People still ask me all the time if PokerStars is rigged. Or if online poker in general is rigged.
And I have never written an article about it before because I think this just legitimizes what to me seems like a pretty ridiculous question.
I feel the probability of being a rigged VP machine(s) in any CA Indian casino is NOT 0. I still play card games and poker at Indian casinos. No slots or VP machines. Remember the American Coin Cheating Video Poker machines in Las Vegas in the 1990s Larry Volk getting killed? It's interesting that mainly gamblers who play the slot machines will always ask if the video poker machines are rigged. This is because they have a deep distrust of the casinos and think that these organizations have cheated in the blood whenever they can get away with it. Is Online Poker Rigged ‘Is Online Poker rigged' and ‘Is video poker rigged' has to be two of the most searched terms in online gaming. But, the answer is no. Legitimate online poker rooms should be regulated and use state-of-the-art random number generators to ensure that their poker. In my opinion, this would be a very unrealistic definition of rigged. Video poker machines most assuredly do play as advertised. Now, this is not to say there has never been one that does not. Video poker has been around for decades and is extremely popular. A low house edge and greater winning possibilities are a major attraction to this game of skill, which is in essence a blend of slots and poker. Nevertheless, it is important to remember that this is one game where the old saying ‘house has the advantage', does not apply.Video poker is played with a standard 52-card deck.
But here is the quick answer.
PokerStars is not rigged. It just appears that way sometimes due to the incredible speed of online poker. Because online poker sites like PokerStars typically deal hands 3 times faster than a live poker game, you should expect 3 times as many bad beats. This is even more pronounced in Zoom Poker which can deal hands up to 10 times as fast as a live poker game.
Is PokerStars Legit? Is it Rigged?
But believe me I get it, some people are still not convinced that PokerStars is legit and not rigged.
And I know that the emails and the comments I get about online poker being rigged won't stop. Therefore, hopefully this article will help solve the Great Debate once and for all!
Is online poker rigged? Are we being invaded by Russian bots? Are there mysterious ninjas hired to create another rigged river card just for you right before the final table?
I gotta be honest. I can't possibly answer all of these earth shattering questions in a tiny little blog post like this.
However, a little bit of common sense should tell us that of course there is some nefarious behaviour going on when anything important (such as money) is on the line.
Humans rig the stock market, they rig elections, they lie on their resumes and they cheat on their high school exams as well. Heck a decent chunk of them even end up cheating on the person that they swore their wedding vows to!
So in short, yes of course there are certain poker sites and individuals out there who are trying to rig the system in their favor when it comes to online poker. You would have to be incredibly naive not to realize this.
But is PokerStars legit? Is there widespread cheating going on across the entire industry, and specifically at the biggest online poker site in the world, PokerStars?
Probably not. Here are 5 reasons why.
1. PokerStars is a Money Making Machine
The first and most highly obvious reason why PokerStars is probably not rigged is because they are an absolute money making machine.
As I have said many times before on this blog the house is always by far the biggest winner in poker. And PokerStars takes this to an entirely new level.
They are estimated to be bringing in $500 million dollars in pure profit each year. And therefore god only knows how much they were hauling in 5-10 years ago when poker was really booming.
And I personally have made a lot of money on PokerStars as well over the years by using a very simple but effective strategy against all the weak recreational players at low stakes.
In fact, I just made a new video discussing all the common mistakes that many beginners make in these poker games:
By the way, make sure you are subscribed to my poker YouTube channel, so you never miss when I put out new poker strategy videos.
But common sense should once again beg the question:
Why on earth would PokerStars possibly want to screw that up? Why would you do anything that could potentially risk your huge $500 million dollar cash cow?
When you are already making absurd amounts of money and dominating the entire industry what possible incentive could you have to want to rig something?
PokerStars is one of the most successful and profitable poker sites the industry has ever seen. Nobody has been able to rival their dominance for over a decade now.
So there is simply no plausible motive here.
