Because they are making seriously large amounts of money without doing it and that income would be cut dramatically were they ever discovered. And they would be discovered. Sooner rather than later.

It would be seriously -EV shenanigans.

This is actually nonsense.

If you take the output from an RNG and 'select' the numbers you want you are not using the RNG in any real sense and the numbers you select will form detectable patterns just as if you made them up out of thin air.

So you must be making a ***king fortune using the knowledge you have of these patterns.

The only question is why you are sharing this knowledge because, now that it is out in the open, the sites will obviously have to stop doing it or everyone will be at it. Why you have chosen to kill the goose that lays the golden egg and voluntarily end this fantastic income stream is something of a mystery.

You could prove you're right whenever you wish, if you are right.



Why do you continue to pop up with these lies then run away?

because he's a L0$eR

no money for riggies.. no one's solid (it's rigged)

Sure. To be fair, this is one of your better contributions.

Fundamentally, the key point of the article is "To have any hope of producing truly random data, you must reach outside the computer and sample the analog world."

And that's spot on - and that's precisely what a RNG like at PokerStars does.

You're right that a pseudo-random number generator (which is used by some online poker operators) is not truly random. However, there's nothing pseudo about the random number generation system at a site like PS.

All things are pseudo random.
Flipping a coin is decided by torque, height, and buoyancy of the surface it lands on.
Is shuffling a real deck random? It's decided by the movement of the shuffler's hands - they are manually placing each card into position.
Auto-shufflers? A computer using pseudo-random algorithms to place cards in a pseudo-random order.

A non-mechanic dealer shuffles the cards pseudo-randomly. Even while manually placing cards in the deck, he does not know what card he is placing or where he is placing it.
A RNG shuffles the cards pseudo-randomly. Even while virtually placing cards in the deck, it does not know what card it is placing or where it is placing it.

I want to propose some set of guidelines for people to use when talking about "riggedness"... the type of thing you can refer "non-math" people to via link when they start saying "yeah its rigged, look at this hand where my hand was beat by runner runner quads". So here we go....

1. You should disclose sample size. If you dont keep a HH database, you likely cant make a mathematically valid arguement on the topic.

2. Sample sizes must be "large" to mean much. How large depdend on a number of factors, but in general, a months worth of hands isnt going to cut it for most things. (If you were dealt nothing but 23o for 10,000 hands for a month, thats another story.)

3. Significance of standard deviations from norms/expectations increase when those deviations are seen over large samples. Deviating from expectation by just 1% off over 10,000,000 hands is more alarming than deviating 10% over 10,000 hands.

4. Learn to calculate standard deviation. Post them in your discussion.

5. Learn to use an online binomial distribution analysis calculator (quite simple). Look for one online, then plug in the inputs from your data and known poker odds charts. It will spit out the odds of occurance for many types of things you have experienced as seen in your data.

6. For a common form of "rigged" complaints, you'll need to quanify all-in showdown equity for preflop shove/call situations. Compare expectation with actual results over your HH db. Better yet: Get the PokerTracker report (free, see their web site) that quantifies your EVLuck in such cases. You can also then see the percentage of times you lost flips, percentage of times you lost when you had opponent dominated, etc. Plug those raw stats into some probability calcs (binomial distrib calc), to give us numbers / odds to work with.

7. Learn to use PokerTracker (or other) to write new stats and reports that can be used in several of the "luck" cases I mention in this post, and others.

8. Quantify your starting hand distribution, if you think its unfair. Again, compare what you were dealt with how many times you should have been dealt it. Then use the math (binomial distribution calc, for example) to quantify the odds / significance.

That should be a good start for now, off the top of my head. Others, feel free to add. You can get fancier with it, like filtering by certain situations, etc. But please dont clutter up the "rigged" threads with bad beat hands. The discussion always needs to be math oriented and in terms of the things outlined above to have any serious weight given to it by others.
---------

I'll now give an example where we add more and more significance to a "rigged" arguement by quantifying its components:

You: "It seems like I see a lot of bad beats every time I shove all-in PF and get called by a bigger stack. See, look at this hand. This happens a lot." (Dont post things like this here.. wait until you refine it below.)

