Is Online Poker Rigged?
This is a question that gets asked all the time, sometimes out of frustration, and often out of a sincere belief that these big, faceless sites located somewhere in cyberspace just have it in for the average player. Here's an excerpt from an email I received today:
“But when I play internet poker some of the strangest things happen, people holding cards that nobody would play in Vegas WIN! I’ve lost holding hands that would win in a live casino At the free tables I win a lot, but at the money tables it seems like everyone gets a pat hand and every one bets. Three of a kind doesn't mean much on the internet. Can you tell me what the difference is? I think internet poker is rigged. So more people get better hands so they’ll bet more so the site can get more rakes per hand.”
And here's how I responded:
For whatever reason, players are more aggressive online, and you’ll find more players per hand than you will in Las Vegas. That means hand values can differ from what you find in traditional, conservative, casino games, and you might want to consider making a few adjustments to the hands you play. Play pocket pairs in hopes of flopping a set or getting out (and from late position you can play any pocket pair as long as you can see the flop for one bet), play A-x suited for one bet only in late position, and avoid getting involved with the majority of hands you’re dealt from early position because it can be difficult to determine where you're at relative to opponents who act after you. If that’s not bad enough, you'll be out of position the entire hand.
If you’re playing in five-and six-handed games online, the guidelines change even more dramatically, because in these games any ace can be playable and you’ll have to gamble more. With the blinds coming around much more rapidly in short handed games, there are a number of other adjustments you’ll need to make too. But online poker is not rigged, believe me; it's just a different game and a lot more like poker in California than poker in Las Vegas. The leading sites, Party Poker, PokerStars, the Prima Network (including Royal Vegas Poker, where I’m the host), are all making money and it's in their interests to maintain the most scrupulously honest game they can.
You are dealt so many more hands per hour online than you are in a traditional casino, and you can double or triple the number of hands you see per hour if you’re playing multiple games. You’ll see more of everything: the good, the bad, the boring, and the ugly. But it’s the unusual or extremes that stick in the memory, and that’s one of the reasons players think online poker must be rigged. It isn’t. The seven or eight leading sites are all growing so fast that their challenge is creating software robust enough to accommodate all their players, not figuring how to tweak games to retain them on a one-player-at-a-time basis.
posted by Lou Krieger @ 8:12 AM
9 Comments:
Hi Lou,
I've enjoyed reading your columns over the years. You've really taught me a lot about poker.
I've recently been running into a bug in online poker that has me steamed!
While playing in a tournament, I get moved from table to table as the other players bust out. That's normal. But what happens then, is I get seated right back into the blinds when I'd just payed them in the other seat.
Is this common?
If not, what can I do to remedy it?
Thanks
regarding whether online games are rigged, i've noticed some unsettling patterns in the four months i've been playing for real money over the internet. first of all, in sit&go's, larger stacks outdraw or win races against smaller stacks a disproportionately high percentage of the time. this would benefit the site hosting the sit&go because the more small stacks who bust out, the quicker the tourney progresses, the quicker it finishes, and the quicker a new tourney can start up. the site takes a fee from every player who signs up for a sit&go, so the more that take place, the more money made by the site. additionally, in short-handed cash games, often with just 4 or 5 players at a table, large pots get built up by players who run into each other with monster hands. this, too happens at a rate much higher than anything i've seen at live tables. because the online sites take a rake of 5 percent once the pot is large enough, it is to the site's benefit to have these "set-up" hands in the side games. i've seen more very unusual outdraws and matchups in four months of online poker than i have in four years of playing live. i have been both a victim and beneficiary at different times of the "set-up" hands dealt at the tables of online poker, but regardless of my personal wins and losses, there seems to me to be a lot of evidence that the cards at these online sites are not random. i wonder if anyone agrees with this or just thinks i'm overreacting.
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I appreciate Mr. Krieger's response to this question because it addresses the obvious, adjusting your own play to improve your level of success. In other words, concentrate on what YOU CAN control. However, it really didn't answer the question. I'm not going to outright tell you the answer to the question up front. I believe after reading this posting, you will be able to discern what I'm getting at.
