Idiot for a Day
On several previous occasions I have discussed the flaws in the arguments of those who claim that online poker is rigged. Just to demonstrate the absurdity of some of these arguments, I’ve selected a juicy one from the old comments bag.
Joe comments:
Well this argument about online honesty is a joke,I have been dealing for 20 years and playing for about 35 years and I can tell you positively it is a set up.There is nothing the same between online and live poker.They are as differint as night and day.I have tried all the top sites and there all the same.Rigged is to put it lightly..
Of course, Joe seems to have missed what I said in the post he is responding to:
No matter how low the limits the person is playing they will always claim to be a near expert in the game with at least a decade of experience playing live games.
As someone who has played both live and online I will admit there are differences but they are not in the game itself. The differences mostly apply to how people play online in anonymity vs. how they play when they might have to show their crappy cards to the entire table.
Of course, like all online poker is rigged arguments, we must all rely on your 20 years of dealing experience and 35 years of playing as defacto proof of everything else you claim. No evidence. No specific examples that can be refuted. You’re a dealer. You said it’s rigged. Ergo, online poker must be rigged.
You people who dont believe it are either liars,site employees,or fools who dont have enough time in live games to know the differince.I wouldnt even bother to go into bad beat stories, I dont type fast enough.Bill
I’m pretty sure they have bad beat stories in live casinos too.
you always use prove it to debate anything,thats an easy way out.I say to you prove that it isnt..
You can’t prove a negative. It’s impossible. Prove that you’re not a space alien from the planet Zzyyxx. For every piece of proof showing that you’re a human I can hand waive it off saying that it’s forged. That’s why you need to prove it’s rigged. You’ve made an accusation and the burden of proof lies with you to present some evidence. I mean, we can go back and forth on whether a large enough sample size is 30,000 hands or 100,000 hands but the results won’t lie. That’s why the burden of proof is on your shoulders. I can show you tens and hundreds of thousands of hands that show no statistical anomalies. You just have your claims.
Now, it should be very easy to prove that online poker is rigged if it is indeed rigged. That’s the comedy. Since you can’t prove it’s rigged, you’ve switched around to placing the burden on me. Sorry. It doesn’t work that way.
Besides, I’ve written pages upon pages demonstrating things that would indicate that online poker is not rigged. You simply claim that online poker is rigged. That is the easy way out. I’ve selected the difficult tasks of defending a position which can’t be proved (can’t prove a negative). All you have to do is present evidence to the contrary.
Dont you people get it,the fact that hundreds of thousands of people feel they are being cheated proves it alone.
Yes, with logic like that, how can one argue? You do know that at one time hundreds of thousands of people thought the world was flat, don’t you? You realize that just because a lot of people believe something, it doesn’t necessarily make it true, don’t you?
I have been in las vegas for years at a time and I have never heard anybody say they are getting cheated in the casinos,other than your occasional nut. you never here it about atlantic city,mississippi,monte carlo,etc,etc,ect.Why is that bill?
You’re going to sit there and tell me that other than an occasional oddball nut, nobody has ever claimed a Las Vegas game was rigged? How many dealers have been verbally abused by players who think the dealer is purposely dealing them bad cards? How many dealers have been physically abused by players claiming the dealer is somehow influencing what cards they get?
Because the only place people are getting cheated is on the online poker rooms.Bill we have bad beat jackpots that go on for months sometimes before there hit.Online you see that type of beat every couple of hours just at the table you at..
You do realize that even the most lowly online poker rooms deals far more hands per hour than even the largest live card room, don’t you? You also realize that when you deal more hands that the (elapsed) time between low probability events decreases, don’t you?
this view is not coming from a player who lost and is mad..I have taken 2000 dollars off party poker and deposited 1900 back to them in 100 and 200 dollar deposits..The reason I quit is I came to realize that my winning or losing had nothing to do wiht my playing so it was no fun.
Of course, it had nothing to do with your playing. Why is it that the more educated and knowledgeable people are at poker, the more they win over the long run? Poker isn’t about having fun. It’s about playing the odds and over large samples, coming out ahead by making correct decisions. Fun is what roulette players play for. Poker players play for the money.
They have to let everyone take turns winning or the good players would have all the bad players money and the site would lose big time.Dont you people get it,if the bad players dont win the will go and thats it.
Uh, isn’t that how poker works in live games too? Isn’t that one of the fundamental concepts that makes poker such a great game? Fish can win on any given night or on any given hand. If the fish couldn’t win from time to time they would all go away and not just online poker but live poker games would dry up overnight. For you not to realize this with your 35 years of playing expierience speaks more about you than it does about the fairness of any online poker game.
aces on every other flop,all in winning %,s wat to high,flush draws on flops way to much,pocket aces,vs.poket kings way to much.Play high/lo and see all the low cards in everyones hands all the time.It goes on and on.
Aha. See, show me that proof. Show me the hand histories. Show me the Poker Tracker results. Show me anything! That’s how you prove online poker is rigged.
Please dont be so stupid people,millions of people are not screaming wolf because they lost a few dollars.
A few paragraphs ago (actually, you couldn’t bother yourself with a return key so the concept of paragraphs has to be assumed from the breaks in your line of thinking) you said it was hundreds of thousands and now you say it’s millions. You’re losing credibility by the second.
we had a customer come in our casino about a month aga and screamed he was being cheated because he was down 7ooo dollars..he said all the cards were not there..The gaming board came down to the casino floor right away and stopped the game and the dealed had to seperate all 6 decks and spread them out in front of the player and everybody else to show all the cards were there.The customer then said he was sorry to everyone and the game went on..
Didn’t you just get done saying that nobody has ever claimed that live poker is rigged?
All these sites are aware of the bad press they get so if they were honest they would have proven it a long time ago themselves.
See my statements about being unable to prove a negative.
