Is Online Poker Rigged?

I think everything is fair in online poker, in any case, well-known poker rooms will not deal with such nonsense.

Good question.

I find games online very different one to another. To exemplify better; On top tournaments the game seems to have a way different algorithm than to low games, towards mid ones. I also personally attempted to a rigged game on Cash Games, where I did get back my money from Pokerstars. Cant give much details but yes. Online Poker it can be risky. Depends on whos favour

I started playing poker 15 years ago, since then with smaller, but rather larger breaks, in different rooms. I've seen some oddities in online poker even back then, but when I started playing on pokerstars (intentionally lower case) two years ago, I had no idea how much things had changed - for the worse, of course.
The answer: absolutely rigged.
It's just pathetic and disgusting what kind of parties are created. As the ones before me showed examples: royal flush-full-full parties, with an amazing number of runner-runner situations, where the 'villain' plays with the most unlikely hand on the flop, but he will still win on the river. And every week, every day, you see outrageous cases where, even if you play the way it's written in the books, in the end, the person playing the worse hand comes out victorious. This doesn't mean that the better hand should always win, but if it keeps happening (even though you're playing your cards right), it makes you wonder.
You can protect these pages, but it's not worth it. It should be admitted that rigged. Regardless, you can still play, you just have to get used to the fact that in such situations it is better to just laugh and forget them as quickly as possible.

I see bad beats only as variance, because how many times do we break villain's aces with smaller pairs?
and especially when I make the right move and lose, I don't see any reason to be upset, because since he won that way, he'll keep making the same play -ev.
these guys who always cry for these defeats, are usually people who feel wronged and should win every game they get involved. a problem more psychological than anything else.

To be a good liar, you have to have skills. Likewise, to cheat, you have to be smart.

A poker room doesn't need to cheat to win money, but it can cheat to win more money.

If a tournament lasts 4 hours, the room has an advantage if it lasts 3 hours or 3 hours and a half, the money of the players will turn and generate winnings.

And if a 4 hour tournament lasts 2 hours, it will be very noticeable, so you have to be smart.

No one has proof that online poker isn't lightly rigged, and no one has proof that it is rigged.

But since these companies are ready to use all the techniques in their favor as in sports betting (adjusted odds between bookmakers to avoid surebets, monitor winning profiles, limit their bets, find excuses to handicap withdrawals, etc.), roulette ball that jumps strangely and sometimes it is immediately stuck on a number without jumping... I can conclude that these same companies are rigging poker to optimize their income.

That doesn't mean it's not possible to be a winner, but you'll have to have a very solid mind that supports the improbable all the time.

For bad beats, we all know the variance and the bad run, but sometimes the amount of improbability that follows is not logical (against our favor and in our favor).

In online poker, I often see a streak of bad beats, 80% 20% and even runner runner bad beats but I've never seen a streak of 80% 20% without bad beats.

I want to win 7 or 8 times with AA or KK but I can't see this series, on the other hand it's easier to see the opposite, that is to say a series of bad beats when we have AA KK or set on the flop.

Baldy86 said:

i am 100% sure that it is rigged . i am sure about it since years . i am only commenting again in this thread since it is active

often there are setups / bait hands . where you get a strong hand that is too good to fold but you will lose to someone (or several plyers) having an even better hand

for example you get 55 and the flop comes 5 - 8 - Q , turn 9 , river 9 and you think nice i have a full house . opponent is very aggressive and you can not fold of course and in the end he shows 88

or several people having a pocket pair at the same time and all of them hit :

like this here that happened to me 2 days ago . and things like this happen NONSTOP to me . i just dont save / screenshot them . but such hands happen nonstop to me

this is not "vArIaNcE" ....it is a setup like many other hands online . i have played many live poker hands and online is very different

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one times i playing with my friend and one guy have a 2 times fullhouse in a row with different cards. I dont think so is online poker differs live. That just is my opinion - not more

I am also sure that the online poker is rigged. But today they rigged against my opponent who had KK )))

I literally last week thought about this and today I came across this topic.Given that poker Apps are one big calculator Nothing prevents IT services working for them from making 500-1000 accounts that will play for their room, of course, this will be played by a computer.
If they can do it (and they can do it),after that you wonder if they can give distributions in favor of their accounts? of course they can.
To be honest, I can’t believe that creating such a huge machine where hundreds of millions a year are spinning (the creators let everything take its course and everything happens honestly).
It's like a casino "In the casino, the casino always wins"
If you want to win at the CASINO, buy yourself a casino.
But that's just my personal opinion

Above my post there is a post by Atararo14 he wrote P.S. A poker room doesn't need to cheat to win money, but it can cheat to win more money.
I fully agree with these words

Online poker is not rigged. It’s just not easy to win and some folks need an excuse for their losses. I am more concerned with bots and collusion than anything else. Proper strategy will result in winning poker online and live.

