OMG, You have solved the riddle and single handedly vanished this whole 3 year long thread to the recycle bin once and for all answering the question without a shadow of doubt that online poker is absolutely legit!!!

I am loading up all of the sites with big deposits so that I may rain free chips down on everyone who would like some free money!!!

Where have you been during this whole discussion? We could have used our time to play poker instead of wasting our time talking about game security!

(giggity giggity goo)

No site uses a players own mouse movements to determine what cards that player gets. If they did, you could just bruteforce various mouse movement combos until you found one that gave you AA, then do that every hand.

no.

Are you swirling the mouse in a counter clockwise motion twice around the call button at the river before clicking?

I was a losing player utilizing this method and then I switched methods. I found a foolproof method to click/call at the river to guarantee a win at showdown every time..PM me for details, Idi.

lol donkaments

lol mouseaments

When you really don't know and are just tossing out some wild statement and asserting as fact that doesn't make it true.

Doesn't mean the OP is on to anything either, but you are still wrong.

from
http://www.pokerstars.com/poker/room/features/security/


SHUFFLE
"Anyone who considers arithmetic methods of producing random digits is, of course, in a state of sin." - John von Neumann, 1951

We understand that a use of a fair and unpredictable shuffle algorithm is critical to our software. To ensure this and avoid major problems described in [2], we are using two independent sources of truly random data:

user input, including summary of mouse movements and events timing, collected from client software
true hardware random number generator developed by Intel [3], which uses thermal noise as an entropy source
Each of these sources itself generates enough entropy to ensure a fair and unpredictable shuffle.

Hi, could you point me to the bit of your quote that says they use a player's mouse input to determine his personal cards?

When you skim someone's post and don't get their actual point, it doesn't make your reply valid.

How about you get evidence that an RNG is NOT running 24/7? What..wait...you can't? Wow, I guess this means online poker ISN'T rigged. Case closed.

Josem you are far more well written than I am (I have had the pleasure of speaking with you via e-mail before under my username, which is JohnnyH----), but I do consider myself rather adept at statistics. On a lark, I have analyzed over 5,000 hands at hyper turbo tournaments, and have found a characteristic that wins far more often than it should. It is not the tournaments being "rigged" per se, but rather a playing characteristic that is rewarded (I plan on compiling a much larger sample size when given the time, but the p of this happening even with what I have is less than <.001).

I think the world of you and Pokerstars (where I play exclusively) and don't want to post what I have publicly, but I would be glad to PM you with what I'm talking about. I think it helps to explain why certain players thrive in these settings (Jorj95 might be a good example) who have absolutely failed miserably in live deeper stack structures. I hope all is well brother...

---Johnny

This is very kind of you, and you're welcome to PM me anytime. You don't need an invitation

You're also welcome to post your views, statistics and analysis here. There's nothing hidden here: There's no particular secret about our RNG process, and given that the random input is in binary, I can't imagine any circumstances under which any particular group of hands is favoured in any way.

5k hands isn't a big enough sample to accurately measure probability.

Well, it depends what you're measuring and what your results are.

If it is AK vs QQ, and AK wins 5k out of 5k times, then there's probably something wrong.

If it is AK vs QQ and AK wins 2550 out of 5k times, then there's probably nothing wrong.

Cheers Michael! I will definitely take you up on an uninvited PM or two in the future . Are you going to be at any of the APPT events by chance? I was the first to qualify for the Philippines event (small brag), and I'm thinking of continuing on to Sydney in early December.

As for what I have discovered, it involves the aggressor winning far more than his or her fair share. I will certainly compile an even bigger sample size before I report back, but what I have so far is somewhat alarming. Thus my reference to Jorj95 (who by all accounts is a pretty nice guy, and I was just using him as a well known reference) and a few of the other successful hyper turbo regs who are more apt to simply shove with any two regardless of the tournament stage from an unraised button, SB, etc.

I'll be at/around APPT Sydney in some form (given I live in the city)
With all due respect, I simply don't believe you

I'm willing to wager you a beer that it is truly random, and that your results are in error in some way.

The RNG is just a binary stream, which is then converted into numbers. I simply don't believe that it is possible to favour any particular course of action over another: not only does the RNG have no concept of this, but further, the deck is set prior to shuffling. Given that the 'aggressor' doesn't exist until after the shuffle is finished, it isn't possible for the aggressor to affect the shuffle.

To use a metaphor, it's like saying that the wine affects the grapes. Of course, it can't - wine doesn't exist until after the grapes are destroyed. The wine is created by the grapes, and consequently, cannot affect the grapes.

