People often ask me if online poker is rigged or not.
And my answer is always the same: if it is rigged, then it is definitely rigged for me. Because I have made a lot of money playing this silly little card game on the internet!

Online poker on the whole is not rigged. The financial incentives for the poker sites to maintain the integrity of their games are just too important. However, there are some legitimate concerns about some of the smaller poker sites in particular. The bottom line. Ksamor Casino Poker Chip Set - Professional 200, 300, 500 Poker Chips for Texas Holdem Blackjack Gambling Complete Poker Playing Game Sets with 11.5 Gram Chips, Cards, Dice, Aluminum Case $37.99 $ 37. Bei Stud Poker-Spielen gibt es keine Gemeinschaftskarten. Stattdessen beginnt der Geber, indem er im Uhrzeigersinn Karten austeilt, bis jeder Spieler drei Karten hat. Die ersten beiden Karten werden verdeckt ausgeteilt („verdeckte Karten“) und die dritte Karte wird offen ausgeteilt (die sogenannte „Door Card“). Poker Uhrzeigersinn, casinoaustraliaonline, gala casino bristol harbourside, live roulette online indonesia. 35x-+1 702-602-8767. Visit casino Spinzwin Casino Review Bonus. Bonus works Wager. Total Bonus $100. 54.-Deal or No Deal™ Slots. Start Playing on.

In all seriousness though, this is big concern that many people have. In fact my recent 'Is PokerStars Rigged' post has quickly become one of the most popular articles I have ever published.
So here's the short of it:
Online poker on the whole is not rigged. The financial incentives for the poker sites to maintain the integrity of their games are just too important. However, there are some legitimate concerns about some of the smaller poker sites in particular. The bottom line though is that you are the customer and you hold all the power. If you think a certain poker site is rigged, then you should withdraw all your funds and absolutely refuse to play there.
However, this is a fairly simplistic answer. So let's dig into specifics in the case for and against online poker being rigged. I will also talk about issues like bots, collusion and superusers.
Alright, let's go!

Is Online Poker Rigged? What's the Deal!

So let's get right into it. Is online poker rigged or not? What the heck is the deal here? Why do I get so many bad beats?!
When people talk about online poker being rigged the most common complaints I hear are a mathematically improbable amount of 'setups' (example: AA vs KK) and bad beats (example: you have AA, bad player with 74 offsuit hits two pair on the river).
Here is a good example of a so called setup hand:

But anyone who has played poker longer than a few days, knows that eventually these always go both ways. They are simply a part of the game, so it's like complaining about the rain.
People also often talk about a 'big stack advantage' in poker tournaments as well. This means that they believe the poker site rigs it in order for the bigger stack to win more all-in preflop coinflips (example: AK vs 99).
The logic behind what exactly the poker sites gain by rigging these hands and allowing the big stack to win more flips is a little bit less clear. Especially since most of the people who complain that online poker is rigged play incredibly low stakes, like $10 games.
Some people however claim that there is widespread collusion, bots or 'superusers' in many games. Now this is a bit of a separate issue because this sort of cheating (if true) is more likely to be perpetrated by the players themselves, not the poker sites.
However, let's put that to the side for a moment and discuss the case for and against online poker being rigged first.

The Case For Online Poker Being Rigged

So let's look at the facts for why online poker is rigged then shall we?
Well, unfortunately the facts for online poker being rigged are few and far between. The arguments in favor of online poker being rigged would be much better classified as 'anecdotal' instead.
For instance, if you go read any 'poker is rigged' thread on Reddit or a poker forum you will find that most of the comments are actually just angry, incoherent and expletive laced rants.
And they are always missing that one massively important pesky little detail:
Evidence.
Instead their arguments usually go something like this instead:
'OMGGGZZZ, my pocket AA got cracked 3 times in a row, on the RIVER, every time STUPID JOKERSTARS, rigged, I will get my lawyer and sue POKERSTARS!!!, OMFG so mad right now, how can anyone play on this RIGGED poker site???'
Now, the problem with 'arguments' for online poker being rigged like this is that while they certainly demonstrate a large amount of emotion, they just aren't supported with anything close to what we would typically deem as evidence.
And unfortunately, when making such seriously allegations and threatening lawsuits against a multi-billion dollar company you are probably going to need some of this!
The main problem here is that 'my pocket AA got cracked 3 times in a row' just doesn't mean anything. Like at all.
In fact this is such a completely commonplace and mathematically likely occurrence in poker that it is trivial to even consider.
You would need a sample size of thousands of instances where your AA was getting beat too often in order to have a real and substantive argument here.
And luckily for all of those who believe that online poker is rigged, this is actually really, really easy for them to do.
You can just use a program like PokerTracker, import your poker hands, and then filter for all instances of AA to see your winning percentage.
Pocket Aces should win approximately 85% of the time versus a random hand.
So, if you had a sample size with thousands of instances of AA where you are only winning at 70%, 60% or less, then you would have a real and legitimate complaint!
However, I have never seen anyone who claims that online poker is rigged actually produce a statistically significant sample size like this. Instead they have sample sizes of 3 hands, 10 hands or 100 hands.
Incredibly small sample sizes like this would be quickly refuted by any amateur mathematician as well within the bounds of simple variance and standard deviation.
And for all those threatening lawsuits against the online poker sites this sort of 'evidence' would also be quickly dismissed from any court of law as pure silliness.