The fact that online pokersites havent stepped up themslves to prove everyone wrong says it all..they havent stepped up because they cant..
Yes, because proving a negative is impossible. Prove to me that you’re not a cop.
if it looks like a cheat,and smells like a cheat,and sounds like a cheat,guess what people.they are all cheats.
If it looks like an illogical argument, smells like an illogical argument and sounds like an illogical argument . . .
they dont want just the rake they want everything..There has never been any unregulated buisness that has been honest in the history of the world and you want me to believe the first one is a online poker site out of the country!!!
No, nobody is asking you to believe anything. You obviously have made up your mind to believe what you want to believe and nothing you have said here leads me to believe that what I wrote about the motivations for players to think online poker is rigged has changed one bit. In fact, you strengthen my conviction in my previous statements.
please Bill I dare you to post this one and see what reaction you get.I probably wont see it posted if I guess right..Who do you work for bill? partypoker or UB
I have no problem posting your comments. I think they do your argument more harm than good.
BTW I work for neither of those two specific sites but if you search around you can find which one I do work for. I don’t make any secret of it.
joe
And don’t try to bluff in low limit. Nobody is going to fold 🙂
How to win.On flop FOLD or be Aggressive.If reraised fold all but NUTS.Callers lose 9 out of 10.Dont worry about bluffers they eventually go broke.Sounds simple but works.
@Knamlis: Typically, the way it works is that each table has a deck of cards. The RNG is used to randomize the order of the cards in the deck. Once randomized they are dealt out in that order.
One exception is/was Full Tilt which (when I worked there) used a constantly shuffling deck. It would constantly shuffle the order of the remaining cards in the deck. The easiest way to think about it is to picture a large spinning wheel (like at the carnivals) with 52 cards placed around it. When the game needs a new card from the deck it sends a request to the wheel and the wheel picks whatever card happens to be in the 12 o’clock position. Obviously it’s a bit more complex than that and cards already removed from the deck are taken off of the wheel but that’s the general idea behind it.
I do have a question Bill…….the RNG on these sites, is it set up to be random per deck at the table? Or random per every deck in play? Meaning is each deck set to be random per table or together as a whole? Kinda like say you have 10,000 computers with itunes on it and the exact same songs on it, is each computer on there own individual shuffle? Or is it a shuffle running all the computers? I am not sure if this makes sense by what Im asking……
@Knamlis: You’re dead on. Anybody who says, “This never happens in live poker” obviously hasn’t played enough live poker. You can turn on any major poker show, WPT, WSOP, PAD, HSP, etc and you can see monster suckouts, insanely improbable hands, etc.
In one hand that I still give my buddy hell about, I had pocket aces and he had AKo preflop. All the money went in. If you run the stats, I’m a 93% favorite to win the hand. Flop brings him a gutshot and he gets there on the turn.
Now, if you’re the typical rigtard, if that happened to them online they would say that it’s defacto proof that online poker is rigged. But it happened live so how can they explain that? Most of the craziest bad beat stories I’ve ever heard are from live games.
As long as the chances of something happening are greater than 0, given enough trials, it’ll happen.
I just wanted to add my thoughts on this matter. First I would like to address that I am undecided on what I believe. Is it rigged? I don’t know. However, Im going to play devils advocate here. If it was indeed rigged, and millions of people are being scammed, it would be very easy to prove. As Bill said, if all these millions of people did, infact, keep extensive hand histories, you’d have a class action lawsuit, and a slam dunk. As far as people hitting straight and flushes all the time…….I will say this, live poker and online poker are very different. Its alot harder for people to make a call on a gut shot draw, or any draw for that matter live. When you are face to face and have actual chips in front of you, its alot different then a click of the mouse. More people chase draws online. Now lets thing about this, take 10,000 hands live, you get X amout of suckouts on draws, etc. Now if those same 10,000 hands happened online, more draws would have been chased meaning that you have more chanses for suckouts and will have more suckouts. Just because in live poker you get a guy to fold his draw on the turn, doesnt mean that if he didnt fold he would not have hit it. This gactor alone increases the amout of suck outs per same amount of hands. As far as things happening that are not “statistical”, well statisits are pobabilites, not reality. You can flip a coin 10,000 times and just cuz its a 50% for either, you could end up 3,400 heads and 6,600 tails. I guess u would argue its a weighted coin, huh. As fas as AA losing to much online, well as awesome as they look, its only a pair and over valued. to more people in the pot the les likely they win, with 5 people in the pot with random hands, your not even “statistically” the favorite. If you do not hit trips on the flop, all you have is a pair, best pair yes, but only a pair. When you are heads up, yes you are a clear favorite against any hand really, but thats ONLY BEFORE the flop. just cuz you were an 80% before the flop, doesnt mean you still are after the flop, on the turn and on the river. Statistally, the most profitable hands are not AA, KK etc, they are the deceptive hands because they are easy to get away from if you miss. I not say by any mean that this proves online is not rigged, but you need to consider the differences before you compare. Also crazy things happen in live poker that are statistically almost impossible. One night out of 20 hands I caught 13 boats. NO JOKE. it got to the point if the board paired, and i was in the hand, everyone folded. I cant even imagine how very improbable this was. However then i can go weeks without hitting a boat. statistics and based over infinity, you can take a sample sure, the bigger the sample, the more accurate it is, but its just a sample. If you dont believe me about the 13 boats in 20 hands, well, If itake your approach, I guess I would say, prove that it didnt happen. Just you are saying “prove its not rigged” The burden of proof would be on me to prove it since I made the claim” HMMMM, how can I prove that? If I has all the people that were there infact tell you they saw it happen, would u believe it? Prolly not, not even if they all confirmed it. The only way you believe me is if I had a video recording of that game and you could actually watch it. Well guess what, that goes the same for your claims, the best part it, with hand history software, you are infact recording your games and would have absolute proof. With all this said, I am still undecided how I feel about it, or what I even believe. The one thing I do know is that without proof of something, I cannot say that I believe it. Since no one can actually prove that its rigged, i cant say I believe its rigged. Since you also cannot prove its not rigged, i cannot conclude that either.
