Online Poker Is Not Random
Firstly I will clarify what most people mean when they say that online poker is rigged or fixed. This idea is suggested because a lot of people believe that the cards are dealt in set patterns so that certain hands will be specifically chosen by the site, resulting in numerous bad beats for players.
Mar 11, 2012 This is an investigative report, proving that online poker really is rigged. We sat down at several poker tables in a popular online poker room, and found solid proof that there's definitely. May 19, 2011 I believe sometimes these online video poker games are VIRTUAL LOTTERY TERMINALS. Bodog is a prime example of how bogus this randomness they claim is. Time and time again I win at Bodog until they decide to switch servers on me. How's this for random? Start with $250 hit Straight flush, (5) 4 kinds who knows how many full houses.
Therefore due to this frequency of bad beats, a player may claim that the site is rigged and that no hands and cards are dealt out at random.
So anyway, is online poker is rigged?
No.
Every site uses a RNG (Random Number Generator) to randomly choose cards from a 52 card deck on every singly hand. Rigged online poker is just another one of the many online poker myths.
Theories for online poker being rigged.
I could end the article at that, but now you will be asking the question of why I am so sure that it isn’t rigged, so I will continue and hopefully explain why it is not rigged and dispel some common rumors about Internet poker at the same time.
Many people have different suggestions as to why Internet poker is rigged, so I will address the most popular theories in the next few paragraphs and give the reasoning to why they are incorrect.
- There are too many bad beats.
- Cards are fixed to keep people playing.
- Cards are fixed to build bigger pots.
1) Too many bad beats.
Theory: The number of bad beats online is substantially greater when compared to the number of bad beats in live play. Therefore, if online poker isn’t rigged, then why are there so many bad beats?
Explanation: I will admit that it is true that you will see far more bad beats online than you will during live play, but this is not because it is rigged. There are two reasons why you see such a high frequency of beats online:
- The action at an online poker table runs much faster than the action at a live table. More hands = more beats.
- You are not sitting face to face with any of your opponents whilst playing online.
To elaborate on point #2, players are happier to call down large bets and raises on unlikely draws, as they do not have to worry about being berated by other players at the table (except for a few words in a chat box). If a player is playing at a live table, they are more likely to avoid calling with terrible odds for a draw because they would not like to be criticized because of their bad play.
Because online players are calling with worse hands and worse odds, you are likely to suffer more bad beats.
Top 2 safest online poker rooms.
In all fairness, if any of the rooms on this site were rigged or unsafe I would not link to them. Nonetheless, I would say the following rooms are the safest of an already incredibly safe bunch.
1) PokerStars - This is the biggest online poker room by quite some margin. I'll eat my hat if this poker room ever goes south. Amazing support at hand to answers questions too.
2) Cards are fixed to keep people playing.
Random Poker Hand
Theory: The online rooms fix the cards so that the bad players will get luckier to stop them from losing too much money and leaving the room. The rooms want to keep as many players as possible so that they generate more rake, so by fixing the cards to make it ‘fairer’ for the bad players, they will able to make more money for themselves.
Explanation: The chances of a room fixing cards to help the bad players save money are almost non-existent. Only when you start to think about the side effects of such a system can you appreciate the absurdity of such a theory.
If a room is helping a bad player from losing money, at the same time the room will be taking this money from the good players to compensate. Therefore there would be no such thing as the online pros that make a living from playing online poker, because they will find it too difficult to win money due to a ‘fair’ system.
In addition, the site would have to scrap the use of its RNG and design a system that is able to detect a losing player and be able to deliver ‘good hands’ to those players. Not only would this be incredibly difficult for the sites to create, but it would also be illegal. If a site were found to be utilizing such a system to help make them more money, they would incur a staggering amount of fines and be heavily prosecuted. The poker rooms know this and so it would be dangerously unwise for them to even consider using such a system.
3) Cards are fixed to build bigger pots.
Theory: Poker rooms have pre-set ‘action hands’ that give two or more players very strong hands. This helps to create larger pots, which in turn generates more rake for the room.
Explanation: As already mentioned above, the poker rooms would have to knowingly break the law to achieve this system. With so many people involved working with the rooms, there is a high chance that information of such a system would slip out into the public eye and scar the integrity of the room.
Furthermore, the room would be forced to close and they would face large fines and legal action due to their exploits. If a room were using a system like that, you would know about it by now. As far as the poker rooms are concerned the juice just wouldn’t be worth the squeeze, and they would rather invest their time in making the room more attractive to new and old players.
Is online poker rigged overview.
These are the most popular arguments for why online poker may be rigged. As you can see the explanations make it incredibly unlikely that the poker rooms will ever rig poker for the online player. If you browse through a poker room’s homepage you should be able to find information on how each hand is randomly generated. If this is not available on the website then you should be able to request information about it by emailing the poker room.
If you really wish, you can test the RNG of the rooms by tracking the results of your play using tracking software and comparing the statistics you obtain against the mathematical likelihood of each situation over a large number of hands. However, you must obtain a large amount of data if you intend on doing this to make sure the results are fair and accurate. If you are still unsure about the room you are playing at, simply move onto a different room.
Go back to the interesting Texas Hold'em articles.
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Poker is a game of skill, with a small dollop of luck tossed in. Because of this (or perhaps in spite of it) there are many online poker players who have postulated a number of conspiracy theories about the game. A brief scan of a few poker forums will reveal plenty of cries of “the game was rigged!” and “I can’t win after I cash out.” As with most conspiracy theories, a reasonable explanation usually exists.