In fact they have every reason in the world NOT to rig it and just keep playing a winning hand over and over again.
2. You Can Simply Go Check it For Yourself
The second most important reason why PokerStars is probably not rigged is kind of a biggie as well. And that is that you can actually just go and check it for yourself!
PokerStars is one of the few poker sites out there who are very open about what they do. They will in fact actually send you every single hand history that you have ever played on their site.
I know this because I did it myself once. I requested close to 8 million hands that I had played on PokerStars from them. Within 24 hours I had the links to download them all.
This means that I could then go stick those 8 million hands in a tracking program like PokerTracker and run extensive analysis and tests looking for statistical anomalies.
This is one of the biggest reasons why I am not a big fan of a recent trend in online poker towards anonymous poker sites and/or those who do not provide hand histories.
'Open source' poker sites like PokerStars are much better for the industry in my opinion because they allow us to essentially police the games for ourselves.
Any legit online poker site like PokerStars is not going to hide anything from you. All the hand histories are available for you to see for yourself.
My Free Poker Cheat Sheet Teaches You How to Make $1000+ Per Month on PokerStars
Are you struggling to beat the low stakes games on PokerStars? Do you want a simple step by step guide to show you exactly how to start winning consistently right now?
That is why I recently wrote this free little 50 page no BS guide to teach you exactly how to start crushing these games right now.
As a 10+ year poker pro I give you my exact strategies to start consistently beating low stakes games on PokerStars for $1000+ per month.
Enter your details below and I will send my free poker cheat sheet to your email right now.
3. There is No Actual Evidence that PokerStars is Rigged
So given the fact that we can actually run our own tests and search for statical anomalies over massive sample sizes you would think that all the people who are so certain that PokerStars is rigged would have overwhelming evidence to support their claims.
Nope, nada, none.
There has never been one conclusive study that I have ever seen, based on a statistically relevant sample size, which actually proves that there is any rigging going on at PokerStars.
Their standard arguments instead usually go something like this:
'OMG.My AA got cracked 3 times in a row by some stupid fish!!!.I told you JOKERSTARS is rigged, rigged rigged!!!'
The main problem with these 'arguments' is that they fail to account for even the most basic variance in poker and they are completely lacking in a statistically significant sample size.
A sample size of 3 hands is completely meaningless in poker. And so is a sample size of 300 hands, 3,000 hands or even 30,000 hands.
This is why most advanced poker training programs these days focus exclusively on long term results based on solid decision making at the poker tables in the short run.
To put it quite simply, you need to be working with millions and millions of hands in order to get to the point where you can mathematically rule out variance.
Anyone who has actually played this many hands of poker knows exactly what I mean by this.
I have never seen a real legit study based on this many hands which conclusively proves that there are widespread statistical anomalies going on with the RNG on PokerStars.
Because if such a study like this actually did exist, believe me you would have heard about it by now. And it would be an absolute bombshell within the poker industry.
4. Human Bias and Defence Mechanism
The next reason why some people are convinced that online poker is rigged is because most people lose at this game. And that unfortunate little reality isn't likely to change any time soon.
Once the poker sites and the winning poker players take their cut there just isn't much left over for everybody else. In fact I would estimate (conservatively) that 70% of poker players lose over the long run.
And the other thing that we know about poker players is that virtually all of them think they are pretty good, or at least above average. Poker is kind of like driving, nobody will ever admit they are bad at it.
So this naturally leads to a situation where many losing poker players will look to either repress this reality or simply shift the blame to something else for their lack of success.
In fact, Sigmund Freud (the father of modern psychology), even created a name for this very common unconscious process. He called it a defence mechanism.
When you aren't winning at poker the easy solution is just to blame it all on your bad luck or convince yourself that the whole game is rigged against you.
This is an absolutely crucial reason why poker continues to be so profitable.
Losing poker players have an easy out. They can just continually convince themselves that their lack of success is due to some outside force beyond their control.