Not to get way off base, but its like GOD, either you believe in a god or you dont. Either way, you cannot prove or dis-prove a GOD. You can argue it all day, but neither side has concrete proof. Until there is concrete proof, all you have is Faith one way or the other. and faith is not proof. So until there is concrete proof one way or the other to prove that online poker is rigged, all you can have is faith one way or the other on what you believe. Just like poker, in life we have “bad beats” or to many downs, or life sucks so bad that it shakes our faith and we go back and forth on what we believe. Thats life…….and Thats online poker as well. So either play or dont play, but stop bitchin. lol
Unfortunately I must agree that the site is COMPLETELY rigged. If I were to tell you the extraordinary number of “bad beats” I receive it would defy all mathematical theory that is sound and rational.
I am a fair player. I play very tight. I play my statistical odds by only playing either heads wit one other player up or 2 at the most, I wait for decent pocket cards. I wait to be in position. I calculate pot odds. I DO NOT play stupid by chasing or tilting as do many other players.
How is it possible to get POST FLOP hands that give me an 87% chance of winning the hand and then lose 90% of those hands over a period of at least 10 months continually? Seriously…I’m asking !!!
If I have trips the OP (other player) ends up with a straight. If I have a Straight the OP gets a flush. If I have 2 pairs the OP ends up with trips or a straight. If I have a flush the OP ends up with a Full House. I’ve lost with trips, straights, flushes, full houses at least 100 times more than I’ve won with them. I will win with a decent hand like one of those I mentioned above about 1 in 50 times… I’M NOT KIDDING!!
It would happen time, after time, after time, after time, after time, after time, after time, after time !!!
My wife and a few others have actually witnessed these things and have advised me to stop playing. One of my friends who (who plays semi pro) didn’t believe that ANY online poker sites were rigged ( “It’s just a string of bad beats”… “It’s selective memory since so many more hands are played.”…”statistical fluctuation”…”It all evens out…bad beats happen to everybody”…”You’re not calculating the odds correctly”…etc,,,) HE NOW TOTALLY BELIEVES ME as he has seen these things with his own eyes and has stated that what happens to me is virtually “mathematical and statistical impossibility” for a “relatively good player such as yourself.” He calculated several months of my play and the results and came to this conclusion “The odds of losing the percentage you lose with the few “good” to “great” hands that you end up playing is about 2.5 billion to 1 on a regular basis. “Yes Jay…you were correct, I was wrong…this site IS RIGGED” “NOBODY can lose 90% of their hands holding 2 pair, trips or better.” It was like music to my ears to see a professional tell me that.
DON’T PLAY WPT POKER ( on Facebook either) !!!!!!
we dont need to prove anything.The fact that you live out of the pocket of the people being scammed online does wonders to your credibility.Fucking moron
My answer to is poker rigged is simple.The golden rule of poker is broken by every player.About 2% of players capable of playing correct. The rule is SUPER SUPER tight,is the only way to win.Nothing else is possible.I lost for six years online about $3000 per year.Now this year 2009 I am up $9000.Only change I made was to play super, super tight.Ozi Aussie Ozi.
Luke,
Your assertion is patently false and can be proved to false. Several players have kept massive hand history databases and again and again and again they all show:
1. The distribution of starting hands is within statistical norms
2. That you flop a full house, straight, pair, etc all within statistical norms
Not a single university, independent researcher, or player has discovered hands being dealt that would indicate anything more than normal statistical variance.
If you wish to claim otherwise then you’re going to need to come with something better than the old “we all know” argument. Put up or shut up 🙂 No more opinions, please.
Bill
now i see ur arrgument and i agree to some degree but even still using those numbers it still happens more frequently then suggested . you have seen it, i have seen it and lots of others have too the frequency is the the true arguement i belive.
now you can sit a cash game all night and not see a much action as seen in only half an hour on some of this sites. i dont think its rigged in a player bais way but just increase high % cards dispursed for ex. the amount of times you have playable hands pre flop (depending on your disered range) is clearly high in realation to cash games (BM) i think the alot of players that dispute this have had no real poker playing knowledge and think they know the game but really only now the ONLINE poker game which is close to being a complete new game as far as % and aggression are saught.
also when we talk % we think about big hands FH sets Flush … now what about the % of losing ur 30/70 and the massive pre flop dog taking the pot 65% of the time how to you answer that. you really cant say “THATS POKER” like the donkey remarks are you tell him how much of a dog he was. it just no right we love this game (those who know the real game) and i belive this online scenario will just make it worse in the long run. I am close to giving the game up because yo play for hours in a tourny play the tight aggresive style and then get smashed by some bs river to be crushed in 4 hands or less and be railed beacuse you made the right play and four card flush / str8 or your hand gets smashed by ace ace cause the board pairs twice. now some of these happen yeah of course its the game but the FREQUENCY is whats is bs every tourny every sng …. it just makes you think
THIS IS NOT REAL POKER
prolly get riverd soon anyway so then maybe will get some sleep 🙂
kind regards Luke
@Luke, you did not get your point across and it didn’t make sense.
You’re making an argument against something that has not been claimed. Nobody said that because the card room deals more hands per hour that the bad beats happen with more frequency than the statistical norm. The argument is that if you get dealt 20 hands an hour in a normal card room and 40 hands per hour in an online card room, on average, in one hour you will see twice the number of bad beats than you would in a regular card room because you saw twice as many hands.
When you start opening up 2, 3, 4, 10 tables you just magnify the effect.
Go to bed, get some rest and see if that makes sense.