If you were to play in a 2/4 cent limit game in an online poker room, it would take approximately 2-3 hours to play 100 hands. If we were to give the benefit of the doubt concerning an unusual fast pace of hands, it would take a minimum of 20 hours of play to complete 1000 hands. Now let's suppose, that you played 1000 hands per day for one year straight. That would be 365,000 hands in a year. Now let's suppose you did that for 50 years continuously. That would be 18,250,000 hands. That's no small number indeed, but it pails by comparison to the actual number of shuffles possible with a REAL deck of cards. In real life, the actual number of shuffles possible is 2^256 power. If you do this on a calculator, that's 1.157x10^77 possible deck combinations. Therefore, if you played those 18,250,000 hands, you would only be playing 1.577x10^-70 POSSIBLE number of decks. This number assumes that the same deck of shuffles never came up twice. This 18,250,000 is so small, that you would actually be playing far, far less than even .000000000001% total number possible. What I'm telling you is that you could play poker in a REAL casino 20 hours a day for 50 years, and not only is it conceivable that you would never see the same shuffle or deck more than once, it is extremely and overwhelmingly likely that you would never see it twice. To understand this in much more detail, I encourage you to visit the following address online: http://www.cigital.com/papers/download/developer_gambling.php.
Now, just about every online poker room in the world in some way addresses the legitimacy of their software in some fashion. They use all sorts of high tech jargon to convey that the shuffles produced are random and presented with even distribution. However, reality tells us something much different.
Suppose you are playing in an online poker room with 9 other players. While you are facing your monitor, let's say the dealer is at the top of the screen in the center position at the table. Now let's say you are sitting immediately to the dealer's left. This is to the immediate right as you look at the table. Ok, let's say that is seat 1, and the rest of the seats are numbered couterclockwise proceeding around the table, so that the last seat is seat 10, and appears immediately to the dealer's right, or to the left as we look at the table on our monitor. This is the most common arrangement seen in an online poker room.
If you play poker online long enough, it doesn't matter what poker room you use, you will see the same shuffles (decks) used over and over again. This itself would not be so alarming, but it actually gets worse. Not only are the same shuffles used again and again, but certain SETS of shuffles ranging in various sizes and produced in an exact order, and used again and again. This also might not be so bad, but here comes the KICKER!! Not only are the same shuffles and sets of decks used in the same order again and again, they are used in that order AS THE BUTTON IS LOCATED AT A SPECIFIED POSITION.
I have seen this over and over repeately on numerous online poker sites. Example, I might be at seat 1 with seat 5 having the button, and I am dealt As,9h with the flop coming Ah,7d,9c. In this particular shuffle I have made top two pair, and I play my hand strong. The player in seat 4 has As,Kc. Since he has made top pair with top kicker, he plays his hand strong. My hand holds up to the river and I win a big pot. The next hand seat 6 now has the button. On this shuffle in the shuffle set sequence, I am dealt Qh,Qs. The flop comes Js,8s,3h. Seat 9 goes all in after the flop. I call because all I think he has is top pair with top kicker, and my pair of queens holds up, I win another big pot. I seem to be reasoning out on a conscious level that two days ago I saw this same progression of hands in the exact sequence. At that time I was situated at seat 1 and the button position rotation seems as if it too was strangely exact. I think to myself, "this all seems like deja vu. I remember being in this spot and being dealt the red aces and something bad happened." The button moves to seat 7 on the next hand, the pocket cards come out and unbelievably I see AdAh. Seat 6 bets 5 times the big blind. Seat 9 has hardly any chips and moves all in. I think my mind is just screwing with me and I re-raise going all in with about 5000 in chips. At the start of the game all players had 1500. Player 6 calls and has KhKs. I think to myself immediately I'm going to lose. The flop comes Js,Kc,5c. I can't catch on the turn or river. I lose all my chips. The important thing to realize here is not only that all 3 hands occurred in succession, but that all 3 hands occurred with the button being at the exact same location in all 3 hands. I felt I had remembered being in that spot before at an earlier time, but disregarded the notion. To think that these shuffles could happen randomly in the exact same sequence is totally preposterous. It could not happen; would not happen. The first paragraph of this posting clearly addresses this.