I don't think it's fixed since I've achieved a lot starting from the low stake

It's hard to admit that you are not good enough at something and that is the reason why you are failing.

Much easier too just say it's not me, it's the game that's the issue.

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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Age old, never ending debate..
More hands and more action does make one feel that online poker is rigged.. I have been playing for a while and doesn't think that online poker is rigged..

I once saw a documentary shared by a well-known Brazilian poker player and Pokerstars ambassador, who talked about it. In short, the politics of poker rooms tells how responsible they are in this regard, because they have a huge reputation to look after.

I also believe that it can be a lot of the decisions of the players, who can often be playing hands in addition to what they should be.Another point is that bad beat exists, as long as there is probability, it will happen.

I can say that I have played live lately in a home game between friends, but not only being a serious game, and I saw situation as similar as online.

The same things "that should not happen" happens in live games also. When someone thinks that something is not ok they should remember those times when they made bad beats and cards were dealt in their favor

Sorry guys but my first post here has to be to vent a bit. Have been running pretty badly recently in online play, namely tournaments at pokerstars. I have gone more than a week without a single cashing, usually playing pko’s of different buy ins ($1-22 range). Playing a few of them every day and I gotta tell ya, this last week has been hellish. I would say over 90% of times I was busted out was to a worse hand that just happened to hit their one card needed. Think pocket AA’s vs. pocket KK and the K hits on the turn or river. I understand the statistics and the increased number of hands being played online but weeks like this make it seem that this is some serious rigging going on. That’s all, like I said, just need to vent a bit. Probably will get better but pretty down in morale and high on frustration atm.

Peace all

It depends on which poker apps. I would say the major ones have better security

if you think only poker is rigged, i think you should just play live poker instead?
it´s not rigged at all sometimes u win, sometimes u lose. Like Motorhead - Ace of Spades song says. If you like to gamble, I tell you I'm your man. You win some, lose some, it's all the same to me. The pleasure is to play, makes no difference what you say

I think that anyone who believes that online poker is rigged does not know what variance means

There a lot of interesting comments on this thread. I don't think online poker is rigged. The large sites make a lot of money. If it is proved that the game is rigged they will lose a lot more than the rake from my microstake games. Variance and bad beats are part of the game. That said, after being card dead for the last month, l am looking forward to 2023!

Rigged? Sure, why not?

MattRyder said:

Rigged? Sure, why not?

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Have you ever thought about getting better at the game?

MattRyder said:

Rigged? Sure, why not?

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If it is rigged, don't play.

There seems to be people with bad run saying its rigged, and lucky ones saying its not, its only variance or bad play.

Variance itself can take care keeping the player out of best prize money all trough hers life, at least and more easily, if you lack time and effort, meaning mainly too low numbers of hands you play.

That said, what would be better place to hide riggedness then behind the variance

I think we can say that human can be "rigged", and that have to be the case first, before anything else can be.

hello everyone we all know how poker rooms / sites get their money by rake yes and it's ok but what i want to say there is one poker room in france Winamax i used to play there cash games and tournaments and i remember during the covid in 30 seconds "people" would register for a tournament 150 euros PLO tournament can you imagine filling 5000 places with "real people" for one tournament in just 30 seconds , and you could definitely see that 50 - 60 % of registered users were bots with random and strange names , i don't know about cash games maybe there also this kind of situation but even 150 euros which is nothing for poker room they still try to take all the advantage .

LUKADONCICMVP said:

if you think only poker is rigged, i think you should just play live poker instead?
it´s not rigged at all sometimes u win, sometimes u lose. Like Motorhead - Ace of Spades song says. If you like to gamble, I tell you I'm your man. You win some, lose some, it's all the same to me. The pleasure is to play, makes no difference what you say

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maybe you think it's live game no computers involved but there it also happens i watched couple of videos from where i'm originally it's not europe or usa i don't want to mention country but on their facebook page they had recorded videos while people playing and couple of times i noticed guy was sitting beside the dealer and when all in situation and it was purposely on flops and turns and after he raises his cards so dealer could see it and dealer looked at his cards he had flush draw and the dealer put out the right card for him it was huge pot for that country a lot of money, what i'm saying you must be even more watchful and aware in live games not everyone wants to play game fairly