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The Case Against Online Poker Being Rigged

The evidence for online poker not being rigged is far, far stronger. And the reason why is because once again, you can just go check it for yourself!
Most poker sites these days will allow you to download your hand histories as you play. Hand histories are a small text document which includes every bit of information about a poker hand.
For Example:

• Exact time the hand was played
• All player's stack sizes
• Who bet, folded, called etc.
• Who was the winner of the hand
• Who was the loser of the hand

And as mentioned before, we have highly sophisticated online poker tracking programs these days like PokerTracker and Hold’em Manager.
Using the pocket AA example again, you could simply go into either of these programs and filter for this hand only. Then you could see if your winning percentage differs dramatically from where it should be.
Furthermore, it wouldn’t even take that many hands to figure this out. In order to get a sample size of 1000 instances of pocket AA for instance, you would only need to play 220,000 hands of poker.
You get dealt pocket AA 1 out of every 220 hands. 220 x 1000 = 220,000.
Now this might sound like a lot, but for anyone who plays online poker seriously and multi-tables this is not really that many hands. Any serious poker player could easily do this in a couple months.
In fact, I have actually played this amount of poker hands in one single month several times throughout my poker career.

By the way if you are curious about how I play this many hands of poker, and still keep track of all my opponents, yes I do use several poker software aids and tools.
For the complete list of all poker software and tools I use as a pro at the tables, click here.
However, my suspicion is that many of the people complaining about their pocket AA being cracked too much have not even played this many hands in their entire lifetime!
After all, it is hard to play a lot of poker when you are too busy writing angry expletive laced comments on Reddit and threatening hare-brained lawsuits.
Look, if you truly believe that your pocket AA is losing way too often then you owe it to yourself to at least do your homework first so that you know for sure.
Play a statistically significant sample of hands (i.e. 200K+), run it through a tracking program, and then post the evidence for all the world to see!
Opinions are great. Everybody has one. But what we need in order to solve the debate once and for all about online poker being rigged or not are facts. Clear verifiable evidence.
Unfortunately for all the people claiming that online poker is rigged, they never seem to have much of this. However, I know that I can look through my own database of millions of poker hands and prove them dead wrong in a second.
Another thing that would help a lot of the people who believe online poker is rigged is to simply get better at poker.
Because when you have an extremely high win-rate you won't worry about the routine ups and downs as much anymore.
This is something that Daniel Negreanu actually mentions specifically in his brand new advanced poker training course. Instead of worrying so much about the losses, just focus on winning more!

Poker Sites Have a Direct Financial Incentive NOT to Rig Online Poker

The other big problem for the online poker is rigged crowd is that the poker sites actually have a direct financial incentive to maintain the integrity of their games.

Poker Gegen Uhrzeigersinn

In other words, they have a clear motive NOT to rig online poker.
PokerStars for instance made $877 million dollars in revenue from poker in 2017. And that is actually a 4% increase over 2016 for all the people who think the popularity of online poker is trending downward.
What these numbers really prove though is the point that I have been making on this blog for many, many years now.
And That Is:
The poker sites themselves are the real big winners in poker and they always will be. They are the real 'sharks,' not the players.
If you disagree please tell me the name of a poker player who is making nearly a billion dollars a year. I would pay anything to get coaching from this guy!
So simple common sense and logic will tell us that when you are already crushing it beyond belief in business the last thing you want to do is change anything or risk your reputation.
No of course not. You just want to keep the gravy train rolling!
You really have to ask yourself what PokerStars for example has to gain by rigging the river in your $10 tournament. Nothing. But they have everything to lose.

You Are The Customer, You Have All the Power!

