A lot of players make this claim when they suffer a series of bad beats - we get our share of them around here.

Let's have a serious discussion about it. Read this article:

Is online poker safe or rigged?

There is some really good information in that article that explains some of the misconceptions players have.

The thing I see the most is players having a bad day or even a bad week - or they are making a lot of wrong decisions - and they instantly think the game is cheating them.

They will post hands and say "No way should this happen!" - and I know instantly they have never played live poker. I have been playing live poker for about 10 years and I have seen it all happen in a situation where it can not possibly be rigged.

What are your thoughts?

(ps - this is not the place to post your bad beat hands!)

I've been in so many live games, cash and tournaments, where the exact same thing happens as when I play online. People seem to forget there are only 52 cards in a deck and shite happens. You just have to try and remember "that's poker" and try move on to the next hand, if you can't do that, walk away and come back with a better mindset. Something I don't always do and wish I could.

Originally Posted by belladonna05

I've been in so many live games, cash and tournaments, where the exact same thing happens as when I play online. People seem to forget there are only 52 cards in a deck and shite happens. You just have to try and remember "that's poker" and try move on to the next hand, if you can't do that, walk away and come back with a better mindset. Something I don't always do and wish I could.

Same here, we notice it more online as we play more hand online, it's as simple as that.

Originally Posted by belladonna05

I've been in so many live games, cash and tournaments, where the exact same thing happens as when I play online. People seem to forget there are only 52 cards in a deck and shite happens. You just have to try and remember "that's poker" and try move on to the next hand, if you can't do that, walk away and come back with a better mindset. Something I don't always do and wish I could.

Couldn't agree more...Now Zorba stop stealing my chips at the ACR freeroll

you guys should write a site and see the explanation they give you..then you will understand

Of course online poker when it comes to the big, respected, trustworthy poker rooms in not rigged.

The truly good players, either they are cash gamers or MTT grinders, are consistent winners in the long run. This is the greatest evidence that online poker is not rigged. But from time to time there were (and probably are) small, unknown, shitty scam mafia sites. But, is there any reason really to put money at these shady sites, intstead of staying to the big trusted rooms?

i dunno, i dont see people jamming out of position with k6 and winning against premiums as much live as i do online...

i've seen one hand live (break hand) where someone flopped nut flush, and walked away as the other person runner runner fullhoused them and came back confused af....

but thats the only live hand where i said, hey.. i guess you cant play break hands live, either :P which is a rule i've developed strictly from playing online poker.. the variance in break hands is ****ing ridiculous, but apparently its a little abnormal live, as well

aside from that, i still see way weirder shit online that can only be explained by seeing hole cards.... which, i know from former employees at stars that.. they all have access to, and are encouraged to play.. you know, hole card seeing software. even though they claim employees cant play.

i feel like its much harder to cheat live than online, as well.. so for that fact alone, its much more likely that if somethign happens itll be online.. but rigged vs someone cheating... its not the same thing.

the real question is, how often are they checking that RNG? isle of man law is what, every 5 years? or twice in five??.. lots can be manipulated in the mean time :P

all of the weird stuff happening on native land in canada and people dont think its weird when pokerstars moves there? lol i mean come on guys... their CEO is a criminal who gets away.. you trust his company? lol

they just dumped a bunch of stock, time to short it and watch it fall but most people agree online poker algo's are designed to incite action - you say tomato, i say tomawto.. that sounds like deck manipulation to me.. which is rigged, no?

Originally Posted by ratmantoo

Couldn't agree more...Now Zorba stop stealing my chips at the ACR freeroll

I can't now, you're out, as you can probably tell, I'm not taking it too seriously, I'm just passing time at ACR while watching TV.

EDIT: I'm outta there now, AQ < AK, I had a glorious suckout to win a huge pot not long before I went out, I was in 3rd with 45K

I don't believe that it is rigged. Though I have had a run of bad luck or a bad beat that made me think it for a second or minute. Just one of those initial reactions/emotions that pops into ones head when things don't go one's way.

I guess unless I see some hard proof that some of these major sites are rigging thing I won't believe it. If that ever did happen though I would probably question every site if I had a bad run.

The nature of the beast in this case poker blinds rising and all in games is to suck players in price them in to an all in showdown and inevitably somebody has got to win and somebody has got to lose.
Set versus up and down straight draw v flush draw on flop for example happens a lot anybody can win and players find it hard to fold after committing a large portion of stack to the pot.