And therefore, they never even think to address the real reason why they keep losing, which is their own lack of skill and lack of tilt control among other things.
There is no other game on earth that I have ever seen that inspires such incredible levels of self delusion. And quite frankly, it is an absolutely beautiful thing.
5. Variance and the Speed of Online Poker
The final reason why some people swear that online poker is rigged is because they don't realize how the speed of the online game changes everything.
Daniel Negreanu actually touches on this specifically in his new poker strategy course.
A lot of the people who claim that online poker is rigged come from a live poker background. Or they have played a statistically insignificant amount of hands online (less than 100k).
Therefore, they simply do not understand that the speed of online dealing (often 3 times as fast as a live game), coupled with the ability to multi-table, means that bad beats and coolers are simply bound to happen far more often than what they are used to.
This doesn't mean that anything is actually rigged. It just means that you are now experiencing the acceleration of a Ferrari instead of your old Toyota.
Yes it is going to feel weird at first. It won't even seem believable at times in fact. This is why many people do not feel that PokerStars is legit.
And if you try your hand at something like Zoom Poker (which deals hands upwards of 10 times as fast as a live poker game), it might just blow your mind completely!
You really have to understand that online poker is a completely different experience from live poker. Yes it is the same game with the same rules, but all of the similarities end there.
The speed at which the online version of the game is dealt means that you are going to get to the long run far quicker than you are used to. This also means that you will see the true depths of statistical variance much more vividly.
And when you add in the ability to multi-table into the mix as well, you better buckle up. Because it is going to be downright crazy and quite simply not believable at times.
By the way if your are curious how I am able to play 20+ tables of online poker and still keep track of all my opponents, yes I do use several poker software tools and aids.
For the complete list of all the poker software and tools that I use as a pro, click here.
Should You Use the New PokerStars All-In Cashout Feature?
I do also want to mention that PokerStars recently added an All-in Cash Out feature that people ask me about now all the time.
Basically, this feature allows you to 'cashout' your equity in the hand when all the money goes into the middle, instead of just letting the cards fall as they may (and potentially taking a bad beat).
As far as I know the Pokerstars all-in cashout feature is only available at the lowest stakes (NL2, NL5 and NL10) and only on regular tables (i.e. not Zoom).
Now do I personally use this feature? No.
I honestly think it is pretty silly. However, I do think it is a very smart 'gimmick' feature by PokerStars though.
Because now all the people who write them angry emails every day claiming it's all rigged against them can just 'cashout' their equity and avoid taking a dreaded bad beat.
For me though, this isn't poker and this isn't how winning players think about the game in my experience. I don't play poker for the results of individual hands or day to day results.
I instead play poker for the long term (months and years) and focus on my results over hundreds of thousands of hands. This is how I have been able to create a career out of this game.
Therefore, since I know that my equity is going to be realized over the long term, I can stop focusing on short term results, like so many amateurs do, and just focus instead on consistently making good poker decisions.
However, for all those people who take it very personally every time they receive a bad beat in poker, this new All-in Cashout feature might be an option for you to consider when playing on PokerStars.
How I Became the Biggest Winner of All-Time on PokerStars (Micro Stakes)
The debate about online poker being rigged or not will rage on no matter what I say here.
And I know a few people will probably even accuse me of being a 'shill' for PokerStars after writing this article.
The most hilarious part about that is anyone who actually reads my poker blog regularly knows that I have been actively recommending that you DO NOT play at PokerStars for many, many years now!
And that is not because I think there is any rigging going on at PokerStars or that PokerStars is not legit.
It is simply because there are many far easier online poker sites (softer games) available these days to play at in my opinion.
But hopefully some of the points discussed in this article will help bring some sanity back to the discussion. Obviously online poker faces many challenges and the integrity of the games will always be questioned as well.
Humans like to cheat at stuff after all. The sky is blue as well!
But the idea that there is any widespread rigging going on at PokerStars in particular is pretty absurd in my opinion.