But hey believe me, I get it. Some people will never be convinced no matter what I or others say.
Even though there is absolutely no evidence to support their claims nor even a motive for many of the poker sites to rig anything, their minds are already made up.
And that's completely cool.
You can believe pink monkeys orbit the moon too and Tupac Shakur is alive and well living on an island in Malaysia with Jim Morrison.
At the end of the day though it doesn't matter what I believe or what you believe because the bottom line when you are playing poker (online or live) is that you are the customer.
And therefore, you have all the power.

So if you believe that a certain poker site is rigged against you then you should vote with your feet and simply withdraw all your funds and never play there again.
Something that I can never understand is how many people complain that a certain poker site is rigged (let’s just use PokerStars as an example again) and yet they continue to play there!
Why on earth would you continue to play at a poker site that you are convinced is rigged? This defies all logic and even just common sense.
There are literally hundreds of other online poker sites to choose from. And if you are convinced that all of online poker is rigged against you then you can just go play live as well!
Also, remember that when you withdraw your funds and go play somewhere else this is a huge loss for that poker site. They rely on the rake that you pay to keep creating those multi-million dollar profits.
So if you are convinced that an online poker site is rigged, hit them where it hurts, in the pocket book. Withdraw your money and never play there again.

What About Poker Bots, Collusion and SuperUsers?

Alright, let’s get into the much more serious discussion now of poker bots, collusion and superusers.
This is a legitimate concern because unlike poker sites rigging the river against your pocket aces, there is actually real evidence that this sort of cheating has occurred.
But the difference here is that the cheating is almost always done by the players themselves.
They are often the ones who are trying to run poker bots, collude with other people at the the table or find out somebody's hole cards (superuser).
In the past several years there have been allegations of bots in particular being used on nearly every major online poker site.
And this isn't just speculation. There have been many high profile cases of poker sites publicly refunding players because their security teams uncovered gross rule violations.
Now while they rarely spell out the exact details of what type of actual cheating occurred (for pretty obvious reasons) it is clearly some sort of bot ring or collusion in many cases.
Now should you be concerned about playing against poker bots, colluders and so on? Absolutely. But here's the thing. You are battling against human nature here.
Whenever there are significant amounts of money on the line, a small amount of people are going to engage in shady practices or even outright cheating.
Remember that little global financial meltdown we had about 10 ago? Ya, enough said.
Look here's the thing. There is always going to be some form of cheating or angle shooting in poker no matter what games you play in. And it doesn't matter if you play live or online.
Does this mean that you should never play poker again? No of course not. You just need to be realistic and vigilant when playing poker.
I would also be a lot more concerned as a mid or high stakes poker player about this sort of cheating because of the much larger amounts of money in play.
However, less than 5% of the people reading this article right now actually play in these games. I know this because I asked 1,124 of you what stakes you play a few months ago!
But look here is the bottom line once again. You are the customer. If you feel that something isn't right, then send the poker site an email, and give them some specific names and details so they can investigate.
If you do not find their reply to be satisfactory, then withdraw all of your funds immediately and never play there again.

Final Thoughts

So should you trust online poker? Is online poker rigged?
Well, I think the glaring lack of any real evidence or even a motive for most of the major online poker sites to be rigging anything speaks volumes.
But as we all know some people will never be convinced.
I get hands sent to me every single day like this one where people are convinced that it is 100% rigged against them:

The game of poker was developed some time during the early 19th century in the United States. Since those early beginnings, poker has grown to become an extremely popular pastime throughout the world.

19th century[edit]

In the 1837 edition of Foster's Complete Hoyle, R. F. Foster wrote: 'the game of poker, as first played in the United States, five cards to each player from a twenty-card pack, is undoubtedly the Persian game of As-Nas.' By the 1990s some gaming historians including David Parlett started to challenge the notion that poker is a direct derivative of As-Nas.^{[citation needed]} There is evidence that a game called poque, a French game similar to poker, was played around the region where poker is said to have originated. The name of the game likely descended from the Irish Poca (Pron. Pokah) ('Pocket') or even the Frenchpoque, which descended from the Germanpochen ('to brag as a bluff' lit. 'to knock'). Yet it is not clear whether the origins of poker itself lie with the games bearing those names. It is commonly regarded as sharing ancestry with the Renaissance game of primero and the French brelan. The English game brag (earlier bragg) clearly descended from brelan and incorporated bluffing (though the concept was known in other games by that time). It is quite possible that all of these earlier games influenced the development of poker as it exists now.