All poker players have ever thought about it, we have also read a lot about this, for example I have seen videos showing cheating in online casinos, so I think everything is possible, but I also read a very interesting article where he said that if 3,000 players entered a tournament the 2999 are going to say that they cheated and that the game was rigged, I mean only one player who won is going to say that everything was fine, while those 2999 players are going to go the forums complaining about their bad luck, it seemed very logical that explanation, I mean in all the tournaments there are more losers than winners

Why not present the complete picture on the subject of online and live safety in poker?
While online poker is generally safe, anyone who has been in the game for at least 10 years remembers the days of certain sites being caught cheating, actually you do not even need to have been playing the game that long to find out what had happened, a simple online search of “Poker sites caught cheating ” will present the information for you.
As for Live poker, the comment of “in a situation where it cannot possibly be rigged” Sorry to be a Doubting Thomas “but there are individuals who are “Card Mechanics” that are able to manipulate any deck of cards.
So while extremely unlikely at your local casino, let us not be blind to the deception that had and does exist in this world that we all live in.

I myself often face bad hands.
We must stop it and start everything from the very beginning. I do not think that I was deceived by the room

Originally Posted by NBB

Why not present the complete picture on the subject of online and live safety in poker?
While online poker is generally safe, anyone who has been in the game for at least 10 years remembers the days of certain sites being caught cheating, actually you do not even need to have been playing the game that long to find out what had happened, a simple online search of “Poker sites caught cheating ” will present the information for you.
As for Live poker, the comment of “in a situation where it cannot possibly be rigged” Sorry to be a Doubting Thomas “but there are individuals who are “Card Mechanics” that are able to manipulate any deck of cards.
So while extremely unlikely at your local casino, let us not be blind to the deception that had and does exist in this world that we all live in.

You are talking about individual cheaters - that is a whole different thing than the site itself being rigged.

Actually a programmer on one of those sites had access to see all the cards, so you need to include the site in this mix since the programmer was an employee.

also for live poker there was the following: Cleveland Poker Dealer Accused of Cheating

Originally Posted by NBB

Actually a programmer on one of those sites had access to see all the cards, so you need to include the site in this mix since the programmer was an employee.

also for live poker there was the following: Cleveland Poker Dealer Accused of Cheating

I disagree - both of those instances are individual employees - huge difference in that and a site purposely rigging the hands so that somehow they can profit from it as a company.

Originally Posted by dakota-xx

I disagree - both of those instances are individual employees - huge difference in that and a site purposely rigging the hands so that somehow they can profit from it as a company.

I like what was said about finding it hard to fold monsters or turn that's turned your monsters into little critters you have to fold some times when you don't want to cause you'll always catch an over aggressive player later

Very good article . Thank you , I feel alot more comfortable after reading that .

Originally Posted by dakota-xx

A lot of players make this claim when they suffer a series of bad beats - we get our share of them around here.

Let's have a serious discussion about it. Read this article:

Is online poker safe or rigged?

There is some really good information in that article that explains some of the misconceptions players have.

The thing I see the most is players having a bad day or even a bad week - or they are making a lot of wrong decisions - and they instantly think the game is cheating them.

They will post hands and say "No way should this happen!" - and I know instantly they have never played live poker. I have been playing live poker for about 10 years and I have seen it all happen in a situation where it can not possibly be rigged.

What are your thoughts?

(ps - this is not the place to post your bad beat hands!)

today played online money 2-5
successfully.
then tournaments 0.11 cents for a prize of $ 100. at 888 and BCP
then there were defeats.
I'm guilty and not online.
*I am a living factor of my failures.
never played offline.
Mrs. Dakota? when I wrote you 1000 messages at once and you cut me off, I would play with you better live poker.
although I think this would be my last career game

Rigged, no don't think so personally. The real question/answer on this subject is why do people (you included) take so many chances online. Be truthful with yourself, this is not chances that you take when you are playing live. So why do you do it online?

Reliability of a poker site is the most important thing. If it is not reliable it will collapse at once.All poker players have seen good moments an bad ones. The only thing we can do is to have open our sences and play as better as we can!

I'm frightened by the fact that poker rooms are conducting an aggressive advertising campaign. And they spend a lot of money on this. They need to return them somehow. And on this basis, there are doubts about honesty. But I play very little money. And for the most part it's about freerolls. And regarding the various hands that were supposed to win, and then you look, and the opponent has something better formed on the river. Well, it's okay, he's not just playing, but he thinks he can win. Although often I manage to open a bluff. So, here everything is normal for real reasons to believe that there is not an honest game I do not have.

