Is Online Poker Rigged?

The differences is in online poker is poker HUD.. professional players uses that and regular player just play for fun. When you see people play ridiculously is because they play according to HUD hand statistic. Find a mobile gaming App with licences like MGA and then you're safe. :bike:

If it wasn't rigged the good players would run off the bad players. So the sites are rigged to minimize the skill factor which maximizes their rake. Winning players keep themselves centered.

The only sites you can really trust are publicly traded companies. Their books are open to the public by law.

I do not think even that sometimes you lose often with hands like AA and KK, and that can lead some people to think that online poker is rigged.

wyoming4paul said:

It is really a question of 'does capitalism work'? They make 10% or more on every dollar that is played. Their only goal is more players with more money. Rigging it would be the equivalent of draining the pond to get all the fish. Not saying that it's impossible, but it would be really short sighted and not very bright to rig it.

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Finally someone with a bit of common sense. Also if poker sites want to increase their margin, there are many other things, they can do, and which most sites are already doing:

* Increase rake or tournament fees
* Cut back on loyalty programs and promotions
* Introduce faster game formats with a higher luck to skill ratio like the popular Spin n Go tournaments
* Introduce random seating at cash tables to make "bum hunting" more difficult
* Ban software, that give good players an edge, the most discussed variety is of course HUDs

Now if you were a board member or manager at a poker site, and had all these tools at your disposal, would you then go "no I dont think, we should do any of that, lets just rig the RNG and get the suckers that way, nobody will ever figure it out".

i think it might be rigged in my card room. today I got involved in a JJ vs AA hand and saw another one within 10 minutes. I saw 4 AA hands in 1 game.

still it's up to you to recognize when it's your hand or if and when you have the opportunity to get someone to fold the winning hand.

For people allegedly having some common sense, it is a surprisingly difficult concept to grasp that the RNG can be rigged in many different ways, not just one way that always makes players lose all the time. It obviously doesn't work that way. The rig can manipulate betting to maximize a site's rake. It's not a difficult concept to understand, yet is often forgotten when considering this topic.

Online Poker Rigged

Debi said:

A lot of players make this claim when they suffer a series of bad beats - we get our share of them around here.

Let's have a serious discussion about it. Read this article:

Is online poker safe or rigged?

There is some really good information in that article that explains some of the misconceptions players have.

The thing I see the most is players having a bad day or even a bad week - or they are making a lot of wrong decisions - and they instantly think the game is cheating them.

They will post hands and say "No way should this happen!" - and I know instantly they have never played live poker. I have been playing live poker for about 10 years and I have seen it all happen in a situation where it can not possibly be rigged.

What are your thoughts?


(ps - this is not the place to post your bad beat hands!)

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I found this article very informative. I did not realize the rigorous testing involved for an online site to stay true. I truly liked that pro's checked the sites as well - I like the human touch. I never new about the "eCOGRA" seal, I will definitely be looking for it from now on. Its unfortunate for me because I live in the US and don't have many choices. But I used to be a complainer - however I did make changes according to the pros and with this new knowledge, I can see in a different light.

it sure as hell feels like it , ALOT OF THE TIME

Let us remember that even if it isn't rigged, that doesn't mean that you're not being colluded against in a variety of ways.

It feels like it. But I know that's an irrational belief, given the security measures that have been stated previously.

A pair of pocket aces often will be the best incentive to understand this more closely.

If you have PokerTracker or HoldemManager you can look at your BB/100 stat vs your BB/100 EV stat to see how you're running.

If your BB/100 is more than your BB/100 EV it means you're running above average. If it's a lot more it means that you're running very well.

I agree with you on this, I have been in a serious rut lately. I have had two split pots in one sitting and when I checked only the site won on the rake. I got back less both times than what I put in.