I have made a lot of money on PokerStars over the years as a 10+ year poker pro by simply using a solid fundamental tight and aggressive strategy and focusing heavily on my tilt control.
This is in fact why I originally wrote what is now the best selling poker strategy book of all-time for low stakes PokerStars games, Crushing the Microstakes.
And then I also included hours and hours of optional videos with the book of me personally playing Zoom, 6max and full ring on PokerStars.
I have made tens of thousands of dollars in these low stakes games (some of the highest in PokerStars history), and I wanted to show people exactly how I did it with a video series.
I also wanted to prove once and for all that you can absolutely crush these games when you use the right poker strategy and focus on your tilt control.
However, I can't lie.
After playing millions and millions of hands on PokerStars, I have also taken an enormous amount of bad beats over the years. So much so, that it seemed completely unbelievable at times.
And there have been many times when I felt like just giving up completely. Throwing in the towel and quitting.
But I realized that this is the time when you find out what you are really made of as a poker player. When you can't win a hand to save your life for weeks or even months on end.
This is when you separate yourself from all the other amateurs out there. This is when you get to prove that you are a professional.
And this really is the critical point.
Winning at poker over the long run is really hard. It takes an unbelievable amount of work ethic, discipline, self control and patience.
And as a 10+ year poker pro I can tell you that the vast majority of people who play this game are simply not willing to put in this level of dedication and work.
After all, it is so much easier to shift the blame onto somebody or something else than to actually put in the hard work every single day both at the poker tables and away from them improving your game.
Look guys, if being a big winner in poker was easy, then everybody would be doing it. The bottom line is that you will get exactly what you put into this game.
You can keep choosing to believe that it is all rigged against you like most people do, or you can choose to finally address the real root causes for your lack of success in poker.
Having coached 100+ people myself to finally start winning big on PokerStars, I can tell you that the #1 reason most people don't win is because they are bad at poker.
I found that many people *think* they are good at poker, but in reality they do not really understand how to play a fundamentally sound tight and aggressive poker strategy.
They also typically suffer from an appalling lack of discipline and tilt control in most cases, both of which are absolutely vital components of any winning poker strategy.
Video Poker Strategy
To put it bluntly, it is only when you finally decide to start approaching this game like a professional that you will start creating the real consistent profits you have always dreamed about on Pokerstars.
In any case, I wish you all the best at the poker tables in 2021 no matter what your poker goals are. Thank you for reading.
Lastly, if you want to know the strategy I use to consistently make $1000+ per month on PokerStars as a 10+ year poker pro, make sure you grab a copy of my free poker cheat sheet.
Online poker is a game where it's okay to lie. In fact, bluffing is an important part of the endeavor. However, there is one whopper that has made the rounds in online poker forums and even in so-called 'informed' articles. And that is that online poker rooms are somehow rigging their games for actions. In other words, they have made it so that flops, turns, and rivers connect with players' hands which makes people more likely to invest money, thus making the pots bigger.
Bigger pots mean bigger rake. This is great for the poker sites, right? Why wouldn't they want to rig the games for action if it makes them more money?
The Poker Sites Have Little to Gain but Everything to Lose
The only place that there is an incentive to rig the games for action is in cash games. This is because tournaments and sit and go's have a set fee that the poker room is paid everytime someone buys in. And since a lot more people play tournaments, rigging does nothing to generate more money for the poker room for the majority of its games being played at any given time. Why bother jeopardizing your entire reputation by trying to boost the smallest part of your income?
Besides the fact that there are rake caps placed on each cash game hand. This means that once the pot reaches a certain size, it doesn't matter how big it gets after that point. So they have no incentive to create more action when the action does nothing to help their income the majority of the time.
Just to be safe here, let's play the devil's advocate and say that the poker site did get greedy and decided to throw caution to the wind and rig their games. They would find out really quickly that it's not really that easy to do.