No, I don't believe online poker is rigged at all. You see players chat about it because of bad beats and one outer's but it is just the way holdem goes.

If it's rigged I'm not sure why so many sites would rig it in my favour.

I'm actually a software engineer. While I have never wrote code for poker platform, I would refuse to write any kind of code that would "rig" a game or hand.

Personally I don't feel like online poker is rigged. I've played enough live poker to see the same things live.

When I play online, I might play anywhere from 1 game to up to 6 or more.
Even just playing at one table online you are probably seeing twice the hands as in live play. So, we are just seeing more hands and seeing more of the 1-5 out rivers or runner runners that statically should not happen very often. As humans those anomalies tend to stick out more than when the cards seem to be running normal.

To prove the online game is rigged you just need a large enough sample of hands and use some software to analyze it. The proof or lack of of is in the data.

I would love to see some break downs of 1 million plus hands from online vs live games to see how the compare.

Lol @ all the people who think online poker is rigged. It's live poker that is really rigged<<<

I don't think online poker is rigged. I've never played live poker, but I've seen live streams of big tournaments where players make mistakes. We should not blame the poker sites.
This is well stated in the article:
"Online poker players should realize that it is not beneficial to the online poker site owners to cheat. To knowingly break the law would be professional suicide. There are so many checks and balances, not to mention top ranked poker players on their guard so that the likelihood of one of them smelling a rat and going public would quickly damage the reputation of the poker site. It is important to choose highly reputable online poker sites and choose those that have high levels of play action. Those are good signs that they are high quality operations.The cost to the online poker room would be so great that it would not be in their best interest to run the gamble and risk the liability associated with such a scandal. Many players might say, "But wait, they make so much money that a couple million dollar fine is a slap on their rich hand!" But the reality is that laws and regulations are in place in this modern age of online poker, and the punishment to casinos is much higher than a "slap on the wrist."

There are always some freaky hands you could loose to, but it does not mean the Poker Room is rigged

Still looking for another bust out of my pocket AA vs 27o making full house
Yep, that was one of my first hands loosing at online poker

I also always wonder if the people that accuse cheating/super-using have played live, because I have seen a lot of crazy stuff happen live as well. Sure someone could still cheat at live poker, but all the crazy stuff you see, especially at lower limits with actual dealers, can't be chalked up as cheating lol. People just don't like to admit their mistakes, or take a good look at their game and try to improve, IMO, and I am guilty of that too sometimes (heh ).

I agree 100% that having experience playing live poker (esp in a casino) gives a solid perspective on how many wild and crazy beats and things can happen in a hand of poker. I can literally see a bad beat online and recall a time live where a similar situation occurred. It feels more unbelievable online because more hands per hour means more chances to get rocked by 2 outers on the river.

If you don't think there's people playing live casino poker who won't shove A3o in early position pre flop, or chase runner runner flush draws 4 way with Q4s , or chase that runner runner gutshot straight with less then 2:1 odds every street...it's like seeing online poker in a real life setting

As for the action flop theory. Even I used to think it was possible but then I asked myself "as long as there's players like I mentioned above, willing to play any two cards and chase so many things, why does the site need to risk "rigging" the game for bigger action when the players are building the action themselves?"

The only part I disagree on as to why online poker likely isn't rigged is the "legal" ramifications. Here's why: One of the biggest online poker markets in the world (USA) has been in a gray area of online poker operations for over 7 years and yet sites continue to operate from offshore in questionable areas and under questionable "auditing." Players continue to play there and some even do well and withdrawal regularly. That said, if we consider only "legal" ramifications as an inspiration to "keep the card shuffles honest," most of these sites have zero legal ramifications if they "rig" the game so no deterrent there. However, money talks , so even if they aren't beholden by legal standards, business 101 says it'd be real bad for business to rig the cards and the action. Why risk the easy cash flow of rake from players 24/7 filling your tables for a few extra cents in rake every hand? Yeah it adds up...but it's all gone quick if people find out the deal is rigged. So these gray area sites get to operate without true legal/auditing oversight while making money and money is the motive so better to stay in business then risk losing your entire customer base in a scandal while also attracting unwanted legal attention. It's one of the same reasons many companies "do good" things like donations or charitable initiatives...sure it's a goodwill gesture and helps things...but it also keeps customers and brings in new ones.


