pokersites are not rigged, sheesh! How can you think just because you have a bad streak or get beaten by a foolish player doing something stupid counts as rigged.

Odds are odds and sometimes the 1:100 does happen and sometimes more often than 1:100. I had pockets aces dealt to me twice in a row and 4 times in that one tourney. I did not lose any of them either because I played them very strong and did not allow the badbeat to come my way. I also have won my share of "Big Blind Specials" as I call them. The most memorable was a 72os and no one raised preflop and I flopped 2 pair. The rive gave me a fullboat and I won my allin bet against AA and a flush in the small blind. Rigged no, lucky yes to be sitting in the BB otherwise I am folding preflop.

Were the 50/50 races in your favor the first month before the outcome and what about in the 2nd month. Those stats are too hard to decifer properly, we need more info!

Same goes for the badbeats. Perhaps you folded 50 possible badbeat hands because you are not a stupid, reckless player!

Do you win ever game of War or Go Fish against your kids? I don't. Perhaps it is rigged or they are cheating. Nope just the luck or badluck of the games we play!

I have to say that I sometimes strongly feel that the pokerroom may be rigged (if there is such thing). Yesterday day night i was insanely lucky, so i dont complain. But in the meantime: The pokersites could never gain something in having their site rigged. Because they want players to come back. They just take the rake, and thats it. Afterall, anything can happen in poker, and sometimes, you're simply unlucky.

I play at several sites and often if i start losing at 1 i will try my "luck" at another and more often than not will lose a bit there -
People - its called a losing streak!

It happened just last weekend, i couldnt get a decent hand for 2 days and then whammo i managed to win $25 with a full house and havent looked back since - picking out bluffs etc
People - its called a winning streak!

Toss a coin and call heads or tails it is not 50\50 - is the coin rigged?

iANft

I feel the same way as Rammer, I assume the RNG sets up the deck pre-hand. Been a C programmer for over 20 years and this is the way I'd do it. Having the RNG active throughout the hand goes against the premise of poker that the deck is shuffled pre-deal. Not sure the auditors would buy this as it allows the players to potentially influence the cards.

See my thread titled "A work of fiction" for another take on this issue...

Chips, my pocket aces have been called often by 8-3 off and the like, even when I'm all in. I've played large pocket pairs in every way, bet big, limp in and trap, all in pre-flop, etc. There is no guarantee you won't get called...

How could the players influence the cards, Dave?

Or did you mean to say "the poker room"?

This is the first angle I've heard that even remotely begins to make sense. I still don't buy it from the "they've got more to lose than to gain by cheating" standpoint. But at least it's a feasible explanation for the potential motivation to build rakes by stacking hands.

Example: Full ring last week at a Noble .25/.50 NLHE table. The board came out garbage with a 9 high. No straights. No flushes. Three players, myself included, stayed in for the showdown after escalating bets each round took the pot to a large size. The hole cards? A9, K9, Q9.

Keep in mind, though, that most poker rooms will place a cap on the rakes for each hand. Once the pot reaches a predetermined level, the poker room has made all the money it's going to off that hand.

Once again, there are hundreds of poker sites with more appearing everyday and I wouldn't trust them all, and certainly not with my CC#. Your only safeguard is to stick with well established poker rooms licensed by a reputable online gaming commission.

I wholeheartedly want to believe that it is not rigged, 99.9% of me is absolutely sure that it isnt. The scary part of the online game is that at some point there is a human involved ...lol...what i mean is...somebody wrote the programs....etc..etc...and then the collusion aspect..........there are more things to be worried about though, and that would be the ability to manipulate data...to further understand what i am talking about ..take 15 good minutes and check out www.pokerconduct.com IT is a bunch of onliners with the PLayers interest at heart and will open your eyes...IT IS INFORMATIONAL ONLY >>NO MONEY>>LOL you do owe it to yourself to read ALL articles there.