I have had my aces sucked out on 3 times in a row on all in, I have had my KK sucked out on 3 times in a row and I have not done anything with the JJ or QQ, all these hands I useually could say i split on all in's but this month I have lost over half my bankroll because of that, makes me nervous to go all in anymore!

puzzlefish said:

For people allegedly having some common sense, it is a surprisingly difficult concept to grasp that the RNG can be rigged in many different ways, not just one way that always makes players lose all the time. It obviously doesn't work that way. The rig can manipulate betting to maximize a site's rake. It's not a difficult concept to understand, yet is often forgotten when considering this topic.

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Sometimes there is such a poker rooms, although the game in real life, the game is different)

TravelerLloyd said:

I agree with you on this, I have been in a serious rut lately. I have had two split pots in one sitting and when I checked only the site won on the rake. I got back less both times than what I put in.

I have had my aces sucked out on 3 times in a row on all in, I have had my KK sucked out on 3 times in a row and I have not done anything with the JJ or QQ, all these hands I useually could say i split on all in's but this month I have lost over half my bankroll because of that, makes me nervous to go all in anymore!

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Sometimes it runs well, sometimes it just does not. Sorry to hear you lost half your bankroll.. I´m not totally discounting that it might be rigged. There are not enough controls in place to check on gambling sites.

We've all had it when the villian hits their one outer, or you min raise with Aces in early position and the whole table folds like dominoes.

My opinion? The sites aren't rigged. The scandals of years gone by of super accounts and the like has forced the industry to clean up their act. The problem at the moment is bots and it appears that with Party Poker making it a focus of theirs to eliminate and ban these accounts and seize their funds, other big players will soon get in on the act and when they seize enough money that it becomes unprofitable for the bots, they will soon disappear.

It would be interesting to see how soft games become if all the bots disappeared over night.

Debi said:

I disagree - both of those instances are individual employees - huge difference in that and a site purposely rigging the hands so that somehow they can profit from it as a company.

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There as plenty of motive for a site like pokerstars to rig action.......

A smallish company named AMAYA borrows billions to purchase pstars and then promptly loses its biggest market

Where else are they gonna come up with a few billion they need to stay solvent?

They are a publicly traded company in a declining market. The shareholders require growth........some creativity is needed by the head scratchers at head office........billions of dollars in debt is a lot of motive

it seems to me that the game is there is not fair and rigged

Debi said:

A lot of players make this claim when they suffer a series of bad beats - we get our share of them around here.

Let's have a serious discussion about it. Read this article:

Is online poker safe or rigged?

There is some really good information in that article that explains some of the misconceptions players have.

The thing I see the most is players having a bad day or even a bad week - or they are making a lot of wrong decisions - and they instantly think the game is cheating them.

They will post hands and say "No way should this happen!" - and I know instantly they have never played live poker. I have been playing live poker for about 10 years and I have seen it all happen in a situation where it can not possibly be rigged.

What are your thoughts?

(ps - this is not the place to post your bad beat hands!)

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What is your opinion Debi ?

The same things happen live ? so its not rigged ?

It's a card game so obviously everything that happens live can happen online and vice versa. The mechanics and rules of the game have to look the same. For example, you can't have 5 aces on the board. But for everyone saying that everything that happens online happens live as well, that statement comes across as an ignorant generalization because there is not nearly enough data available to draw this conclusion. If there was, we would not be having this discussion for so many years.

Look at what is being done online with the "reputable" sites regarding cheating.
I note that the OP is complaining because he lost. Play enough and you experience both sides of the luck spectrum.:star:

Cant open new thread

I can not open a new thread, I wanted to post this, but I will have to ask it here. Admins please allow me to open my new thread, it says that I need to confirm that I am not a robot but I dont see captcha when I want to open a thread, I do see it now when I need to reply, please allow me to post threads thanks a lot. Here is my question:

Hi guys, I play poker on one local online sit and I noticed some strange things happening and then I found this comment on one article:

"I’m not sure how it can be done but on this site people disconnect right before making a big bet but get back in time to fold,call or go all in. When I get disconnected and the others that r playing an honest game get disconnected we can never get back in the same hand. TO me it seems somehow these players can’t see the hole cards while connected so they disconnect look at others and are back in time to bet. I have seen many people get taken out of money tournys by these players. Now with the amount of players that I have caught in one month being 33 and everyone of them doing it more than once I begin to wonder if it’s not the site itself trying to cut down on the money they have to pay out. "


That describes my situation as well, so I opened this thread to get your opinion.