A modern school of thought rejects these ancestries,^[1] as they focus on the card play in poker, which is trivial and could have been derived from any number of games or made up on general cardplay principles.^[2] The unique features of poker have to do with the betting, and do not appear in any known older game.^[1] In this view poker originated much later, in the early or mid-18th century, and spread throughout the Mississippi River region by 1800. It was played in a variety of forms, with 52 cards, and included both straight poker and stud. 20 card poker was a variant for two players (it is a common English practice to reduce the deck in card games when there are fewer players).^[3] The development of poker is linked to the historical movement that also saw the invention of commercial gambling.^[4][5]

English actor Joseph Cowell^[6] reported that the game was played in New Orleans in 1829, with a deck of 20 cards, and four players betting on which player's hand was the most valuable. Jonathan H. Green's book, An Exposure of the Arts and Miseries of Gambling (G. B. Zieber, Philadelphia, 1843), described the spread of the game from there to the rest of the country by Mississippiriverboats, on which gambling was a common pastime. As it spread north along the Mississippi River and to the West during the gold rush, it is thought to have become a part of the frontier pioneer ethos.

Soon after this spread, the full 52-card French deck was used and the flush was introduced. The draw was added prior to 1850 (when it was first mentioned in print in a handbook of games).^[7] During the American Civil War, many additions were made including stud poker (the five-card variant), and the straight. Further American developments followed, such as the wild card (around 1875), lowball and split-pot poker (around 1900), and community card poker games (around 1925).

Early books discussing poker[edit]

• Hildreth, J. (1836) Dragoon Campaigns to the Rocky Mountains, Wiley & Long, New York: mentions poker
• Green, Jonathan H. (1843). Exposure of the Arts and Miseries of Gambling, Philadelphia: Zieber
• Cowell, Joe (1844). Thirty Years Passed Among the Players in England and America
• Anners, Henry F. (1845) Hoyle’s Games: refers to Poker or Bluff, 20-deck Poker, and 20-deck Poke
• Bohn, Henry George (1850) New Handbook of Games: stated the rules of poker in print for the first time
• Dick, Willium B. (1866) The American card player
• Trumps (1868) The Modern Pocket Hoyle New York: Dick & Fitzgerald
• Steinmetz, Andrew (1870) The Gaming Table: Its Votaries and Victims, London: Tinsley Brothers
• Schenck, Robert C. (1872)Rules for Playing Poker, private circulation
• Winterblossom, Henry T (1875) The Game of Draw Poker Mathematically Illustrated
• Blackbridge (1875) The Complete Card Player

20th century[edit]

Developments in the 1970s led to poker becoming far more popular than it was before. Modern tournament play became popular in American casinos after the World Series of Poker began, in 1970.^[8] Notable champions from these early WSOP tournaments include Johnny Moss, Amarillo Slim, Bobby Baldwin, Doyle Brunson, and Puggy Pearson. Later in the 1970s, the first serious poker strategy books appeared, notably Super/System by Doyle Brunson (ISBN1-58042-081-8) and Caro's Book of Poker Tells by Mike Caro (ISBN0-89746-100-2), followed later by The Theory of Poker by David Sklansky (ISBN1-880685-00-0).

By the 1980s, poker was being depicted in popular culture as a commonplace recreational activity. For example, it was featured in at least 10 episodes of Star Trek: The Next Generation as a weekly event of the senior staff of the fictional ship's crew.^[9]

Two significant events in the late 1980s led to the first poker 'boom'. In 1987, California legalized the flop games of hold'em and Omaha, as well as stud. Previously only draw games were allowed. While there were more poker games in California than anywhere else before this, the number of games and the action hold'em brought both increased dramatically. Cavernous poker rooms like the Commerce Casino and the Bicycle Club began operating in the LA area.^[10] In 1988 Congress passed the Indian Gaming Regulatory Act (IGRA),^[11] which legalized casino games on Indian lands. Poker rooms began rapidly opening within a few short years. Limit Texas hold'em was the most widely played game by far in the west, and seven card stud was the most widely played game in the east from the late 1980s until 2003.^[12]

In the 1990s, poker and casino gambling spread across the United States, most notably to Atlantic City, New Jersey.^[13] In 1998, Planet Poker dealt the first real money online poker game. In 1999, Late Night Poker debuted on British television.^[14]

21st century[edit]

Poker's popularity experienced an unprecedented spike at the beginning of the 21st century, largely because of the introduction of online poker and hole-card cameras, which turned the game into a spectator sport. Not only could viewers now follow the action and drama of the game on television, they could also play the game in the comfort of their own home. Broadcasts of poker tournaments such as the World Series of Poker and World Poker Tour brought in huge audiences for cable and satellite TV distributors. Because of the increased coverage of poker events, poker pros became celebrities, with poker fans all over the world entering into tournaments for the chance to compete with them. Television coverage also added an important new dimension to the poker professional's game, as any given hand could now be aired later, revealing information not only to the other players at the table, but to anyone who cared to view the broadcast.