All that legal stuff aside, sure there are some sites with poor security or bad bot control and other issues like that. But even sites operating outside the law probably a.) don't want to bring legal attention to their site by having an RNG rigging scandal or b.) lose players because of evidence of RNG rigging...as both are bad for the bottom line of their profits. If a site really doesn't care about long term income generation then they'd probably just use superusers/hole card exploits/backdoors to rip people off and disappear into the night without paying out..and knock on wood, even the grayest of sites currently operating long term still seem to continue and also pay out.

It is difficult for an online poker room to lend itself to cheating, this is a game its reputation. I feel safe playing in those rooms.

i think it safe
no id required, you can use bitcoin for payment and sure it can't be tracked

A computer generated game owned and operated by poker players. I have been playing poker for over 50 years. Played with the best, including world champs. Every good player I have known at some time has cheated and will admit to it. So what is the odds of a poker site ran by poker players to be completely honest? Been playing online since it started and I do believe it is rigged for the site to get more rake and the let the lesser players to win so they will deposit over and over.
This is my observation over the past 15 years playing online.

Thanks for this interesting and very detailed article. Damn, at the beginning of playing poker, I was also kinda paranoid. Especially paranoid about someone could see my hands. Later I thought, it was just paranoia, but now I read, that it really happened in a room.

But well, usually I don't think rooms are rigged, especially not the bigger ones, they just can't allow themself to cheat, because of too many regulations and also they need to concern about their reputation. They want to earn long-term money not only for a moment. Also about the RNG, I think there good enough algorithms for the randomization and also about protecting this. Hey, otherwise you shouldn't do any online banking anymore.

I don`t believe, that online poker is rigged (I mean top poker sites) . Our main enemy at the poker tables are our personal weaknesses. But I know a lot of players, who disagree with me... It`s human`s nature to guilt everything, but not themselves. I advise this sort of players try to find mistakes in game and improve that!

hardly the platform will manipulate, even though they have open capital, there are investors, if that happens happen, it will be a disaster for the world of Poker, I know you have magic decks, that you see the cards with infrared, you have on internet selling, have videos on Youtube, with this kind of thing, it's easier to have these cards and have players playing them in the house, I know, I just thought about it now ..
The bads, are part of the game, players who do not make volume will feel this much, need a very strong mental preparation to understand this.

There are many misconceptions players have and in which i have had myself, Though I have had a run of bad luck bad beats .Overall Rigged, I don't think so personally, Some bad sites in the past Definintly ; just need to conquer your Mistakes and when you start winning see if your opinion changes???

Originally Posted by makisaa

Reliability of a poker site is the most important thing. If it is not reliable it will collapse at once.All poker players have seen good moments an bad ones. The only thing we can do is to have open our sences and play as better as we can!

I tried BetOnline and the suckouts in that site were insane. They more than regularly hit runner-runner to win. My experience with ACR is that hands that were weighted to win actually won the majority of the time.

Basically, depends on the site in my experience.

I don't think it's rigged, necessarily. I think that confirmation bias comes into play when someone comes along and claims X game is rigged because they got so many bad beats.

It reminds me of a story I was told in school once about, I think it was iTunes, how the shuffle/random mode was thought to be "broken" because of how you sometimes would hear the same song twice not very far apart or how the same artist would get multiple songs in a row when using it, which caused them to actually change the system from a true random to a sort of algorithm I guess. People that say things are "rigged" or don't work right don't understand the complex coding that goes into those programs.

i find myself asking the same question every now amd then and came to learn some times I just make bad calls when I shouldn't of its a gamble all poker is in this game the unthinkable can happen so I wouldn't say its rigged

I don't think there's any question. I work from home and play 8-10hrs a day and see consistent patterns of bad beats over and over every day. I believe there is an all- in function designed to take out the lower stack players.

In both live and online poker you are going to have people breaking rules like playing together in live poker or some one using two accounts to play online. It sucks that people have to do this, but it is out there. Now I don't think the sites like cheating, but employees have been caught cheating and in those cases online poker has been rigged. Who really knows how many employees of sites are doing this? They have to be caught in order to find out. There is always going to be some sort of cheating going in online and live poker. I don't know if I ran into it or not. But there is always some player out there trying to get an edge on the rest of the game.