Me-1: How many hands have you played, overall?

You: "1,000,000"

Me-2: Great. you have a decent sample to start working with. Run a report on your data to get all hands that match the filter you describe (you shoving all-in preflop and going to showdown, other player has you covered). Download and install the report for PT to show EV Luck. Run it. What does it show?

You: "It shows 50,000 showdowns that match that filter, and that I was expected to win 1000 BBs net EV from them in total, but actually lost 1000 BBs."

Me-3: OK. Great. You show a decent size deviation from expectation. Your shoves have been +EV, but you're still losing and its over a decent sample. Lets dig deeper to see just how statistically significant this is and what the odds of it occuring naturally would be. Lets take these inputs and plug them in to some calcs, like an online binomial distribution analysis calculator or other calc that fits what ur looking to find out.

You: "OK. I did that. It shows I'm running 5 standard deviations below expectation."

Me-4: OK. Great. We have an outlier case. But lets see what the odds are of such an outlier given the sample size. The online calc should show that.

You: "It says for a sample size of 50K, the odds of this occuring naturally if not rigged is 1-in-X trillion."

Me-5. Bingo. We prob have something to write home about. Of course it doesnt stop here. You should double check your data, your assumptions, calc inputs. Have someone else look at it, or post it on this forum now WITH NUMBERS / STEPS / INPUTS / OUTPUTS. Let's verify this. But the point is that you now have something clear to post and discuss which at least a few smart people will take seriously (90% will still prob flame) and discuss with you.

Hope this helps.

Then why are you even posting?

Wrong.

The problem with the above is that is assumes you are talking to people with at least basic intelligence.

We do occasionally get people like that wondering in here but they usually listen to and understand all the reasons why online poker is probably not rigged.

That leaves us with a hard core of ******ed posters who simply ignore all rational explanations and just repeat the same old nonsense over and over again.

If they look at your post they will either ignore it or call you a 'site supporting shill'.

I have some example : you are in live casino, casino has rake from every hand, you are playing your game. In every hand dealer takes cards, quits to kitchen, which only staff can enter, there alone shuffle cards, coming back to table and deals cards. If you have some arguments about fair deal, owner of casino says you : "We have no reason cheat there, everything is OK." And you will shut up because he is of course right, because he has no reason to cheat.
Crazy?
That´s online poker today.

In some cases the dealer would retire to the kitchen to shuffle before dealing each card.

You see, this just shows the paucity of riggie thinking.

Any decent dealer could gimmick the deck without 'retiring to the kitchen'.

Except every (most?) hands dealt online are tracked by software and can be bought / given for analysis of non-randomness ?

Surely there's only so many things which can be investigated though?

The one which concerns me most is the sheer number of 'action hands' and 'carve-ups' which appear online. How would it be possible to investigate action hands or carve-ups as a statistic? I'm not saying it wouldn't, I'm just asking if you can give me an example of how to check for this.

I play a monthly home game and the structure of the tournament is pretty similar to what I play online a lot, 6 man tournament, similar blind structure, etc. At the end of the night, after playing 2 or 3 tournaments, I'm only concerned about whether I've won or lost, but some of the less-experienced players will start commenting on what hands we saw, often along the lines of, 'there was nothing better than a straight all night,' or, 'did anybody have aces,' after which we discover that only one person or nobody had aces all night.

The huge action hands and big hands we see running into each other every tournament online just don't seem to be there. This is something that I don't get, the exciting poker game I play online where all kinds of action happens and all kinds of hands run into each other bears very little resemblence to the games I play with an actual deck of cards and I'm struggling to find any explanation for this.

I'm on the fence on this issue, but why do people say

"They are making so much money, why would they cheat people and risk it?"

Why would companies such as enron and all the other wall street businesses that went belly up risk their already sizable profits by doing something risky that could wreck their business?

As I said I am not taking a side and have yet to see any evidence showing ipoker is rigged, but the above mentioned line of thinking seems to be pretty naive considering the empirical evidence we have seen in recent years.

The point with people such as Enron, Worldcom, etc, was that they were either doing things that, had they succeeded, would have made them vast amounts of money or they were not making money and started doing things that were not legal to cover up.