Rigging Is Actually Pretty Close to Impossible to Do
4. Human Bias and Defence Mechanism
The next reason why some people are convinced that online poker is rigged is because most people lose at this game. And that unfortunate little reality isn't likely to change any time soon.
Once the poker sites and the winning poker players take their cut there just isn't much left over for everybody else. In fact I would estimate (conservatively) that 70% of poker players lose over the long run.
And the other thing that we know about poker players is that virtually all of them think they are pretty good, or at least above average. Poker is kind of like driving, nobody will ever admit they are bad at it.
So this naturally leads to a situation where many losing poker players will look to either repress this reality or simply shift the blame to something else for their lack of success.
In fact, Sigmund Freud (the father of modern psychology), even created a name for this very common unconscious process. He called it a defence mechanism.
When you aren't winning at poker the easy solution is just to blame it all on your bad luck or convince yourself that the whole game is rigged against you.
This is an absolutely crucial reason why poker continues to be so profitable.
Losing poker players have an easy out. They can just continually convince themselves that their lack of success is due to some outside force beyond their control.
And therefore, they never even think to address the real reason why they keep losing, which is their own lack of skill and lack of tilt control among other things.
There is no other game on earth that I have ever seen that inspires such incredible levels of self delusion. And quite frankly, it is an absolutely beautiful thing.
5. Variance and the Speed of Online Poker
The final reason why some people swear that online poker is rigged is because they don't realize how the speed of the online game changes everything.
Daniel Negreanu actually touches on this specifically in his new poker strategy course.
A lot of the people who claim that online poker is rigged come from a live poker background. Or they have played a statistically insignificant amount of hands online (less than 100k).
Therefore, they simply do not understand that the speed of online dealing (often 3 times as fast as a live game), coupled with the ability to multi-table, means that bad beats and coolers are simply bound to happen far more often than what they are used to.
This doesn't mean that anything is actually rigged. It just means that you are now experiencing the acceleration of a Ferrari instead of your old Toyota.
Yes it is going to feel weird at first. It won't even seem believable at times in fact. This is why many people do not feel that PokerStars is legit.
And if you try your hand at something like Zoom Poker (which deals hands upwards of 10 times as fast as a live poker game), it might just blow your mind completely!
You really have to understand that online poker is a completely different experience from live poker. Yes it is the same game with the same rules, but all of the similarities end there.
The speed at which the online version of the game is dealt means that you are going to get to the long run far quicker than you are used to. This also means that you will see the true depths of statistical variance much more vividly.
And when you add in the ability to multi-table into the mix as well, you better buckle up. Because it is going to be downright crazy and quite simply not believable at times.
By the way if your are curious how I am able to play 20+ tables of online poker and still keep track of all my opponents, yes I do use several poker software tools and aids.
For the complete list of all the poker software and tools that I use as a pro, click here.
Should You Use the New PokerStars All-In Cashout Feature?
I do also want to mention that PokerStars recently added an All-in Cash Out feature that people ask me about now all the time.
Basically, this feature allows you to 'cashout' your equity in the hand when all the money goes into the middle, instead of just letting the cards fall as they may (and potentially taking a bad beat).
As far as I know the Pokerstars all-in cashout feature is only available at the lowest stakes (NL2, NL5 and NL10) and only on regular tables (i.e. not Zoom).
Now do I personally use this feature? No.
I honestly think it is pretty silly. However, I do think it is a very smart 'gimmick' feature by PokerStars though.
Because now all the people who write them angry emails every day claiming it's all rigged against them can just 'cashout' their equity and avoid taking a dreaded bad beat.
For me though, this isn't poker and this isn't how winning players think about the game in my experience. I don't play poker for the results of individual hands or day to day results.
I instead play poker for the long term (months and years) and focus on my results over hundreds of thousands of hands. This is how I have been able to create a career out of this game.
Therefore, since I know that my equity is going to be realized over the long term, I can stop focusing on short term results, like so many amateurs do, and just focus instead on consistently making good poker decisions.