All the people on the “its not rigged” side seem to hold one card and that is “you see more hands online therefor more bad beats” well i have one question. when i sit and a table i like to play the 52 cards on that table not all the cards at all the tables around me and in every casino in a 100 mile radius….. do you see my point why should players suffer these bs odds and unreal situations.
just because the odds to flop a boat are 1000-1 that should some what apply to the game but NO because you are ” playing 10,000 hands a minute based on all deals at any tme,they are some what degraded and happen more freqently” . when really you are only playing 1 hand a minute and those sort of odds should stand there ground because lets face it they are you real odds !!!
please let me just work something out im sure if its wrong i will be corrected
just use easy fig. to get basic concept across
ONLINE WORLD
now lets say 10,000 tables so thats 10,000 deals a minute
so oer the cousre of and hour thats 600,000 hands you “have played”
REAL WORLD
now on 1 table you have been dealt around 60
so put in place those odds of the fullhouse 1000-1 in the online poker world thats just happened 600 times in the last hour so there for you have a 16% chance of that happing on your tabble in that hour.
now with that being said if you where only playing 1 deck and 1 hand per minute the you would still have to wait another 16 hours for that same result .. that is based on on hand per min which will not be maintained ao therefor looking aroung 22 hours play. to possibley see that flopped fullhouse…
well i hope i got my point across ..and its late so i hope it made sense
Luke
I’ve been playing low buy in tourn and sit go’s every day for a year.What I’ve noticed is as follows.
1.seems that every time I reload I win a few games then go on losing streak.
2.do to sheer number of players every game i play someone gets lucky,but probably loses most of the games they play.
3.lots of bad beats and suckouts both ways.
4.I have also become apprehensive about playing big hands aggressively becauseI
expect to get sucked out.
5.fish including myself play almost any hand to the river and will hit a lot,if theyare the one having that lucky tourn.
my opinion is that everybody will get lucky on a given day and hit outrageous hands
if sites are rigged i say it’s to big hands to keep the game exciting,because the sites cant read minds and know if a player will even play out a hand.that being said to prove that sites are rigged you would need all players history which would show I’m
certain that everyone is taking and giving bad beats.
thanks for letting me have 2 cents worth.
fellas awsome. bill next time dont post back with analysis of what joe said about you, but more about what they have said about the online poker.
Joe,
You should be a pleasure to speak with. As you can see from not only my numerous responses in this thread but in many, many threads on the same subject, I do respond. I have seven responses in this thread alone. Am I too busy to respond to every moron who writes? Yes but in your case I’ll make an exception. Nine times out of ten, much like in your case, they offer nothing I either haven’t already addressed or you bring no new information to the table.
If you had something new, I would be more inclined to take the time to respond. Instead, you call me a chump, a cheat, make veiled threats (and I will be at the WSOP so come on by and see me) and blah, blah, blah me to death because you have nothing of any importance to say. I’m sure in your little world, you’re some alpha-male type who thinks that making threats and calling people names is the same as intelligent debate but you’ve done nothing to add to this conversation.
Just because you can’t beat online poker doesn’t mean it’s rigged. 🙂
very good posting chump,too bad only you,me, and millions of others know it.
Not sure where you learned to string together thoughts but you need some work here. Are you saying that millions of people know online poker is rigged? Is that the thought you were trying to get across?
Not Bill,he would rather call us idiots and keep his pockets filled.
Well, I would prefer to just take your money but you have control over whether I call you an idiot by what comes out of your mouth.
Just like he only posts half of your responses and leaves out what he wants,
Actually, not true at all and I guess the beauty of this is that you would have no way of knowing if I did or didn’t delete comments on my blog yet you make a definitive statement based on something you know nothing about. Just like online poker 🙂 I do delete some posts. I delete posts when some moron decides that he’s going to cut and paste the same comment on 50 threads. I delete posts that are clearly intended to promote some product or website that has nothing to do with the topic being discussed. I delete spam from bots advertising drugs to cure your erectile dysfunction problems or promise to grow new hair. But, I do not delete any comment that falls outside of the above group. You can read all my posts and all my threads and it should be pretty obvious that I don’t go around picking and choosing which comments do and don’t show up on my blog. Would I even allow your comment, let alone respond to it, if that were what I was doing?
he and the sites are cheats from the word go.
So now I’m a cheat too? It’s not enough that online poker is rigged, I’m somehow cheating as well? Nice.
you notice he only responds to what he wants to.
Yes, that’s one of the perks I enjoy by running my own blog and having free will. I can choose to respond to your absurdity, let it speak for itself, or ignore it completely. That’s my choice!!! I guess you fail to see the absurdity of your own argument. First, you claim that I carefully edit what comments appear on this blog, then you leave a comment on the blog. Do you see the disconnect? If your assumption was that I would never post your comment, then what good was it for you to even leave it? Is your time of such little value that you go around the internet leaving comments you suspect will be deleted?
Oh well, obviously I didn’t delete it because people such as yourself do more to harm your point of view than I ever could. People see the erratic and illogical thought process and can make a decision whether to believe what you have to say.
Im sure he will tell you he is far to busy,,yea with the cover up of online poker being rigged.
Oh Snap! You got me. Yes, I’m sitting in this ivory tower working on the world-wide cover up of online poker being rigged. I sit around with Dr. Evil, Hitler, and Charlie Manson and we plot our world domination. Either that or I have a real job and think I’ve covered this topic to such a degree that the only people I feel are worthy of responding to are people who haven’t re-hashed an accusation I’ve already addressed in other postings, comments, or threads. You pick which version you want to believe.
Bill you welcomed at my table anytime for a nice long talk live where you cant run and hide.
Listen babe, I don’t run and hide. I’m the one with a top weblog. I’m the one with my picture on my website. I’m the one who makes no secret of who I am or where people can find me. You think I’m going to run and hide from you? The only thing I might do is get up and walk away because if I wanted to listen to conspiracy theories I would go down to the Venice Boardwalk and listen to the crazy guy on the pier telling people about the coming alien invasion.
