Is Online Poker Rigged?
If you participate in any sort of poker forum, you’ll quickly notice how many threads are dedicated to people whining about online poker, saying it is rigged against the players. These posts tend to come from new players, but we’ll look at a few reasons why people make these sort of wild accusations in the first place.
There are a few theories on why online poker is rigged, but they all tend to come from the general school of thought that poker sites rig hands to generate more money for themselves. These theories talk about bad beats, suckouts, and getting dealt fewer hands than they should. The most common theories include:
The first timer theory. People believe that pots are rigged in favour of people who have recently deposited, which means that these people will spend more time and money playing poker, creating more money for the site. The converse of this is the “doomswitch” theory, whereby somebody becomes ‘doomed’ as soon as they withdraw money.
The “big stack” theory. The wildest one, this one states that big stacks have an advantage over small stacks, and that pots are rigged in their favour.
The big pot theory. This theory states that the site intentionally sets up two big hands against each other more often than it should mathematically occur (such as AA vs. KK, a set vs. a straight ect.). The larger the pot, the more the rake, so thus the site profits more. This theory has most of it’s application in poker cash games.
So why would people post this theories? One reason is the amount of volume online compared to that of live. In a normal live setting, one can expect to be dealt a maximum of 30 hands an hour with a good dealer. Online, the pace is usually double that. At a single table, about 60 hands an hour are dealt. Coupled with the fact that most people play 4+ tables at once, this volume is significantly larger to that of live. I personally get about 600 hands in a 2 hour session of play – equivalent to 20 hours of live play. Thus, because people see far more hands, the number of bad beats and suckouts that one sees will be increased exponentially as well.
Another reason is the skill level of online players. Live play is generally far worse to that of online play. If you were comparing the two, 200NL live is generally accepted to be equal to that of 10/25NL online. Thus, someone who wins a little playing live, expects to be an awesome player online at much lower stakes. When they get stacked numerous times by players better than them, they complain. Rather than looking at their own game and how they play, they blame the software, simply because it is much easier to blame something you can’t control.
So is it really all rigged? At this point, from my experience, I would have to say no. These huge internet gambling sites are dealing with millions of dollars and thousands of customers a day, and if something were crooked, they would stand to lose millions of dollars. Some players play poker for a living, and thus rely on these sites to be trustworthy. If onine poker is rigged, how are the online poker professionals making a living? Thus, each site is regulated by commissions, which make sure that each room is not doing any underhand action to increase their own profits. The RNG of each site (random number generator), which determines how the cards fall, is also monitored by special commissions.
To this day there have been no proven allegations as to online poker being rigged. There have been some glaring mistakes made by some sites, such as the super-users on UltimateBet and Absolute, and the incorrect shipping of pots on Cake Poker, but this is separated from the rigged theories of online poker, and the sites tighten up on their security all the time. Until solid evidence over hundreds of thousands of hands is shown that details the rigged nature of the online game, there will be no evidence that proves that online poker is rigged. As the old adage says – ‘innocent until proven guilty’. Get a boss media rakeback deal when you play online poker and get a monthly bonus every month for your playing time.
I offer you the opportunity to sit down and watch while I explain to you what the sites do. Your defense of the online game is typical. More hands la dee da. Nope. Sorry. When I get my money in 91% favorite, I want it to win 91% of the time, or close to it. Not sorry, 2 of every 3 hands I play some idiot just happens to call with A7 and flop three sevens. Oh look, AA cracked by ace junk THREE TIMES IN ONE SITTING. Boy, I must be UNLUCKY.
The sitouts, hey dude, as soon as the sitouts hands become active because they cant cover the blinds anymore, these hands suddenly start flopping boats and straights, and you claim this is RANDOM?
I get KK ONE on my left, WHOM IS A SITOUT. I say to myself, ace on the flop, yes, first card as a matter of fact. SITOUT holds AQ, no way , I cant even get fucking KK through a sitout and he is the ONLY SEAT I HAVE TO GET PASSED, imagine, me, trying to play KK one on my left, what the hell was I thinking. Nothing rigged about it.
Wake up.
Those who believe online poker is not rigged must be naive
It’s the biggest scam ever pulled off on internet
But after all it’s just logic sence this happens in modern capitalism (squize the lemon till its completly dry)
I’m convinced they take rakes at a faster rate as they normaly should and i’m sure they not even brake the law doing this + there is zero control over what kind of a program they use…..
People should remember live poker is played with 52 card decks while online poker is played
with max 10*2 card +flop + turn + river = max 25 cards
CASINOS ALWAYS WIN
Online poker is a fools game. If you invest 10 dollars and spend an hour at any micro limit on any pokersite.If by the end of that hour you don’t agree-one of two things is occuring. Either you know nothing about poker and the odds involved(in the real world) or you are refusing to believe what your eyes are seeing!
I have spent untold hours in live casinos and have expeirence every type of run possible and i can honestly say that NEVER have i witnessed the ignorance that occurs online-not just occasional ignorance, but ignorance occuring like clockwork hour in and hour out.
Saying that more hands per hour are responsible is a complete fallacy- if you buy it then the PR schills have done their job well.
There will always be idiots defending these companies- idiots that prosper from your fleecing.In the end, the best choice is to avoid this criminals and go to Live brick and mortar sites- since adopting that philosophy i have gone back to actually making serious money.
By the way- the author of this article is Poker News & Promos.
Does anything else need to be said?
I wonder if Poker News and Promo could be considered an objective source of information being as they obviouly profit from people playing poker online?
What a joke!
@Garg69: The author is not poker news and promos, that just the category where the article is posted. I am the Author and owner of this site.
There has been cases where online poker sites have had issues with their security, like the absolute poker scandal, but in general i dont belive that poker sites are rigged. The online poker sites makes loads of money, and they will make more money by running a site by the book, than they will by cheating and getting their site closed down.
There can be a big variance in poker, and it takes a long time to master the game. However, i have played online poker for more than 10 years, and i rarely have a loosing month now. If you are consistantly loosing, then you need to work on your game. Brink and mortar poker rooms are great, but you can only play very few hands per hour, and that is where the big advantage in online poker is.