Neither of these situations obtains in the case of the large poker sites. Their business model is sound and they are making large profits. If the started rigging the deal they would only increase their profits by a very small percentage before it became blindingly obvious.

It's rather like suggesting that Tesco are going to increase their profits by short changing everyone by very small amounts. It would be absurdly risky for the reward involved.

Indeed. No one is going to be able to check every single aspect of every single game.

If people have concerns they can investigate those.

Very easily.

Firstly you define what constitutes an 'action hand', then you calculate the statistical likelihood that these will crop up. Then you check a large sample of hands and see if they actually crop up a statistically significant larger number of times. Simples!

Well, you see a lot more hands in an hour online.

UFo's do exist. I saw one. Ergo the doom switch, if it is no more likely to exist than UFO's, has a most plausible chance of existing too.

A hypothetical example of how the doom switch might operate: I live in the most affuent part of a major capital city. If I deposit $250 into Full Tilt, they statistically have every reason to believe that there are plenty more $250's where the first one came one. Therefore give him a win for a few times then hit the switch and watch him redeposit... Rinse & repeat.

As for the RNG, (& not speaking of FT in particular) why is it that *all* these poker sites have their RNG's analysed and certified by small time (slip its directors an inconspicuously bulging envelope) firms, that next to no one has ever heard of - instead of world respected consulting/auditing firms like Deloitte & touche or Anderson Consulting etc etc? Surely a world reknowed poker site needs to be vetted by anything but a small time noddy by night firm of analysts!?? And yet they all do, and expect us all to believe that that's good enough proof that the RNG's of all sites are working flawlessly and without any hint of underhandedness whatsoever.

Step 1: You have to define what an 'action hand' is.

Does that mean you flopped top pair? Does that mean you flopped any pair? Does that mean your opponent flopped two pair? Does that mean your opponent flopped a flush draw?

Once you define what an 'action hand' is, you could start figuring out the math for how often its supposed to happen.

Because RNG certification is just a sop to idiots.

If they were going to rig the deal they would do so by using their own cards choices from time to time instead of those from the RNG.

It's a bit like having a bunch of cretins demanding that all the banks have their computer's ALU's checked to ensure they are accurate when, if a bank was going to cheat people, they would not do it by rigging their computer's arithmetic processors.

Oh, and Arthur Anderson might not be the best exemplar of a trustworthy accounting practice.

pssst, Anderson in 2011 is not the same Anderson that you're remembering. They were just two world known firms off the top of my head. There are plenty of others, yet the poker firms expect us to accept that we should all believe that their RNG's have been properly certified by firms which are diminutively small time relative to the sites themselves. Like should do business with like if they are to remain world respected, in every aspect of their professional integrity!

Who are 'Anderson in 2011'?

Except, as I explained above, certification of RNG's is just a sop for idiots. It doesn't mean anything because if a site were intent on dishonesty it would just use its own choice of cards from time to time. No point in tampering with the RNG.

And as it is nothing more than a sop for idiots (who would not be convinced if it was certified by MI6, the CIA and the KGB together with the Nelson Mandela and the Vatican council) there is no point in spending extra money on a big name accountancy firm. Particularly given that RNG mathematics is not an accepted special skill of accountants.

"a sop for idiots" is your opinion. I certainly wouldn't agree with it, as the RNG's efficient and impartial operation is a most important/ crucial factor as regards a site's operation in providing games based on randomness.

Anderson in 2011 is now known as Accenture - in case you weren't aware, one of the big ones along with others such as KPMG, Deloitte etc. These are the firms which should be auditing the RNG of poker sites not firms barely above mom & pop status!

I happen to know someone gainfully employed in one of the big firms, and analysing RNG's is well within their capabilities - again, regardless of your opinion. You may think it's of no significance who analyses the RNG, but that's where many would disagree with you, I'm quite sure.

Its obvious UFO's and secret societies exist, so if hes using that as an analogy I guess the DOOM SWITCH is real as well.

And yet I clearly explained why it is a sop for idiots.

Which part of "if a site were intent on dishonesty it would just use its own choice of cards from time to time. No point in tampering with the RNG" are you having trouble understanding?

Exactly.

There is no such company as 'