Is online poker rigged??? An investigation!

I wonder if there's ever been a discussion on this but I think online poker is rigged!!


First post... yeah.

Reminds me of the time I arrived at my new secondary school and got expelled from the class on my first day. My fellow pupils agreed with the teacher's decision too: "nu guy ain't too bright".

Hope the mods will give me a second chance...

not that i'm aware of!

I cant win. Poker really is rigged... =\

wow i hope it was worth the research!

Is online poker rigged?

No one will ever know for sure if they are playing on a rigged poker site.

Can online poker be rigged?

Sure!

We already know they can rig elections when it comes to using computers (electronic voting machines)....

YouTube - Rigged USA Elections Exposed

We are not talking 4 quads in one hand of play, not possible to have 4 quads, you would have to have 4 pair in the five cards dealt. (and I did see a post here where someone actually said that they saw 3 quads and even 4 quads in one hand) ... think about it, 4 players 13 cards to make 4 quads you need 16 cards.

Now I could be wrong ... so please if I am missing something jump in here and correct me please.

Also on the idea of rigged poker ... it is possiable, with todays technology, no problem at all, but very unlikely. As it is the software online or with casino slots are programmed with algorithms to assure as fair a play as possible and still allow the operators to make a profit.

That is why they operate ... to make their money, not to give it to us. so they are likely preset to pay 40 percent out of a hundred.

60 bucks profit on every hundred gambled, that is a very good margin. If they went 50/50 they could stand to go into the hole, and a smart business is not going to allow that to happen. So in closing lets forget our sadness because we lose, and face a cold hard fact ... it is a business designed to make the operators money, and to do that YOU MUST LOSE MOST OF THE TIME.

So they do not have to rig the game, just let the program do what it was designed for, take 60 percent and pay out 40.


(these percentages are examples, the real numbers could be lower, but more than not on some sites higher)


That is my 40% worth, enjoy your game ... and have fun

Buckshot,

I think you are missing the point here. We are not talking about the house edge in a casino based game here. When you play poker you do not play against the house, you play against other players.

When you play a slot machine, you play against the casino so it is natural that the machine is calibrated so that the casino wins more often than the player (otherwise there would be no casino). The same applies to roulette and other such games where you have a player v house situation.

Poker is also played in casinos (or poker rooms if they are on the net) but they are peer-to-peer games. The casino (or the poker room does not care who wins, it gets paid anyway. In tournaments there is a commission which is a percentage of the buy-in. Whether the player gets knocked out in the first hand or goes on to win the tourney is irrelevant to the casino or poker room, it will have been paid upon registration of the player.

In ring games this commission is called the rake but it's essentially the same thing, the casino gets paid a tiny percentage of the pot pocketed by the winner of the hand. Who that winner is does not really matter, it is paid anyway.

What people were arguing here is that online poker was rigged in order to make poorer players win since there are more poor players than good ones.

Hello there everyone before i start id like to point out a few things.....

I am a professional Poker player, and yes people may know who i am so i would like to remain nameless. I have been playing professionaly part time for 15 years and i have earned over $600.000 in my playing career including 3 WSOP main event cashes.
I have played against many famous pros most of which are sponsored by poker sites. So i hope my integrity matters on this subject.

I have read alot about online poker being "rigged". Even so much as players at a live table complaining about the very subject. So...i brought it upon myself to experiment.
I choose 3 sites BODOG.....FULLTILT....AND....POKERSTARS. The three very sites i hear the most complaining about.

My experiment was to play 10 sit and gos at $50 on each site. Keeping record of my progress (I choose $100 so people would play properly) and see for myself what all the fuss is about.

The results.....

BODOG.....2nd...1st...3rd....5th.....2nd.....8th.. ..9th.....6th....8th....10th

At first i was doing very well at the site. Until game 4 i was knocked out by a 2% on the river. (I had the nut flush on the turn, they hit the straight flush on the river.) Same happened on game 6, they hit runner runner higher fullhouse. Then it went from bad to worse. I was beaten by 8% or less either on runner runner or just the river card. Every single allin i was ahead. By over 90%. The 10th game was a joke. I flopped a set of Kings...I bet the flop....was called....went allin on the turn....was called....they had pocket 5s, hitting a set of 5s on the flop.....River card was a 5 making them quads and me kings full.
Now most people would complain about the other players making stupid decisions but there wasnt really anything out of place. All players that called had strong hands but the site just seemed to favour them miracle cards.
Dont get me wrong i can take a bad beat, hell....iv had hundreds over the years....but 6 (5 in a row) i think i would have given up poker a very long time ago if that was happening in live play.


FULLTILT....1st...1st...9th...6th...10th....8th... .8th....4th....4th....4th

Now instead of telling you the bad beats i have calculated their % against mine when my/their allin was called....game 3 = 15%...game 4 = 10%...game 5 = 20%....game 6 = 4%....game 7 = 12%...game 8 = 4%...game 9 = 2%...game 10 = 16%...

The bad beats varied from runner runner flushes to runner runner quads.

I must admit the 1st two games i played very well and seemed very normal play. My calculations were correct at important times and i was rewarded. From then on the site seemed to take a drastic turn for the worse. I will say "the site" because if it is my luck theres seriously nothing down for me! Yes i will admit my calculations werent always up to scratch but i made dam sure i was ahead and ahead by alot before the money went in.


POKERSTARS...1st...2nd...9th...8th...7th...10th... 10th...9th...

As you will see i only played 8 games. The reason...never before in my life have i ever seen such a bizzarre shuffle. I simply could not bare to play anymore. I even left it two days and still couldnt face it. I had lost all interest to be honest because i am convinced the outcome of the games were totally out of my hands. No matter how much calculating i did or how far ahead i was the site just dealt miracle cards and nothing else. Game 3 i flopped quads and lost to runner runner higher quads. Game 7 i flopped quads again and lost to runner runner royal flush. The two worst beats iv seen in over 15 years of play within a few hours of each other along with other horrific bad beats in between.

Conclusion....The reason i did this is to mainly see what online poker is for myself and to voice my opinion. After much thought about this subject and based on my results i would say yes it is "rigged". But i dont think to the way you might think, my opinion is the sites try to favour everyone. If it didnt poker pros like myself who make correct moves and calculations would win alot more than we lose. Which means the "fish" would swim elsewhere and the site would lose money. Many players are probably reading this saying "hey i always make money online" if you do good on you....but ur way of playing must be so random the site hasnt picked up on you being a good solid player which i like to consider myself as being.
This seems the best conclusion i could come up with. Many may not agree which is fine with me. I have made cashes in the WSOP WPT and AUSSIE MILLIONS so i think i can rely on my calculations and decision making.....1 decision is for sure, i (and my wallet) will never go near another online poker site. Thats for sure.

Thank you for reading

... hi.

Do you have a reasonable explanation for why this rigging of which you speak is completely undetectable by any large collection of hand history data, and only seem to appear in miniscule samples and/or anecdotal evidence by first-time posters?

and wasn't your sample size kind of...small?

Just saying.

I dont think , the online poker rooms are rigged, There are just so many styles of players, and so many that will play any 2 cards, cards that good players wouldnt even bluff with, and they wouldnt even think about playing them self if it were a live game. The pokerrooms are making good money no matter who wins, they dont need to cheat.

Excellent post, however, I find there to be one fly in the ointment.

"I choose $100 so people would play properly"

Your assumption here doesn't hold water. It is true that at $100NL on-line you will find some very competent players. However, I believe that the aggression factor of being on-line does not equate to live poker. Hence, even though you made "correct calculations", variance and luck will still play even at that level.

Your sample size is a bit small also.

I also find an interesting trend in your data. Your consistency is suspect. In each case, you started out by placing very well. Subsequent games never quite got back to that level. If indeed it was true that on-line poker is "rigged" you would never have reached that level of success to begin with.

BTW - Welcome to CardsChat. Your perspectives are greatly appreciated.

It didn't cost anything, it's a long-term project which is still in progress, and I for one find the results interesting.

What I find a little disconcerting is that instead of looking at the results and using it to help them decide whether poker is rigged or not, which I try to do, a lot of people posting here seem to be 100% convinced that it is rigged and want to convince everyone that it is rigged, or 100% convinced that it is not rigged and want to convince everyone that it is not rigged. I find that as frustrating as hearing religious people and atheists going round and round in their pointless circles. To an agnostic their angst and vitriol seems unnecessary.

The situation is not black and white, and I like to keep an open mind. Listening to people with closed minds doesn't really help. What I am interested in is the statistical evidence, not anecdotal "evidence".

Thank you for your replies. I was hopeing for a better response with real evidence that proved my theory wrong. But oh well....