When I run out of time, I am "AWAY" and the program will not wait even a second for me to act, it will fold my hand automatically. But for many other users, the program is waiting for them for around 2 minutes per person. Which also makes game much slower because there is usually 2 or 3 players at a table who do this, so it comes to the point where blinds at the final table are 20k, 10k, and average stack is 50k which leaves no room to play, it just forces you to shove any decent hand.

So my question is do you have any more information about this? Have you heard of it before and why people do it? Why does the software allow it? Can we do something about this?

It is worth to mention that there is 5 million people in my country, and usually there are like 20% or more people who are registered from small city that has 20k people in it. So at final 30 players, there is usually more then 10 players from that small city and most of them have that connection issue, which leads me to believe that one guy is doing this using different wifi signals, virtual machines etc. Also these are freerolls so it could well be worth it since Daily GTD for freerolls tournaments is like 10 times of what average guy makes in a day here so even if he got 10% of total prize pool using like 20-30 accounts it would still be worth it for him. Also at the final table all these accounts come to life and start playing very fast.


I know it is a long post but I wanted to give detailed explanation so you could better understand my situation and my question. Any thoughts?

I would say yes and no.

First of all you should realise theres people out there willing to do anything to win. Its also important to know that theres many ways of cheating or ways of playin against unfair odds.

Only just yesterday i read an article on this website that partypoker banned over 120 bots from their site and that theyve taken millions of cash in total from all the bots in a certain time amount. IMO, having to play against bots/A.I. is in short, rigged. where the bots come from does not matter because the only ones affected are the real players like you and me. I mean we got to prove we arent a bot when making posts or signing up.

Even in casinos it is known that people play together to beat the odds. If you have the nuts u cant possibly lose but this is a medium rare occurance so youre up against unfair odds when people do this. This doesnt happen that much in live games, but it does happen alot more online and just like any crime, the % of people gettin away with it is higher than those that dont.



So is online poker rigged? I hope that the owners do not rig it and im willing to give them the benefit of doubt, but the fact that there are malicious people out there trying to rig the game is a well known fact and its alot easier for them online.


Some players do make the weirdest plays and calls, gettin bamboozled really sucks but so do we sometimes. Luck will Always be a big factor. Its still a game of chance and you dont even need a hit to win.

In the end i think the issue is more about poker programs that do the thinking for you or for them and makes them call or play a certain hand because the program calculated the probability of that hand winning on numerous factors. If you are the one that doesnt have the program or the better program is IMO facing an unfair advantage. You are not allowed to have a cheatsheet in live games in any kind of form, but online you are allowed to in most rooms and even if you werent, who can control you 100%?

This is offcourse a very skeptic opinion but i dont think it is any less true. Has it stopped me from playin online? No. I have never lost enough to stay angry for more than 5 seconds and since im not a pro player by as long shot i like to blame my losses entirely on myself as my skill is not high enough to fully understand whats going on.

I do wish there was a report player option which could be reviewed by a bot before it is reviewed by staffmembers. and if there is an option like this, i havent cared enough to use it.

Have a nice day and i wish you strong hands

My opinion is...look at any given sample size..easy to run your own even up ti 1000...look at your online hand histories, vs your live ones...in any given equivalant amount..there will always be significantly more "action" flops or "setup" hands online. Everytime...ive done this quite a bit. I dont beleive its really cheating, but definetly rigged towards action. At least nost sites ive played on ive performed this test extensively..and ofc its not conclusive. But the answer is consistent. I have NOT dobe this with ACR yet so i have no opinion to offer on that site specifically. equity distribution software is a real thing and can be legally used.