However, for all those people who take it very personally every time they receive a bad beat in poker, this new All-in Cashout feature might be an option for you to consider when playing on PokerStars.
How I Became the Biggest Winner of All-Time on PokerStars (Micro Stakes)
The debate about online poker being rigged or not will rage on no matter what I say here.
And I know a few people will probably even accuse me of being a 'shill' for PokerStars after writing this article.
The most hilarious part about that is anyone who actually reads my poker blog regularly knows that I have been actively recommending that you DO NOT play at PokerStars for many, many years now!
And that is not because I think there is any rigging going on at PokerStars or that PokerStars is not legit.
It is simply because there are many far easier online poker sites (softer games) available these days to play at in my opinion.
But hopefully some of the points discussed in this article will help bring some sanity back to the discussion. Obviously online poker faces many challenges and the integrity of the games will always be questioned as well.
Humans like to cheat at stuff after all. The sky is blue as well!
But the idea that there is any widespread rigging going on at PokerStars in particular is pretty absurd in my opinion.
I have made a lot of money on PokerStars over the years as a 10+ year poker pro by simply using a solid fundamental tight and aggressive strategy and focusing heavily on my tilt control.
This is in fact why I originally wrote what is now the best selling poker strategy book of all-time for low stakes PokerStars games, Crushing the Microstakes.
And then I also included hours and hours of optional videos with the book of me personally playing Zoom, 6max and full ring on PokerStars.
I have made tens of thousands of dollars in these low stakes games (some of the highest in PokerStars history), and I wanted to show people exactly how I did it with a video series.
I also wanted to prove once and for all that you can absolutely crush these games when you use the right poker strategy and focus on your tilt control.
However, I can't lie.
After playing millions and millions of hands on PokerStars, I have also taken an enormous amount of bad beats over the years. So much so, that it seemed completely unbelievable at times.
And there have been many times when I felt like just giving up completely. Throwing in the towel and quitting.
But I realized that this is the time when you find out what you are really made of as a poker player. When you can't win a hand to save your life for weeks or even months on end.
This is when you separate yourself from all the other amateurs out there. This is when you get to prove that you are a professional.
And this really is the critical point.
Winning at poker over the long run is really hard. It takes an unbelievable amount of work ethic, discipline, self control and patience.
And as a 10+ year poker pro I can tell you that the vast majority of people who play this game are simply not willing to put in this level of dedication and work.
After all, it is so much easier to shift the blame onto somebody or something else than to actually put in the hard work every single day both at the poker tables and away from them improving your game.
Look guys, if being a big winner in poker was easy, then everybody would be doing it. The bottom line is that you will get exactly what you put into this game.
You can keep choosing to believe that it is all rigged against you like most people do, or you can choose to finally address the real root causes for your lack of success in poker.
Having coached 100+ people myself to finally start winning big on PokerStars, I can tell you that the #1 reason most people don't win is because they are bad at poker.
I found that many people *think* they are good at poker, but in reality they do not really understand how to play a fundamentally sound tight and aggressive poker strategy.
They also typically suffer from an appalling lack of discipline and tilt control in most cases, both of which are absolutely vital components of any winning poker strategy.
Video Poker Strategy
To put it bluntly, it is only when you finally decide to start approaching this game like a professional that you will start creating the real consistent profits you have always dreamed about on Pokerstars.
In any case, I wish you all the best at the poker tables in 2021 no matter what your poker goals are. Thank you for reading.
Lastly, if you want to know the strategy I use to consistently make $1000+ per month on PokerStars as a 10+ year poker pro, make sure you grab a copy of my free poker cheat sheet.
Online poker is a game where it's okay to lie. In fact, bluffing is an important part of the endeavor. However, there is one whopper that has made the rounds in online poker forums and even in so-called 'informed' articles. And that is that online poker rooms are somehow rigging their games for actions. In other words, they have made it so that flops, turns, and rivers connect with players' hands which makes people more likely to invest money, thus making the pots bigger.