Im at the world series every year so come on down.
Sure, send me a photo so I know what you look like and can find you.
most of all the big players in chicago are there so come and enlighten us with the bullshit you like to throw around at unsuspecting newcomers to poker.
Actually, based on some of the emails I get, many of my readers are top professional players. I’ve had more than a few pros say “Oh, you’re that guy who wrote about . . .” If I was pure bullshit I think I would get called on it by somebody more reputable than yourself.
Love and Kisses,
Bill
very good posting chump,too bad only you,me, and millions of others know it..Not Bill,he would rather call us idiots and keep his pockets filled.Just like he only posts half of your responses and leaves out what he wants,he and the sites are cheats from the word go.you notice he only responds to what he wants to..Im sure he will tell you he is far to busy,,yea with the cover up of online poker being rigged..Bill you welcomed at my table anytime for a nice long talk live where you cant run and hide..Im at the world series every year so come on down..most of all the big players in chicago are there so come and enlighten us with the bullshit you like to throw around at unsuspecting newcomers to poker.
……I agree that online poker IS rigged. I would support the comments above EXCEPT..or in addition to…. online sites make their money on CASH games…if everyone has a hand, and everyone else has a draw…more money is going in the pot. The fish will keep playing cuz he keeps winning, and the player will keep playing cuz he thinks “i had him beat, he just sucked out, wont happen next time” again and again and again. If you pay attention, every flop will have either a pair, three to the straight, or most common…two or three suited cards. Conservativly, 8 out of 10. People hit gut busters almost 4times as much as they should. Odds are odds. Period. Online or live, if 52 cards are in the deck, THE ODDS SHOULD BE THE SAME. People say “well you see way more hands online, thus you see more bad beats.” I AGREE. Then why dont we see that many more strong hands holding up.
If I could bet on the board rather than play,..I would be a rich man. I can look at a board and tell you whats coming…cuz there are about 2 or 3 cards that can screw you. And smart money is on those.
Why shouldnt these fish pay 3/4 their stack on the turn with a gutbuster. They hit it the last 3 times they played it! It seems online that the lower your odds, the better your chances. So when you feel you have someone 4 to 1 or better, are you going to hesitate to put them all in? Nope. and there goes your money.
AA vs. KK vs. J9 guess who im bettin on. thats right J9 cuz i play enough online. If you play 3 hours a day or so…sure…you’re not really going to notice it. But when you play 12 hours a day…it gets ridiculous.
Unfortunately for tourney players like myself, we are affected because the same software is being used as in cash games where there’s a rake.
In live poker, i almost cant stop from grinning when I get AA…online…its a dreaded feeling..I know Im about to lose my money..no matter how I play it.
A flush hitting is what..i think 14%?? not sure..something like that. Yet online a flush will hit at least 3 out of 5 hands. That is not 14%. That is better than half the time.
Online you CANNOT have the best hand. You have to have the BEST DRAW. you cannot play pairs. You have to play for straight or better. Even trips dont seem to hold up.
NOW…….
For those who keep saying prove it by logging 20,000 hands. Yeah. And when i do ..what…post it? Give it to you? you gonna analyze that many hands? No. Besides,..I dont have to prove it. It has already been proven.
I have read in what I believe to be credible sources of CNN and US NEWS…they have done reports that online poker is rigged. And have site developers AND software engineers ADMITTING that the games are designed to
1) increase rake
2) control a players win threshold
Has anyone experienced where you once you win a certain amount, you cant BUY a game? You go on this AMAZING UNBELIEVABLE BAD STREAK? Its NOT bad play!! Its your winnings are being controlled.
So if you want the proof..go look it up.
In poker things happen. I know. Online they happen way more than what the statistics say. You WILL take bad beats live. You will take more online.
So , why do I play. Myself..I actually pride myself in being able to stay in the + column even though the odds are slightly off. That I know I can still come out a winner makes me feel good. What makes me mad is that I would be a much bigger winner if it werent for this whole thing.
Now if a fish loses consistantly, is he coming back? No. If he wins? Sure he thinks hes a natural.
If a good player loses consistantly, is he coming back. YES. Because we understand “odds” and most of us refuse to believe that someone could rip us off. That poker is poker, and the “odds” should hold up. So we will get that guy next time.
Does online care about who wins. No. But do they care about a profitable system. YES. And it works.
The number one personality trait of a rich person is what? They of course will tell you determination, etc. Its GREED. The inabilty to be satisfied. So ask yourself. Choose one. Do you want to make 20 million a day, or 25 million. Will anyone choose the lessor? I think not.
sorry to confuse most of you in my first posting, the example I was giving was from a blackjack table at our casino.I was showing that when a player thinks he was cheated all he did was call the gaming board to the floor ,the game was stopped and all 6 decks were seperated and spread in front of him and anyone else who wanted to see them.Of course all the cards were there and he apologized.Honest,upfront,and regulated.If bill would spend as much effort trying to come up with an honest answer to everyones crys of injustice he would have my respect.Instead he defends his employers to the end.If you want to see a good posting dig up dutch boyds posting of what happened on his poker site and the type of people who are behind them.It isnt honest and never has been, and wont be until it is brought to the U.S and regulated.Had a freind who played and lost all the time and still defended the sites and bill, well he came to me at work the other day and finally quit online poker and swears he will never play again.last play was a 100 dollar sit and go,very first hand he had pocket fives under the gun,raised 200 got one caller,flop came kd,5d,5c,he flopped quads and went all in,low and behold he got called,played flipped over 3 and 4 of clubs.called an all in for 100 dollar sit and go first hand.preflop raise and flop of kd,5d,5c, and he calls an all in..of course the turn and river were 6c,7c, to give him a straight flush.no human alive makes that type of play.bill you can stick up for him and the sites till your blue in the face and that play isnt happening..not for 5 dollars or 100 dollars. but you see it online all the time..keep the defense of the online sites going bill and help them keep ripping off all these young and nieve kids..keep your money going in your pocket bill
Igor,
It was explained to you previously. The site you linked to was a shill site. If you were posting to some quality info then I have no reason to remove it. In fact, I would probably go to the trouble to highlight it as it’s more than likely going to be comedic in value.