Following the surge in popularity, new poker tours soon emerged, including the World Poker Tour and European Poker Tour, both televised, and the latter sponsored by online poker company PokerStars. Subsequent tours have since been created by PokerStars, such as Latin American Poker Tour and Asia Pacific Poker Tour, as well as other national tours. Beginning in 2003, major poker tournament fields grew dramatically, in part because of the growing popularity of online satellite-qualifier tournaments where the prize is an entry into a major tournament. The 2003 and 2004 World Series of Poker champions, Chris Moneymaker and Greg Raymer, respectively, won their seats to the main event by winning online satellites.^[15] In 2009 the International Federation of Poker was founded in Lausanne, Switzerland, becoming the official governing body for poker and promoting the game as a mind sport. In 2011 it announced plans for two new events: The Nations Cup, a duplicate poker team event, to be staged on the London Eye on the banks of the River Thames and 'The Table', the invitation-only IFP World Championship, featuring roughly 130 of the world's best poker players, in an event to find the 2011 official 'World Champion'.

Poker Im Uhrzeigersinn

After the passage of the UIGEA in October 2006, attendance at live tournaments as well as participation in live and online cash games initially slowed; however, they are still growing and far more popular today than they were before 2003. The growth and popularity of poker can be seen in the WSOP which had a record 7,319 entrants to the 2010 main event.^[16] The only nations in Europe that prohibit live poker are Norway, Poland and Albania, according to Dagbladet in 2011.^[17]

References[edit]

1. ^ ^abReuven and Gabrielle Brenner, and Aaron Brown, A World of Chance: Betting on Religion, Games, Wall Street, Cambridge University Press (2008), ISBN978-0-521-88466-2
2. ^Stephen Longstreet, Win or Lose: A Social History of Gambling in America, Bobbs-Merrill (1977), ISBN978-0-672-52253-6
3. ^Aaron Brown, The Poker Face of Wall Street, John Wiley & Sons (2006), ISBN978-0-470-12731-5
4. ^David G. Schwartz, Roll the Bones: The History of Gambling, Gotham (2007), ISBN978-1-59240-316-5
5. ^Timothy O'Brien, Bad Bet : The Inside Story of the Glamour, Glitz, and Danger of America's Gambling Industry, Crown Business (1998), ISBN978-0-8129-2807-5
6. ^Williamson, G. R. (15 May 2012). Frontier Gambling. G.R. Williamson. ISBN9780985278014. Retrieved 16 December 2018 – via Google Books.
7. ^Henry G. Bond (ed.), Bohn's New Handbook of Games, Henry F. Anners (1850)
8. ^'World Series of Poker: A Retrospective'. Gaming.unlv.edu. 2007-10-22. Retrieved 2009-03-20.
9. ^'Poker & Pop Culture: 'Star Trek: The Next Generation''. www.pokernews.com. Retrieved 16 December 2018.
10. ^Badger, Steve. 'California Hold'em Poker - Texas Holdem Comes to California Poker'. www.stevebadger.com.
11. ^'Industry Overview'. Indian Gaming: The National Information Site of the American Indian Gaming Industry. Liberty Lake, Washington: ArrowPoint Media, Inc. 2017. Retrieved 11 July 2017.
12. ^'WSOP NEWS: A WILDER RIDE'. www.wsop.com. Retrieved 16 December 2018.
13. ^'United States of Poker: New Jersey'. Pokerplayernewspaper.com. Retrieved 2009-03-20.
14. ^'Late Night Poker: About the Show'. Channel4.com. Retrieved 2009-03-20.
15. ^'Chris Moneymaker on'. Answers.com. 1975-11-21. Retrieved 2009-03-20.
16. ^'WSOP 2010 Results - World Series of Poker Champion Jonathan Duhamel'. PokerStars.com. 2011-01-22. Retrieved 2011-01-22.
17. ^LøvikSivilingeniør, DEBATTINNLEGGPål Skønberg (15 September 2011). 'Legaliser poker'. Dagbladet.no. Retrieved 16 December 2018.