Id like to say 1st my choosing $100 sit and gos wasnt supposed to hold any water what-so-ever. I have been warned to choose this kind of limit to avoid players going allin on nothing and be more likely to play real hands as in live tornys. What limit do you want me to choose? $200? $1000? No doubt whatever limit i choose i would be shot down with "thats not real evidence" anyway speech. Every hand i went allin with i was a good fair distance ahead regardless of the limit. I was willing to risk $3.000 of my own money to see what online poker was like and to voice my opinion on the "rigging" subject. Nothing more nothing less.

So my findings are only based on 30 sit and gos (well 28) then make my own mind up.
I know 30 sit and gos is probably not enough for the "prove it then" gang which we all know is impossible to. So all im offering is my experience.
My calculating hands on the allin were correct and as for "why did you do well on the first few games then bad on the others? that dosnt make sense!" you are correct...my point entirely!

If nobody agrees with me then thats fine. It dosen't matter to me in the slightest. But i am happy i did the experiment anyway.

lol dude, you suck at sng's

provide HH's or tourny ID's and you might be believed

Edit: Don't you just love it when you post then look down to see page 16 and realise how old a thread is

It's not mathematically sound to form an "opinion" on whether online poker is rigged based on 28 SnGs.

So far, there's been no - I repeat that, because it's kind of important: no - significant statistical evidence supporting the hypothesis that Stars or Tilt is rigged. What we keep seeing, however, is people with small samples and/or anecdotal evidence making posts to the effect that the games are rigged. Here's an exercise in logic:

Five people play 30 SnGs.

Four of them experience completely normal play, with nothing out of the ordinary happening. One of them has tough luck, and gets sucked out on in quite a few of them. It makes perfect sense that one of them would be that unlucky, because the principles of statistics tell us that even freak occurences appear, although rarely.

Now, which of the five will make a post in this thread?

/FP

Using your integrity as a pro as evidence of the strength of your game (your argument being you are good enough to get chips in as 90% favourite most of the time) doesn't really hold water if you don't tell us who you are.

Not that it matters who you are because genuine evidence of riggedness would be genuine evidence whether you were a newbie or Gus Hansen.

Love to see the runner runner quads over quads and royal over quads hand histories as at the very least they are evidence of shocking bad luck

I joined Betmost Poker. I deposited. I immediately won 800 bucks in 3 MTTS, finishing second twice and third once. Then I cashed out. I have now gone two months without ANY significant win AT ALL. I am flopping trip aces and being beaten by quad fives.
I am being called by EVERY opponent only to see them run the flush all day long. I am having pocket kings pushed by A-10 AFTER a raise and a re raise, only to see the ace on the turn.
I am raising AJ hitting a jack, raising the other guy EVERY time, only to see he has called with 10-5 of hearts and ran a flush.
Then with my small stack of 400 chips left over, I push AK suited only to have the SAME chair call me with 8-9 and river a nine.
Two straight months of absolutely RIDICULOUS play by my opponents and they hit EVERY HAND I PLAY.
I know you wont believe it, but I have lost 10 straight tourneys on RIVER cards at Betmost.
Inside straights, four card flushes, you name it, Im seeing it. I play at Full Tilt as well, and I was recently twice in a row taken out of tourneys by running flushes.
I dont care that they hit the flush, I care that they call my BIG raises with JACK SHIT, and run a hand every ****ing time.
I played three hands yesterday at Betmost, KK lost to A-10 after he pushed all in after a raise and my re raise, AJ I raised, flopped a jack, raised his bet EVERY TIME and he ran a flush with 10-5 of hearts, he hit a five on the flop, and AK suited all in called by 9-8, he rivers a nine.
I dont need a million ****ing hands to see whats going on. These poker rooms are rigged for the donkey to hit way the **** more than they should, in order to keep them at the tables longer.
If you cant see that, then sorry. If you are successful online, good for you, but I cannot play a game where I call bets because I want to see how the **** did he suckout this time.
In fact, Im going into a FT tourney right now. Guaranteed someone will outdraw my KK with 55 or hit a four card gutshot straight. Im gonna leave this until I go out.

OK first hand I played Full Tilt tourney, I have the screenshot. I play JK to a maniac **** who is raising every hand. Flop comes Qh 9c 6c. He bets 310, I raise him to 620, HE GOES ALL IN. HE HAS 5-7 JUST LIKE I KNEW HE DID, I CALLED THE ALL IN, HE WAS ****ED CEPT FOR THE GUTSHOT, I HIT A JACK ON THE TURN, HAHAHAHAHAHAHAH HE HITS HIS GUTSHOT EIGHT ON THE RIVER.