Bigger pots mean bigger rake. This is great for the poker sites, right? Why wouldn't they want to rig the games for action if it makes them more money?
The Poker Sites Have Little to Gain but Everything to Lose
The only place that there is an incentive to rig the games for action is in cash games. This is because tournaments and sit and go's have a set fee that the poker room is paid everytime someone buys in. And since a lot more people play tournaments, rigging does nothing to generate more money for the poker room for the majority of its games being played at any given time. Why bother jeopardizing your entire reputation by trying to boost the smallest part of your income?
Besides the fact that there are rake caps placed on each cash game hand. This means that once the pot reaches a certain size, it doesn't matter how big it gets after that point. So they have no incentive to create more action when the action does nothing to help their income the majority of the time.
Just to be safe here, let's play the devil's advocate and say that the poker site did get greedy and decided to throw caution to the wind and rig their games. They would find out really quickly that it's not really that easy to do.
Rigging Is Actually Pretty Close to Impossible to Do
Poker sites use something called an RNG (random number generator) to deal the cards. Since the cards come randomly, messing with the RNG would cause huge discrepancies in the expected frequencies versus what actually occurs on the tables. Since thousands of players keep detailed databased in poker tracking software, these discrepancies would be noticed very quickly.
Were any type of inconsistencies, even small ones, ever discovered, a huge scandal would swiftly erupt and players would lose confidence in the offending poker site. Eventually, it would lead to a huge loss of revenue for that site. The fact that you are even reading this article shows the importance of consumer confidence when it comes to online poker or gambling.
No poker room wants to risk its well-being by targetting specific players for particular outcomes. When you look at it from this angle, the entire idea of rigged games becomes ludicrous. Rigging for action is likely just something someone made up long ago as an excuse to why they can't win at online poker. I mean, something must be wrong here, right? Cricket fever game. I keep losing but am the greatest player in the world! So, in the end, it all comes down to human ego.
Where Is the Proof?
After playing over 10 years, have never heard of actual proof ever surfacing that shows that online poker is rigged. But just to be safe, I did an exhaustive Google search to try to find some kind of evidence that it has ever occurred. Quite humorously, an article written back in 2004 ranked #1 in the search results. I knew when I read it that my search would likely be a waste of time. Ace play casino. But onward I went.
After clicking on numerous links and searching the major forums, all I could seem to find were people ranting about how they thought the games must be rigged because 'impossible' things had happened to him. In every single instance, it appeared to just be a case of someone running bad and taking a bunch of bad beats in a cluster. I saw zero evidence that anything out of the ordinary had occurred.
Trust me, I have run about as bad as humanly possible over the years and never once did it ever seem like the games were rigged against me. In fact, I recently ran $20,000 under expectation and that didn't deter me from continuing to play. Until a reputable source shows definitive proof that an online poker site is rigging the games somehow, I will call B.S. on anyone who claims they are a victim of it.
What About All Those Times It 'Felt' Rigged
To me, live poker sometimes feels rigged. The thing you have to keep in mind that no hand is ever really that far ahead most of the time. AA will lose close to 20% of the time when all-in pre-flop. And when those losses cluster together, it can feel rigged.
One of the problems humans have is that they become attached to things and feel ownership. This leads to feelings of entitlement and a sense that there is no justice in the world. The fact is, there is no justice in poker. Just because you had a run of bad luck yesterday does not mean you are more likely to run well today. That is called the gambler's fallacy. The cold hard truth is that most people who complain that poker is rigged are simply not very skilled at poker. They just use it as an excuse for why they are losing.
Even If Games Were Rigged for More Action, It Might Not Hurt Your Win Rate
So if the games were rigged for more action, what would it look like? Hypothetically, if the flops connected with hands more often, there would be more incentive for players to get involved and put more money in the pot. You would get more pairs, more strong hands, and more draws. In other words, the games would be more exciting for everyone.
Even so, let's talk about the elephant in the poker room.