I think that the most important online problem can be called the introduction of a bot, and the poker community, especially poker rooms, must constantly struggle with this. generator of random numbers, and therefore often weak players always have to blame someone. I think that everywhere you can be the best. the main thing. you want to make yourself a good player, and it does not matter whether you are online or on live tables.
but, in the end, I will say. Online poker is now a part of my life. and I think it will be a long time .

Rigged and Compromised beyond repair, if fact since the US is no longer part of the deal, the sites have become worse. Know you have superior bots (say what you will but these bots today aint your shanky shit), Teams of who knows how many with every hand history every made that they switch off on you and have better players take over in late game,

The RNG should have been special and not tied to one site or anything dealing with money, every site should have to plug into the same independent of the site RNG but if they can mine bitcoin they can damn sure manipulate an RNG they own.


Not to mention all the crap on Winning networks espcially if they play on that POKERKING skin, just the stuff about players on that skin should make most recs leave winning now.


ALl this and it goes much deeper and on and on that we will never know. but since the US isnt a factor anymore, it just become an ever increasing wave of worse and worse shit. sometimes I wish they would quit lying to people and say bots are allowed that way Ill set one up and let it handle the first few hours and should get deep as much as I do and then I can take over if I want.


But anyways. I still play to keep my mind sharp but I dont take anywhere as serious as I did, no matter how much I study and do this and that I wont have the edge these Ghosting groups, team plays and bot farms have.


My Im just mad cause I can only cash in CC games, hmm games with no bot farms, no team viewers (least I hope not) and no for profit teams ,, HMM +NOW THAT REALLY MAKES ME WONDER cant cash in cheater games, can cash sometime in legit games HMMMM

I remember the Potripper thing. You can still see videos of it on youtube. Of course, I don't believe the sites I use are riggged. I would stop playing on them if I did.

I suppose I still fear collusion and I do think someone could do it with a lot of effort. I suppose I don't play at the levels that would make it worth it.

Too many online sites to answer. I don't know. I don't know how anyone could. Like many, I hope not. Remember Black Friday! Indictments against companies and individuals unsealed by DOJ, USA. Given history, given it repeats itself, given there are warnings all across the internet to avoid certain sites, I don't dismiss players who think sites are rigged. I advise caution. Take complaints seriously. Investigate where possible.

What makes me cringe are those who say a complaint cannot be true because of their own beliefs. Imposing beliefs upon complaints is very close to labeling. Instead of looking at complaints on their merits, some try to demonize complainants by saying they are just "poor losers." When this attitude arises, I get suspicious. If a good investigator hears this, he will look at the agenda of those who dismiss complaints, not just the complaints themselves.

It is in the interest of both the online poker industry and its clients to know that it is not rigged. That this question is still asked means this point has yet to be reached in the minds of some players. Can't swear by other sites with integrity, if I want to be taken seriously. But, PokerStars, 888Poker, and CardsChat seem OK.

On line poker may be rigged but that does not necessarily mean that it is unfair to the players.
A poker room might rigg the deal to maximize their profit but since the players are not playing against the house, the games could still be fair.
What you might see for instance in mtt is that the deal often tends to favor the best players in order to end the tournament asap. This way the house can put up more tourneys and rake in more cash.
For example, a live tourney with a couple of thousand entrants may take 7 days to complete. A similar tourney on line takes only about 12 hours to complete. This is probably not just happening by chance alone.

If I believe the games are rigged, what the hell am I doing depositing money? To be stolen? I know some players that play pay their bills, if they can I can. At few months ago I could not win any game, so I keep learnig and trying, and trying and learning, and learning and trying again. Nowadays I can bite a little bit of this "cake". Nowadays I am in another level o learning, I need to learn to increase it and not burn it.

Sometimes it seems to me that in the poker rooms are specially made a Badbeat Or Cooler for what would have been an action, and accordingly would be higher rake.
I hope this is only suspicion

Hi Debbie!


I will try to add a few words to your question:

Is online poker rigged?

I spent the last few days in a painful study of online poker! I understand a few things:

The most important thing is the fact 'reading the board'.If a player can not read the board, then his hand will be a complete trash in certain situations, even if it is pocket AA and so on!

The other thing I noticed is that the raise before the flop just does not work!It's bluffing to steal the chips from everyone!It's very rare to hit the cards you need!

So, if you have a bad beat, do not blame online poker for being rigged! Look at yourself!
The same situations happen in live .

Thanks !