TARDS, AND IDIOTS ALIKE, I HAVE THE SCREENSHOT AND I WOULD HAVE NO TROUBLE POSTING IT HERE. FULL TILT IS A ****ING RIGGED SHITHOLE.

NOW, THIS OCCURS ON EVERY ****ING HAND I TOTALLY ****ING DESTROY THE IDIOT DONKEY ****S. ONE IN EIGHT. HE HIT IT THE VERY FIRST ****ING HAND I PLAYED.

**** ONLINE POKER. AND **** THOSE WHO RIG IT TOO. AND I DONT GIVE A FLYING **** WHAT ANY OF YOU PEOPLE WHO THINK IT ISNT RIGGED HAVE TO SAY. ITS RIGGED, ANY IDIOT CAN SEE THAT.

Thanks for such an intellectual analysis, and you're right, any idiot can see that it's rigged. Fortunately not all of us are idiots, though.

There's an interesting sign.

The "pro" took the discussion at face value and provided a positive look from his perspective.

The "amatuer" went into a tilting rant with expletives...

Thanks Pro_36 for the discussion.

As for the other poster... well... I suggest a firm hand (or hammer) on the part of a moderator might be in order.

The post from 'pro' was a personal view. A seasoned and competant player's view should be taken as just that. The ''poker's not rigged until you show me evidence'' brigade will not be swayed by such views, in the way that an alcoholic will deny he drinks too much. Self-denial is a God-send to the poker sites. If it were easy to prove, it would have happened already. Statistics cannot prove or disprove the manipulation of hands. It takes only one hand to remove a player from an stt. or mtt. That hand set amongst rather more ordinary hands will never show up statistically.

I originally posted on this thread (page 14) in a similar way to 'pro' and gave my view, as a successful and profitable player, to how the online game had changed. I didn't rant and rave, I attempted to give MY viewpoint based on my experience in a logical manner. For that I was ridiculed and called a liar.......so be it, I tried.

A very good post 'pro'.

Yeah, I can see how silly of us it is to think that evidence is something that is necessary. Nice touch comparing us to alcoholics.

Now, what I want you to do is to show me an incentive for, for instance PokerStars, to rig their games in the way you propose. The incentive has to be financial of course, and your job is to show what they gain, and how they make enough money off of this particular rigging in order to offset the inherent risk that some disgruntled employee goes public with it, while at the same time making it so rare that it's statistically undetectable.

Oh, sorry. I didn't mean to question you. I'm sure I'm not allowed to critically look at your post; I should take it at face value and stop playing online because pro_36 once played 28 SnGs.

Jesus H. Christ.

First off, Great post FP!

I just wrote a longer one as you added yours but editing now because of of one thing you said that should be the center of attention. The total lack of evidence on what the site has to gain plus the risk they face if caught cheating the players. None of the samples here come close to showing us any of that, only player deviations where the site gains absolutely nothing. At the moment the game starts they have received their pay via entry fees, favoring one player over another gains them nothing.


BTW, I've watch Hoyt Corkin on line playing against unknown players a couple of times. He's won a lot and lost a lot too. I've played Chris Fergussen too at lower stakes on a different site and found it to be a very tough but winable game. If the site was rigged wouldn't they favor the big name player for better advertising?

Oh, and this I forgot:

You claim that there's no evidence of this going on, and no way to prove it. So how exactly do you figure that you know it's going on? Because you have a hunch? Because you're smart enough to find statistically significant patterns in small samples, whereas computers and the rest of the entire online poker community is not?

And I'm still gasping for air at the insinuation that it's somehow "bad form" of us to ask for evidence when you accuse others of criminal acts. Even when you pretext it with "this is just my personal view."

i'm still not bored of this

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i'm still not bored of this either!

oh and FP, what does the H. in jesus' middle name stand for? it's something i've always wondered. lol

and no, i don't have anything worthwhile to add to this topic.

I repeat..........

Did you not read my earlier post?

OMG I just wasted another 10 minutes of my life reading this thread.

Anger mangement?

Also, are you saying only idiots can see that online poker is 'rigged'? If so, you're calling yourself an idiot.

protip: you may in fact be losing because you're not very good at poker.

QFT (always wanted to say that)