Bill
Nothing to be offencive but you do get paid to have this forum online so people have less reson to think internet poker is not rigged. I am not fighting it becouse im a looser at the tables, no i actually do good in Big torneys small sit&gos are my torneys when i have little time to play. Where im getting is that i win online but i still think its rigged, everyone knows that, but they only say something when they loose. SO often and obvius when an underdog gets a win with only 5% to draw his/her card from the deck. Happens too often than in real life. I know i know your gonna say that you see more hands online do to fast “shuffling”. However dont forget that the online poker games run faster only do to shorter round levels from 8-12 min each. Where in live poker the rounds are bigger so you see the same amount of hands per round. Thats why live games run a bit longer well WAY longer. Anyway i think you should put my post back on so its fair for other people to see whats on their. WHY WHY WHY did you take that post off. And yes the site did have info on how the random nuber generator had the cards predetermend and that each players cards where known and who was going to win. SHAME on you for taking the post off. WHY WHY so no boddy see the proof bcuz in the end you will not get paid to do this anymore laff. hope you dont take this one off and ill post the site againe when i find it Thank you sorry for the spelling people and good luck online and good skill off line.
Igor:
Actually I pulled it because it did not have any information about online poker being rigged and was basically a shill site.
Go pimp your site elsewhere.
Bill
i Guess you do work for the SITES to SAY that its not true as if you are a reggular player
SAD SAD
For those who dont know i posted a site where a bunch of programers proved that online poker is rigged and Bill took it off WHY WHY?
Bill why did you take my post off where it had a link to a site where it proved that online poker is rigged?
Going to start my own blog@ http://texasholdemonlineisrigged.blogspot.com. It will be updated every day, every time i play to document the unreal bad beats I get over and over. Today so far, I lost a heads-up tourney to a straight on the river and a 6-player tourney to a guy who scored trips on the river to beat my two pairs, calling half the pot bets every round. Check out the screenshots!
One more thing about a comment i read above mine. There is not reason that the site would want to favor one person I 100% agree with that. They want to favor EVERYBODY. The more they get people a little excited to play the more people that play and come back and get friends to play the more money they make. Party poker doesn’t make money in reg play rooms. But I dont even like reg play rooms. They make there money off all the tourn and single tables of 10 down to 1 and stuff like that. If they let people play great cards and kick everyones but they wont come back and give the site more money how is that a good business to run. Like the first guy said why would an online site run out of another country having to do with gambling be the first honest person to just let people have fun have fun unless he wasn’t getting rich from it. Heres a big bad question for you guys. What is the profit margin of an online site I”m betting its HUGE. And the more people the more you make. So wouldn’t you want to keep as many of them happy as possible and make more money if you ran the business or just go naaa run it straight up and let crap cards fall all night and let those few people run away with the games so other people get sick if it and dont come back.
I know I know What proof… but you tell me how they choose there cards and decide the next one and i’ll see what i think.
I play a lot of party poker and just had a comment about it all. For starters I’m not sure were they pick there cards from? How is it randomly decided what the next card will be? Is there a frozen deck in the computer or are the remaining cards circulating over and over till its time to draw the next card? I was just wondering how they figure this. I have played lots of reg poker with the guys and lots of online poker. Point me out to be the neg but I do believe the online poker is def rigged. Why do I keep playing??? Because I like the action and I try to figure the way to beat the system. I can sit at a poker table with the guys week after week and see crap cards all night flopped with a couple nice ones but online its like every other hand is something crazy out of a story. Its not random enough. Like I was saying before how does it decide the next card.
Also I did an experiment with the play money cause i’m not going to gamble my own money on experiments but i had the room go along with what i wanted to prove that it was rigged. The more you bet in a hand “win or lose” the better cards you will get in the next hand. I would say 90% better chance. I find this to be true in the real rooms as well. The more money you are throwing out the bigger cards you will get were as if you sit and wait you will get stub cards most of the time. Dont take my word for it though go try it out I’m not here to argue just throw out what i’ve noticed. I agree also that it throws the money around and doesn’t let one person run away with the lead. If anyone has ever played real poker you’ve seen a body just catch cards from start to finish at a table there was nothing to do the game was over he cleared 20 hands from the table. Little exagerated but you get what I mean. If you play online poker do you ever see this happen just people keep running with the lead. They might get up a little then the game shuts them down and they lose or dont catch cards. Explain that to me over anything else. Why cant one person win like 10 hands in a row i’ve never seen it online yet nothing more then maybe tops 3. That would be what I agree with from up top. But before you bitch and moan about how its not so rigged go play with some money on it see
how it goes think about what he said and i said. Do the cards really match up to everyday play or are they bigger hands all the time. When we play i dunno how many times i see 2’s or something win. Online
you dont win unless you have a straight which usually loses to a flush on top of the guy to the left of you that had the fullhouse. ??? were do these cards come from! Rigged but still fun would be my opinion
Bob,
Please read my post. There’s absolutely no reason for the site to want to rig the game in favor of one person over another. In fact, the argument falls flat on its face the second you begin to think about it.
I’ve addressed every one of your questions/accusations in other threads on this site. Spend a few minutes doing some research as I’ve spent hours writing about this subject.
Thanks,
Bill
At least all three people in your example had good hands, that’s reasonable. I am talking about people calling with nothing hands,unrealistic drawing hands or dominated hands and then sucking out the win over and over and over again.