The same thing applies in your survey: The aggressor can't possibly affect the shuffle, since the deck is already shuffled and set.


Obviously this only applies to PokerStars and other sites which have a set shuffle

I can not get access to site servers and therefore have no chance of finding any evidence of anything, which of course you very well knew when posting this immature answer.

On the other hand a pokersite can easily set up an independent control function that could visit on a random basis to see what is cooking on the server thus making it very likely a RNG is running 24/7.

They could ask 3 well respected professors in a relevant field to conduct these random visits (or whatever setup would satisfy players concerned with integrity)

All sites have chosen not to.


Do not get me wrong, today I played two hours of 5-10$ on the site that in my opinion are most likely to be the next in line after AP and UB so I still give online poker to much credit (or maybe I have to as it is my main source of income).

But after AP, UB, Dan Nedelko, who seems to be well informed, the lawsuit against FT, Russ Hamilton and the AP-cheater still playing golf instead of being behind bars revealing the shady secrets of online poker to escape lifetime, the lies about the UB scandal made by well known poker professionals, UB still not having reimbursed all players that were cheated, a few sites ignoring US law and still providing service to US customers (and on and on) it seems to be urgent for online poker to provide some hard evidence they are using a solid RNG 24/7.

Do you not agree?


And also do not miss this point from the PokerEV tread:

variance is bad if you want to prove your RNG is working but variance is unavoidable. Systematic increase in difference between expected and actual performance is a clear sign of malfunctioning though.

Maybe this from a government controlled business gives a hint:

"Also, Romano had no qualms with talking about the "secrets" of the gambling
industry even though Larry Volk the person at his company who programmed the chips to avoid giving the winning hands had been murdered: Volk was shot to death at his house in Las Vegas shortly before he was scheduled to begin giving testimony about how he programmed the chips to cheat."

If there is a bug in PokerEV I am sorry for questioning the integrity of the non-government controlled online poker industy situated in countries with limited law enforcement.......


So if government controlled gaming industy riggs to earn a few bucks extra despite the fatal consequences if caught, onlinepokersites without any control, in violation of laws and with the prospect of earning millions of dollars in extra revenue if winning players gets 50% taken off their winnings, are clean as new fallen snow?

You really think I am the one with the burden of prove?

Guys, this was just for discussion.... I am not saying at all that I am onto something here but there is a slight chance that I am... .000003%.

Everyone agrees there are shady characters in this industry (like there are in most industries). That's why many people suggest not to play on tiny unknown rooms. Online casinos were even worse in that regard.

Still, none of this, even the UB stuff has anything to do with whether the deal is random or rigged which is what this thread is about.

All the UB/AP super user stuff was discussed extensively here as it was a huge issue, and it was a serious discussion, but again it had nothing to do with whether the deal was random.


Your posts read like a guy who watched the 60 minutes special, clicked on a website of a guy you think is special and became a bit obessed with an issue and then started mixing unrelated stuff (whether the RnG is fair) with actual issues (fraud, super users etc).


Basically you are filling the holes of your paranoid thoughts about one area in an industry with factoids from other unrelated "criminal" stuff in the same industry. This is also why most of the replies you get are not too serious.

Oh, and I assume we are in agreement that Lizard People - case closed?


In proving that the deal is not random? Of course. That a rhetorical question?

Is it your burden of proof to show that Lizard People do not exist or mine to show that they do exist?

This still happening to me on this thread only. On two different computers from two different locations. No one else having this problem? I guess not since no one has responded!

The correct conclusion you should be drawing is that you are technically a mediocre poker player. 5/10 live is probably as difficult as 1/2 online, as a rule of thumb. Not trying to be harsh - it's just the way it is. However, it is remotely possible you have some keen player-reading skills which helps your live play, but from your OCD hypothesis, I doubt it. :-P

maybe.... I am still a winning player long term but I do play bad at times online, especially when I move up.

This part

I will choose not to comment on the nonsense about 60 minutes, lizards and paranoia.


In your opinion the Industry has no burden of proof the burden is mine.

We totally disagree. Even if it was possible for me to prove anything it still would be in the best interest of the industry to speak the old truth, control is better than trust. Especially for those sites hoping to get back into USA.



We agree.




I declare I am not paid directly or indirectly or have any economic interest in any sites apart from playing on them as a regular customer.

No, I'm not seeing that problem.

I have seen the effect you've described but it's always been cleared simply by refreshing the page.

Very odd that you should see it on two different computers.

(Mandatory: Rigged, obv.)