There are a variety of poker conspiracy theories that should simply be ignored. Let’s take a look at a few of these…
The Cash-out Curse
One of the most popular and ridiculous poker conspiracy theories that you’ll find on message boards and poker forums is the cash-out curse. This conspiracy theory presumes that a player who cashes out some of his money from an online poker site will experience a horrible losing streak when he returns to play. The theory figures that a “curse flag” will be placed on the poker player’s account, singling them out to be dealt bad beats.
What would be the motive for such a policy? Poker conspiracy theorists say that a poker room’s motivation for the cash-out curse is twofold: firstly, they’re trying to punish you for cashing out and discouraging you from cashing out in the future. Secondly, the card room hates it when players cash out and redistributing the money to other players allows the house to eventually receive the money through the rake. Although it may be possible to see the twisted logic in this sort of reasoning, the simple fact is that the online poker cash-out curse is not real.
Online Poker Not True Random
Poker is a game of constant, volatile fluctuations - what we call variance. Typically, a player will cash out after experiencing a nice winning streak. The average casual player will have a few wins, look at their bankroll, and think “Hey! That’s enough cash for that new set of golf clubs I had my eye on.” When he returns to the play poker online, he returns with an inflated sense of his poker skills. He doesn’t feel like he can lose, and when he inevitably does, he cries about the cash-out curse.
The situation is worsened when an online poker player who has cashed out is over-confident and decides to move up in stakes, where more advanced poker players are waiting to take his or her money.
Bad Beats
A “bad beat” typically occurs when you’re playing poker and receive a strong hand after the flop. Despite your seemingly monstrous hand, another player calls with a weak draw and beats you by getting a lucky card on the turn and/or river. Although this is actually a rather common occurrence due to the luck component of the game, it has led several naive poker players to cry conspiracy theory.
The theory is that poker sites are rigged to ensure that weak players don’t lose all of their money to better poker players too quickly. This is because a bad poker player who lasts longer will lose more of his money to the rake instead of to another player. The conspiracy theory postulates that bad poker players have their playing sessions extended by the online card room intentionally, at the cost of bad beats for stronger players.
Random Poker Hand Generator
The reality of the situation, of course, is that bad beats occur naturally. Firstly, online poker players, especially those at the micro limits, tend to be weak, passive, and loose with their chips. When the overall quality of the game is very loose, with players playing far more hands than they should, there are bound to be situations where a bad player sees lucky cards and beats a better player. Bad beats even occur deep in the main event of the World Series of Poker. In addition, online poker is played at a much faster pace than live poker. It would stand to reason, then, that you’ll see many more bad beats.
Action Flops
This is another theory that is based on the online card room trying to make more money from the rake. The theory states that the online poker site intentionally deals flops that help multiple hands in order to build up the pots, and therefore increase the rake that the card room receives.
This conspiracy theory is also explained by the loose nature of online poker, particularly at the lower limits. With so many players seeing the flop, there are bound to be instances where the flop helps multiple poker hands. Comparing live poker to online poker, pots will often be larger and more players will be eager to pursue weaker hands.
Again, it’s important to remember the random nature of the way in which cards are dealt.
Random Number Generator (RNG) Dealing Systems
The random number generator (RNG) is the backbone of any online poker room. An understanding of how they work will help dispel any of the conspiracy theories you’ve read so far in this article. The purpose of a random number generator is to ensure that there are no biases and that cards are distributed in an unpredictable fashion.
You might be surprised to know, but it’s impossible for a computer to produce a truly random shuffle all on its own. An unpredictable external stimulus is required for a pseudo-random shuffle. Online poker sites have various ways of creating a pseudo-random number generator (PRNG), which rely on real world physical processes that are unpredictable. Examples include:
- Combined mouse movements from players connected to the online poker room.
- Thermal movements around the computer’s thermal entropy chip.
In many respects the online poker rooms go beyond what is actually necessary to create an unpredictable and random shuffle to provide a fair and unbiased playing environment. Using such methods also ensures a potential hacker cannot break or crack the random number generator.
Many of the conspiracy theories suggest that online poker rooms somehow fix their random number generators to produce certain results. The fact is that any attempt to create some kind of set of rules or decision engine into a random system would immediately invalidate the randomness – and a dysfunctional random number generator would be extremely easy to spot.
Also, let’s not forget that there are online poker players with hundreds of thousands of hand histories, saved in poker tracking software programs. These poker hand histories are regularly scrutinized by the poker playing community, and if there ever was some kind of “fix” by an online poker room, (that produced results that deviated beyond expected variance), it would be pounced upon immediately.
So, is Online Poker Rigged?
No, online poker is not rigged. The conspiracy theory presuming that online poker is in some way rigged is misconception that has been proliferated through poker forums and internet message boards. It’s human nature for a person who loses or has an unfortunate streak of poor luck to claim that the system was rigged, simply because it’s more difficult and uncomfortable to accept the fact that they were responsible for their own losses.
Players who continue to spout on about online poker being rigged (known as “rigtards”) are usually the same people who have a hard time accepting the fact that they might be a losing poker player. Instead of learning more about the game of poker and trying to improve their poker skills, they assume that system is working against them. It’s not!
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By Tim Ryerson
Tim is from London, England and has been playing poker since the late 1990’s. He is the ‘Editor-in-Chief’ at Pokerology.com and is responsible for all the content on the website.
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