I think people might try to cheat. Someone told me to stop wasting my money because people will play with there friends and be on the phone with them so they can tell each other what cards they have. Sure its possible but cheaters will get cought. Look at Vegas people will always try to cheat and some will get away with it, but for 2 guys trying to rip of a casino there is probally millons of dollars and a staff of how many there to stop them. Im sure its the same on the internet (just maybe a smaller scale)

the only rigging i see is the house rake. two or three players being dealt close hands to keep betting to the river. sure, the rooms may have a cap on the rake, but why not make the max rake on every hand by having two or three people betting it out to the river...if you don't think that happens...you're as dumb as the day is long...if you want to see it for yourself...play a few hands at IMERIAL POKER. Play a few hands and Gus Hansen's site. every board has a pair, gutshot straight, or flush draw. If you play those sites for about 15minutes each, and it doesn't change your mind...then you really are stupid and shouldn't even be walking around using up the precious oxygen we use. I don't believe that poker sites are rigged for dumb players...but they are CERTAINLy rigged for max house rake....

Many sites ARE rigged slightly. It is not as hard as many of you think to rig a hand. You're all in with KK and someone has an A 2? all they have to do is deal until the river and throw an A up there. Many sites do not deal from the top, and you can see it in the coding of the program. It may seem like a huge undertaking but it is not. If it is proven to them that letting a player with a horrible w/l record lose, then they program the last card to help that player much more often. There is NO regulation that I am aware of, and the sites simply do what will make them more cash in the long run.

And if you dont believe me in saying that some sites are crooked, just try to withdraw a few hundred bucks more than you deposited from Pokerhost

Yes, sometimes I feel that some poker sites are rigged too. And I especially hate those cheaters who play online. For example, sometimes people work together on the same table and try to steal pots by betting aggressively and such.

To explain my comment about players influencing a hand if the RNG is active:

An RNG is generally "seeded" by a starting number, the system clock in many cases. If the seed changes based on table action then acting quick or acting slow could have an impact on the next card.

I personally think the deck is shuffled and set pre deal as this emulates a live game and makes the most sense. Who knows though, never wrote any poker software...

This is only my second day on this forum and I don't want to make any enemies here but......

I can't beleive the number of posters that actually think that poker sites are rigged. In order to even begin to claim that a site was rigged you should have at least 100,000 hands in pokertracker stoftware that show some sort of descrepency. In all of the forums I belong to and all of the "its rigged" posts that I have read there has never been one single poster that could provide real statistical data to prove anything. I haven't even seen 10,000 hands that fall more than 1% outside of standard deviance.

I think I even read in this thread players talking about play money games being rigged which is beyond rediculous.

Some here have suggested that "the house" will try and keep losing players in the game by giving them winning hands, does this mean that there is a team watching individuals playing and ensuring that they win? That would seem like a very expensive way to earn a few more pennies in rake.

Statement like I lost ten coin flip situations in a row so it must be rigged are so far off base I don't even know where to begin....

I must end this post now for I have serious blood pressure issues.......

A little side note, the NBA team with the greatest chance to win the NBA Draft has only won, something like 1-2 times in the past ten years. This team has a ~24% chance to win! I feel sorry for the Atlanta Hawks who have been a brutal team the past few years and keep losing out on great players like Tim Duncan, Lebron, etc.

So I guess anything can happen. Unless you think the NBA draft lottery is rigged too!! (If you're not a Knicks fan, you'd probably think it was rigged when the Knicks got Ewing!!)

Take care.

But wouldn't that be sort of like hitting the "stop" button on a video slot machine? I mean, even if someone tried to throw off the RNG sequence by varying their response times, wouldn't they be completely shooting in the dark as to what effect that may have on the next card dealt? If I'm understanding you correctly, it's the equivalent of opting to change the color of the deck in an attempt to change your luck. Any positive influence is completely coincidental.

hackadart...don't you have anything to say about my post concerning "'action flops"..everybody keeps talking about giving winning players losing hands....everybody knows that is ridiculous...i want comments on action flops. i'm delt k,q and you are delt a,q...and the flop being a,a,q,j,10...would someone comment on that...i mentioned two poker sites that do this but nobody touches the topic...have any of you played the sites to check it out...EVERY flop has at least a pair or open straight or gutshot on it...that guarantees that two people will be betting to the river...that means the house will get the max rake even if they have a cap on the rake....comments

Well to answer that question..........we really dont know if they are rigged guess that makes it another form of gambling doesnt it