Poker All Stars
Is Poker Stars Rigged?
Doyle-Beedell, 2007-06-20 06:30:24
I've heard lots of people complain about Poker Stars (and other internet poker rooms, for that matter) being "rigged." I personally don't buy into this; I think bad beats are just an aspect of a game that has elements of randomness to it, but I hear these types of complaints, I start to wonder. What's your take? If you believe Poker Stars (or other poker rooms) are rigged, what makes you think so, and what's the benefit of rigging a game where, as the house, you're already making money off of rakes?
2007-06-20 09:47:05 Douglass-Stern wrote:
- I don't believe that any major poker site is rigging the games intentionally.
- This would create all kinds of liabilities one of which would be a programmer going to the media with proof.
- Do you really think that of all the major poker sites, none of them have ever had a disgruntled former employee who would like to bust them?
- Do you not think that it would be a huge story if anyone could prove that the games are rigged?
- As for those claiming that the shuffle algorithm is off, I don't buy that either.
- I've seen some horrific bad beats in real life.
- Sure I see more online, but then typically you play 3-6 times more hands per hour online.
- So clearly seeing all those extra situations you are more likely to see some bad beats.
- They have some interesting information on their site about the randomness of their shuffle:
- "A deck of 52 cards can be shuffled in 52!
- ways.
- 52!
- is about 2^225 (to be precise, 80,658,175,170,943,878,571,660,636,856,404,000,000,000,000,000 ways).
- We use 249 random bits from both entropy sources (user input and thermal noise) to achieve an even and unpredictable statistical distribution"
- There is a lot more stuff on their site.
- These facts are independently monitored by companies and agencies to ensure a random and fair shuffle.
- As for the conspiracy theory you asked about.
- The theory goes that it would be beneficial to the card room if tournaments lasted shorter periods of time, and the rake were maximized on each hand of a cash game.
- But the software would have to be so badly rigged to do something like this it would require a team of programmers, and require them to keep this a complete secret.
- The laws of human nature tells me that sooner or later this kind of corruption would be made public.
- Poker Stars has been around for over five years (which is hella long in Internet terms) and no proof has ever been shown that their site is corrupt or rigged.
2007-06-20 07:26:11 Joane-Hirleman wrote: I changed to Full Tilt.com and because the cards seem to fall a lot more naturally on Full Tilt. it just seem overly unnatural on Pokerstars. (things like 1-2 outers on the river and turned flushes get full-boated on the river). I think their card dealing algorithm is waay off. I saw way tooo many low percentage suck-outs on Pokerstars for my tastes.
2007-06-20 08:33:46 Jake-Otis wrote: i don't think it is rigged, however i do agree with the dealing program being off. i play in live tournaments as well as online and the cards online don't appear to fall naturally. bad beats are part of the game no matter what, then add to that people online chasing down inside straights and runner runner flushes and you get a lot more of them. i have never seen any advertisement for an online poker room stating the most realistic play on the internet. it always says something like the most fun or exciting game. that alone tells you it's not realistic. texas hold'em when played properly is not an action packed experience.as for ztc's comments below: i have just read the reports on pokerstars site. i am not convinced that any poker site plays like live poker, however it is possible that the virtual cards are to random to be realistic. what i mean by that is: while a deck in a casino is shuffled after every hand it probably isn't 100% random as a computers cards would be.
2007-06-20 07:22:58 Dusty-Johnson wrote: It's rigged. I don't have a reason just what everyone says. Seriously it's not rigged.
2007-06-20 09:22:50 Bettie-Barrett wrote:
- It is not intentionally rigged.
- It does have some flaws as other posters have pointed out.
- If you do not like way the things run on Poker Stars, then you can simply leave.
- Personally, I think you should never play online poker game.
- Poker is a social game.
- Stare at the computer for 2-3 hours is no fun.