I just lost two straight heads up matches to people raising then calling huge bets ( I tripled their bet) when I had then 6 to 1 or better, then sucking out gut-shot straights for the wins, and a third where I had 92 (Im BB)with trips on the board (on the flop)and dude had 72 (SB and calls with this) with trips on the board, we go all in on the turn and he hits his 7 on the river for the win.
Three in a row. No doubt you will want the game info. SIAPOKER.com is the site, two
of the game numbers are 12175331 (hand # 629573937), 12184841( Hand number 629642187. I
failed to get a screenie of the second one in time to get the info on it.
Online poker is a joke to me.
P.S. Mr. fish doesn’t have to be in on anything. It would make sense that the site wants Mr. fish to win so he comes back again and again. The hero ( us of course) thinks ‘hey, bad beats happen’ and thinks ‘hey I had him beat when I bet so I did good’ and he comes back too. The odds seem to be scewed in Mr. fish’s direction by design.
I’d like to see some random third party auditing going on at these sites. When upper management comes to inspect a retail store or a fast food chain, they don’t give months of advance notice or have the store schedual them in as online casinos do (and usually, its a one-time thing as in when the site first goes into business). Also stores have random product and sticker tag price audits to ensure propper pricing. It’s part of fair business and consumer protection, something these online companies dont subscribe to.
Bob,
You do realize that the problem with your line of logic is that Mr. Fish has to be in on it. How does the site make any money by letting fish draw out against you in a tournament? They already collected your juice.
And you also seem to be very selective in your memory. How many times do you see Mr. Fish pull that move and bust out? A lot. Of course you remember it more vividly when he wins but he loses a lot on those donkey plays too.
I was playing in a rebuy tournament on one site where every single hand for the first hour was a minimum of three people all-in. One woman called a raise, a re-raise, and an all-in. She had KJs. The original raiser had AJo, the re-raiser had ATo, and the all-in had pocket sevens. AJ won when an A hit. That lady calling with KJs made 15 rebuys in the first hour. Now, had she won some of those hands, would that be proof that online poker was rigged? Of course not. But if you had been on the end of one of those beats I’m pretty sure you would be chaulking it up to proof online poker was rigged.
Bill
I’ve been playing online poker for about two years now off and on, and live poker for about 6 years with consistancy. I play as a hobby and to make a few bucks on the side. Mostly cash games with a tourney here and there but with so many players in the tourneys (sometimes thousands), it’s pretty hard to win big. Online poker sure feels awful rigged. You get to a table and play tight, watching others play to spot the fish. You wait patiently until its you and the fish in the pot, perhaps with another straggler. Usually he’s an aggressive type that overbets his hands ( the perfect pay off). You’ve got your hand, You’ve hit the flop, top two pair or similar. You check to him on the flop, he bets, you call. Turn comes with no straight no flush and you check, he bets pretty big tryin to bluff you out, you re-raise double his bet, he calls. River comes out, he goes all in you call… what does he have? He hit his gut-shot straight on the river, what a suprise.
This same scenario happens to me time and time again online. Impossible bad beats over and over that do not happen with such consistancy in real life. I’ve tried a few sites (party poker, SIA, pokerroom.com, pokerstars, and some others i cant remember) and I see the same bad beats over and over again.
Proof its rigged? No, but ask yourself this. If you could give yourself a raise for little to no risk, would you? These businesses are off shore and have no random audits nor are they controlled by the government. There’s really no way to prove they are rigged just as there is no feasable way to prove they aren’t. I look at them as a novelty and not much more, something to do withought investing a lot of money.
I sure hope I used propper grammer and punctuation so I don’t get made fun of but I’m not even going to bother to spell check it.
Igor says Try it
Igor says: “I know it sounds stupid. . . ”
I tend to agree.
Poker sites are rigged for the site to make money. Becouse if Greg Raymer came and took everyones money at a cash game no one would play at the table and ppl would leave, which is not good for the site cuz they dont make money of the rake. So what is the answer? PARP is, it is on online poker Fairness polocy where everyone wins money. Say u win 3 big pots with good cards. After that u will start to get 3 to 4 poket pairs with in 10 hands statisteclly imposible and u will loose on them becuse the poker site is now distributing ur money to the other players. SEE for your self win big playing correctly in a ring game and then foce ur self to fold evry hand for an 1 Hr you will see that ur AA KK or anything else would have lost to SH*T cards why PARP!!!!!
I know it sounds stupid but when the shift happens i play crappy cards more than good and i win. If it was like a real life poker, sites would not make money. their it is i Prooved it. AS u have said in ur argumet it happens all the time in Live poker at Cosinos, but ur forggeting one thing Cosinos make their money main money not of poker but everything else!!!
When u walk into a cosino all the games have the ood against you where poker u can wait for the best oods to be in ur faivor not against. You asked to proov it well i did so now its your tern to proov me wrong. tThe sad thing is you wont Bcuz thats how online poker makes their money, and as for live games cosinos only host poker games bcuz poker is a gamble but they make thier money of the cosino games. Plz email me with more info or a good statement why i might be wrong ty till then hope to meet you at a poker table and beat you with 74 off to ur AA. Oh and by the way online poker if the bord comes and it has a 7 on be sure to see eather 2,3,4,10.
thank you IGOR is its my real name.
Reply to:
Drizztdj Says:
December 22nd, 2005 at 9:58 am
Online slots are RIGGED! Damn things wouldn’t give me a bonus game in nearly 30 minutes last night!
Slots are NOT Rigged! I am a Slot Tech and I work on the slots for one of the Largest Casinos in the world. In Fact, The Casino I work for is the 3rd Largest Casino in the World.
The Casino don’t have to Rig Slots or Table games including Poker. The Reason is the Casino NEVER Lose Money even if the player Wins $50,000,000 or $10 bucks.
