Danjwarburton
Rock Star
Silver Level
This is NOT a moan and groan poker is rigged thread, but a logical request for people with more brains than me to evaluate an academic paper assessing the data from pokerstars. The data from the study supports interference from Pokerstars in the overall game.
This academic study seems to show some form of interfering with the maths of poker!
https://www.academia.edu/34059393/Online_Poker_-_Rigged_or_Not_A_statistical_case_study_Pokerstars
The guy performed a full statistical assessment of a fair sample.
For a TLDR option:
Pokersites make more money when there are very big pots. In order to do this:
1.) It has been found via analysis that once players call preflop, mathematical evidence supports the notion of a second shuffle providing more action flops than usual. The flops are intentially created to give everyone playing a "part" of it. This keeps them playing more often beyond the preflop street.
2.) Coolers happen statistically more than anticipated. The statistical evidence shows that the underdogs win more than they should! If you are the favourite, you should cash out. If you are the underdog, you should stay in the hand and not use the cashout feature.
3.) Leveling the field is a genuine mechanism that works to keep bad players on the site and cause good players to tilt and leave. The site has various ways it nudges the stats in the favour of the underdog statistically more than usual.
Overall, 3 major outcomes:
1.) Flops are purposefully designed to cause more action and increase pot sizes causing more rake for the sites.
2.) Leveling the field exists to ensure losses aren't as harsh for bad players at the expense of goodones.
3.) The website gets away with this by having the occasional extreme in the other direction fudging the figures for the weak regulators that exist out there who look at overall outcomes and see the figures overall match what they should be. The author describes this as follows:
If you need to have some water at 50 degrees C, you have half of it at 0 degrees and half at 100 but only show the assesser the overall figures which would be 50 degrees!
I'm open and hoping for this not to be the case, but wanted help from the community in helping to discredit this. Those who are good with research, can you find any criticisms of this paper?
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