***OFFICIAL "Is online poker rigged?" THREAD

[dbdbarry]

dude you need to relax, i know what you said i just thought it was funny and i don't know why you don't think it's funny.
btw i'm sick of these morons with 18 posts trying to crack jokes on message boards, ban them all! better yet, hunt them down and kill them like the dogs they are!

[the alex]

This is the "un-official official online poker is rigged" thread. If people wanna post this nonsense, I merge the post with this thread so it doesn't cloud the board because 2 or 3 times a month, someone starts a thread like this. I think it's retarded, but it's easier to deal with it this way.

[Marm]

yeah, that'll work A, kinda like a garbage can.....


Maybe you should make it a sticky!!!

[the alex]

There are people that actually do want to discuss this. It breaks no rules and the general consensus of the members is that it's not rigged and make better arguments than the rest. If someone wants to give an oppossing opinion, they should have the freedom to express that opinion.

This is an open forum about poker related discussion. I really hate playing on Poker Stars and I think that people who play the cash games are losing money by wasting time there when there are better games that are just as accessible. I can express that opinion here and many people disagree. Should I not be able to express that and because I think it's retarded to play Poker Stars cash games, I should delete ever thread that disagrees with me? No. That's not a forum.

I think when you're inflating the pot with stupid bets, calling on the river because "the pot's too big fold" even though you're mistakes made the pot that big is retarded. I don't get it. I'm not gonna delete those posts either. I'll react.

The "online poker is rigged" is a retarded thing to argue because no one's gonna change their mind, but the opinions can be slammed as long as people aren't personally attacked in a context that is acceptable and can be understood an issue related debate.

I hate this thread, but it exists and when a thread has 50+ replies, people feel that it's worth discussing. I only read them because the debate gets out of line at time and I have to watch the board for that.

Not to mention, this thread amuses me.

[stockman27]

To clear up some confusion, I have probably played as many hands or more than anyone on this thread. I used to play 3 or 4 tables at the same time so Ive put in millions of hands online. I am a professional cash game player & i used to play with the pros a lot at full tilt & beat them regularly. As dude said in an earlier post i knew that they would put my account in distribution mode after a while as the other sites do. With my experience Ive been able to win with new accounts for a while but then the site will start setting you up with 2nd best everytime. This is why i quit playing at fulltilt. None of the regular players that used to play at the site are there any longer. This is because eventually they start losing & cant win anymore. Im not just someone trying to put up a bullshiiit thread, I am trying to warn online players of the corruption that goes on at these sites. I am also a member of pokerconduct.com. A site that tries to expose online poker sites. I will be wearing one of their T-shirts at the wsop main event in vegas. Maybe i wont end up in a gutter somewhere, but im sure ill get some questions. If i make any ground & have the opportunity I will definately voice my opinion. It not a question as to whether or not the sites rig the deck, its just a matter of exactly how they do it & if they do it to all accounts or if they allow some to win to keep the myth alive that online poker is actually random. My name is Gabe, look for me at the main event.

[Announced Tilt]

If you are truly a professional, you would be winning. You are a joke.

[xxdemexx]

It would be possible for a site such as Full tilt or PS to rig. BUT in order to rig a site the rigger has to be very good (in order to extract the maximum from the top players). To pay for and maintain the silence after the event of the rigger would be very costly - the company would leave itself open to blackmail.

The big problem is with multi-francise sites. e.g Party, Prima, 24h.

These sites have independent partners and if rigging was to occur, there would have to be agreement (i.e knowledge beween the partners about how it is rigged). Rigging at this level would be extremly dangerous. Imagine you were the previous managemet of 'PokerNow'. They fell out with (quite publically) the parent organisation. Now if it was rigged and PokerNow knew about.... well.. what would you do?

If they don't know about the rigging then the yearly audit will show up problems and create suspicians in any good management i.e you look at PokerNow against Empire player performance. If the site is rigged in favour of a certain type of player who frequents one of these sites then all sorts of issues could be raised between the partners when it comes to profits.

From a management point of view rigging is a complete legal and managerial nightmare which leaves a site open to extortion, death by paranoid players leaving and all sorts of other problems. It is far easier to play it straight.

I've actually played with ideas of how I would rig a site - mathematically it is very challenging. Frankly - I don't think the pokersites have at their disposal the type of ppl who could rig effectively with a view to maximising profits....

In fact the interesting one is Party - who have long since come to the conclusion that the way they maximise thier profits is by giving ludicrously easy reloads back to the punters. The players are so bad that the majority are actually being paid to play..

There is another issue here about whether or not you can beat the top limits of poker.. My belief is that as tables tighten to 'value' the win rate goes down and the variance goes up - to a point where you can't actually beat the house because everyone is equally good and making the right plays .. Leaks at the top levels are very rare and when they do exist they can't be exploited big time....


Bob

[Marm]

Millions of hands.... hmmmmm..... Given a sustained rate of 200 H/hr 4 tabling, which is about my average, adn 6 hours a day (Some play more, but not every day), thats 4.5 years of contiguous online play. Highly doubtful. Especially on Sites that are only , at best, 2 years old. Yeah PP, PS and others have been ar ound a long time.... but I jsut can't see anybody averaging 6 hours a day, EVERY DAY, for almost 5 years. POst up 3-4 PT dbases with 200k each, and you got me.

[Diggler]

I can't believe ppl still complain about online poker. I played IRL for quite a while, and a FAR enjoy the ability to play 4 times the amount of hands in 1 evening...I prolly already said this, but it was the only thread going when I posted this.

[Marm]

Following up what Bob said, a couple years ago, some buddies and I started working on our own site. I did the math on the rake, and found that if you average 10 tables total, 24 hours, from .01/.02 to 10/20, withthe bulk of the tables around 1/2, with just a 5% rake, you will gross about 11.5 million a year. Thats with just 1000 active players average, with maybe 50,000 total accounts. Now look at FTP, PS, PP. UB. PP has, at this moment, 1276 Ring games running, PS has 461, and FTP (the oh so rigged site) has 73. FTP with a measly 73 tables should be making around 6 million dollars A MONTH in rake.

I got these numbers from www.pokerpulse.com, which gets hourly updates on all the major sites' traffic. One nifty little stat is this: Over the past 24 hours, just 300k shy of $200,000,000 has been wagered. Now, If your one of the top 20 sites who have a majority of this action, then 5% of your share is plenty good. They have NO REASON to rig their sites. People will play, People will lose, People will win.