The Slots are Set to get the Casino’s Money off the top of the players that play the slots. Once the Money is in the Slot Machine then all over the Casino Money is what the player Wins. It is the other Players Money that the other players win. The Machine does not pay what the Casino has already taken in for the Casino Profit.
The Casinos Never Lose a Penny!! Think about it. I am sure everyone can figure that out if they think about it hard and long enough. Nothing is Rigged on the Slots. The Casino I work at is in Mississippi. The Gaming Commission is Really Tough! As if we Move a Slot Machine “1 Inch then we have to send a Letter to the Mississippi Gaming Commission to get Approval to move the Slot Machine only “1 Inch. You can prove that by Contacting the MGC (Mississippi Gaming Commission) Very Easy to Verify!! I have been a Slot Tech for 9 years. I have heard all the Cheaters and the Players do Cheat the Slots at least the Older slots they cheated but the New Slots. Nope, So for there has been no one to come up with a way to win on a slot machine unless that slot is Ready to pay off.
I have seen players put $2000 in a slot and win Very Little. Then on the other hand I have seen a player put a $5 in a Dollar machine and Walk away with $20,000 bucks.
I said my two cents worth. You can Believe it or Not I could Care less either way but what I said above I will stake my life on that. We are All Dummies that work at a Casino at least some of the players think we are anyway. I have got to be doing something right to keep my job for 9 Years. The Slot Players tell us how,what, why the machine isn’t working when they don’t even know how to open the slot door. Yea, Right!!
flash32
It takes all cylinders of the game to run clean to have a good game. First a little luck will help you out with some decent cards. Knowig your odds helps you play your cards. Getting good reads on your opponents will help you stay out of trouble. And you must suck out on a hand or two. But thats just my take on the game….
Bill,
Great job picking apart the logical holes in the arguments citing online poker is rigged. I hear these people who are trying to argue poker online is rigged are the same people who swear professional wrestling is not scripted. Go figure…
Mike
Gee, no one has yet pointed out that this blog is rigged. It is really run by Phil Collins. Look at the picture at the top. They photoshopped the microphone to look like a mouthpiece!
Busted!
;-}
A great post! But those that truly need to read it and weep are unlikely to accept the obvious truth… online poker isn’t fixed, they’re just bad players…
All I can say is this: Bill great post and Joe you’ve been pwned!
StB: I am concerned though about the casino this guy is dealing at. Sounds like they are playing poker out of a shoe. Six decks at one table and all are being used? Wow!
That was a bit confusing. Poker, blackjack? Does this cat know the difference? Nah, they’re all cards. Try calculating odds while playing with 6 decks. Now that’s a challenge nearly as hard as proving online is rigged.
Hey StB, we shouldn’t be concerned about the guy’s casino, we just have to find it. I can’t wait to look down at my pocket aces and then see the flop come AAA.
And Bill, another great post!
I love your “online poker is rigged” posts. Great stuff.
I am concerned though about the casino this guy is dealing at. Sounds like they are playing poker out of a shoe. Six decks at one table and all are being used? Wow!
Online slots are RIGGED! Damn things wouldn’t give me a bonus game in nearly 30 minutes last night!
Does the Casino he works for require the tinfoil hat, or does he wear it voluntarily?
Dude, you must take intense pleasure from crushing weaker intellects, because this sure ain’t worth the time. 🙂
You know what’s rigged? Live poker. So rigged.
Dave,
See I would agree with you but you mix up a lot of unrelated concepts.
First, prop players play both online and live. Many casinos have prop players and if you ask those prop players will be pointed out to you. They are there to get games going and then once they fill up the table they leave to start a new game or to fill in an existing game. Why you mention it in your comment is somewhat confusing.
Can players IM? Yes. Just as players can signal people in a live casino. It’s easier online but I can come up with a system to signal my buddy pretty easily. This risk is slightly increased online but is not unique to it.
Also, if you suspect someone of collusion (which is what you described) you can report those players to the poker site. The poker site can run a lot of different tests to see if the players were colluding. For instance, how often do these two screen names play on the same table? Are the IP addresses always on at the same time? Yadda, yadda, yadda. It’s not hard to figure out if someone is colluding. In fact, online it’s pretty easy.
Bots can also play online but they have to avoid detection. Most poker rooms actively try to prevent bots from playing on their sites. And why do they do that? Because if people start to think that too many bots are playing online it will harm the credibility of the poker room.
In my personal experience, I’ve played against a few players I felt were bots. I crushed them. Even the better commercial programs out there can only squeek out a .5 – 1.0 BB/100 profit. A good player should be crushing those same limits for 2 – 3 BB/100. If you can’t beat the weak/tight bots out there, they likely aren’t hurting your game much anyway.
Bill
Online poker in and of itself isn’t rigged. However, teams of players cheat and rig games behind the scenes. Many players use IM to play multiple tables and trap others. Some players use bots/multiple pc’s from their home to login simultaneously (and IP identifying technology is easily fooled to show you’re not logging in from same IP each login).
These are not random comments, they are facts. They are provable. Go to onlinepropping.com and sign up to be a prop at the sites they pay for. You get a big rakeback to start the tables then leave. Although you agree to not cheat or collude, it happens daily.
So no, online poker isn’t rigged. Online poker players are.
How about the fact that he says that he isn’t just another losing player claiming that online poker is rigged, BUT he earlier states that he won $2000 and hten lost it all back. Hate to say it prag, but you allegedly stopped playing online when you LOST the $2K. I’d bet you weren’t bitching and moaning about online poker being rigged after you won the $2K. Suck it!
I think the most super wonderful part of all of that is the implied foundation of his entire argument: I deal poker, therefore I know all about poker.
Ironclad, that. Nary a piece of evidence, anecdotal nor empirical, to counter it. Nope.
Rigged it is.