What I think is important to realize is that most players play their cards more than they play their opponents in online poker. World class players learn to play their opponents more than the cards, but online play is different. Most of the players play surprisingly similar, especially when the cards are good. Rarely will players lay down two pair, a set, or straight no matter what the circumstances. And Kings in the hole, well that's worthy of an all-in call or raise pre-flop no matter what. It is my belief that ALL online poker sites take advantage of this reality. By reusing the same SETS of shuffles in a predetermined manner with the button specified at a particular location in each shuffle SET sequence, the site can determine with a HIGH degree of certainty what player at the table has the highest chance of winning. Not only that, but the poker site could in theory, based on a particular seat location and lengthy pattern of shuffle SET sequences, predetermine the winning or losing of players in games. In reality, I believe this is a little more than just theory. They are, in fact, doing it. Primaily, what traspires is a process by which a great majority of players are insured BY THE SITE to have a taste of victory, but overall in the long run most players make little profit. If you think about it, it is to the advantage of every online poker room to give as many players a little taste of winning because it keeps the largest percentage of players coming back to play. This makes online poker rooms the most money possible. Is internet gambling rigged? Well I guess many of you will want to turn a blind eye to all of this. For those of you who can still see, I think the answer is clear as day.
I can't see any logical sense in the major poker rooms dealing with rigged games.
It would take just one disgruntled employee to tell the world and that room would be in trouble.
It would be a pr disaster.
I think they just rig the games that I play in!!
I have a problem with the two sites I've played on, Bodog and PokerStars, which isn't the bad beats, it's the obviously artificial hot/cold streaks.
On both sites, I've multitabled: up to nine tables on PS, five or six on Bodog. On both, I've noticed my hand strengths running the same across all tables, and often the hands are identical or nearly. For example, on six of nine tables on PokerStars, or three out of four tables on Bodog, I might be running suited connectors (all clubs) in the 6-10 range. Or 72 offsuit and the like, or Kx or Ax.
There's no way that variance is random. It's rigged to run hot and cold swings. Which of course is enough to send a player's mood swinging from elation to despair to redeposit to swinging from a rope.
On both sites, I have also experienced the good day playing tight, won ten or fifteen or even twenty bucks, the next day, I play exactly the same way, and I can do no right, the bad beats are endless.
On Bodog, I got from zero at one point after my deposit ran out to forty bucks. Well, I'm eating my way back down through that money now, I can do no right again, yet I know I'm playing better than before, not worse. I've learned a lot, I play tight, I raise high on the premium hands because if I don't, I know some yo yo will suckout by the river if I don't get them out of my hand.
So, the worst thing for me isn't the aggravation and lost money on these sites. The worst thing is, it's going to make me a bad player. Extremely overcautious, folding valid starting hands and getting out of flops worth seeing through. It's going to make me, in short, a bad player, when the whole reason I deposited was to get out of play money donkey Hades so I could learn to play better.
If what I think I'm seeing is correct, and not false pattern recognition plus insane coincidence, it's a darn shame, because online poker is fun and an otherwise great way to learn by playing an enormous number of hands for relatively little money in a very short period of time.
It's folly to trust the random card generator and assume that you are playing with the equivalent of a live deck-just because the site says you are. I think as humans we tend to inherently trust math and statistics that are fed to us. I applaud the anonymous commenter for attempting to work some of the math out on his own.
To people who say that systemic online cheating/rigging would surely
be exposed by a disgruntled employee, let me ask you, if you knew how to take advantage of certain patterns, would you really tell everyone about it or would you try to make some money off of these secrets? Poker players are not an altruistic bunch-they're in it for $$ and I don't picture them acting as whistle blowers. I'm sure that if there is systemic rigging, its only known about by the higher ups who are making way too much $$ to squeal.
Of course it is rigged. Everybody was saying it wasn't and the potripper (absolute) Russ Hamilton ultimate came along. I once played in a tourney at pokerstars 972 entrants. I got 29 table changes and my original tables never broke down. It's easy to check. I was moved from A full table just to fill up another table. And some was always moved into my original seat. And the gaming commission looked into Russ Hamilton and found he had 31 accomplices and 16 usernames. Why wasn't those other names ever released? they gave the list of names to ultimate bet. Russ damn near destroyed that site. I'd be A little angry if that was me. But no they chose to conceal the names.
I just read somebody's post about bigger stacks winning the pots more times than not against smaller stacks. I noticed the same damn thing. you would figure the smaller stack would make A hand sooner or later but no. They rarely do.
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