Who would benefit from more players getting involved and taking their hands to later streets? Any sort of common sense tells you that bigger pots with wetter flop, turns, and rivers would favor the more skillful players. This would likely drain the pockets of the recreational players faster and move the money up the food chain much faster. Trust me. This is NOT what the poker rooms want to see happen.
In fact, the opposite is true. Online poker sites want the losing players to hang around longer, pay more rake, and stay happy enough to keep depositing more money. Artificially bloating pots only favors those well-equipped to adapt and ultimately may actually lose money for the poker room. Honest online casinos.
Things That Actually Could Go Wrong in Online Poker
Rigged games or any other form of 'cheating' done by a poker room is not something I lose sleep over. However, there are a few things that actually are a legitimate cause of concern:
- Black Friday 2.0
Besides voting, there is little we can do about the political forces surround online poker. The scary thing is, there is already precedence for governments screwing around with our right to play online poker. First, there was UIGEA of 2006 and then there was Black Friday. Hopefully, poker will officially be recognized for being a game of skill by the mainstream powers that be and we can move past the draconian restrictions. - Account Hacking
This has actually happened a few times in the past, including one on Doug Polk a few years ago. Luckily, most poker rooms take this issue seriously. So, even if your money disappears overnight to some low-life hacker, it is likely your funds will be reinstated. - The Games Will Get Solved
As game theory progresses and things are figured out more and more, there is a small chance that the mainstream understanding of poker will become so acute that there will not be enough losing players in the games to make profit possible. This has already happened somewhat for sit and go's. Due to our understanding of ICM, the games have become very difficult to beat and have thus dried up a bit over the past few years. However, new formats such as Jackpot SNGs (spin & go's) have injected new life into the format. - Unbeatable Bots Will Be Invented
In isolated matches, poker bots have already been able to beat top pros over a large sample size. Even so, these programs are designed only for heads-up play currently and would likely not be viable in 6-max or full ring games. We have to wonder though, are the days where we can be sure we are not playing on tables full of bots numbered? I sometimes worry if the charts I created for my book will one day be used against me (lol).
What Poker Sites Do You Trust?
When it comes to my perspective on choosing a poker site to play on, trust might be the wrong word here. I view my online poker bankroll is an investment and no investment is ever 100% safe. Case in point, look what happened on Black Friday.
Even so, the odds of having your bankroll stolen by an online poker site are probably similar to your odds of being in a plane crash. Millions of people have played online poker over the past couple of decades, and only a few have actually been legitimate victims of such an incident. In fact, even after Black Friday, which was the biggest poker scandal in history, most people eventually got most if not all of their money back.
Use Common Sense for Any Online Interactions
Free Video Poker Games No Download
Regardless of the games being rigged or not, you should always approach anything that involves your bankroll with caution and discretion. Avoid small and obscure poker sites that have not been around very long or have a track record of slow payouts or other shenanigans. I recommend that you play only on large reputable poker sites with a long track record of legitimacy.
Personally, I have played on Bovada and Ignition for years, keeping as much as $10,000 on the site at one time. I was never worried about losing that money and slept like a baby at night. However, I recommend that you keep only the minimum needed to play your current stake and cash out the excess often. Keeping a large portion of your money in an offline account is just smart bankroll management nowadays.
Conclusion
After nearly 20 years of hearing people blame their bad play on 'rigged' poker sites, people have to be getting tired all the whining. The unfortunate thing is that people new to online poker might not realize the true source of why people are complaining and think that there is some truth to all the noise. So, if you fall into that category, please stop it before you run newbies off. 🙂
Is Video Poker Rigged Games
For those of you who are still unsure, give one of the major poker sites a call and asked them about the integrity of their games. They will explain exactly how their RNG works and happily answer any other concerns you may have. For the most part, online poker sites have excellent customer service. If you don't get a friendly experience, move on to the next one. It's just like buying a car, if you get a bad vibe when you walk in the door you walk right back out.
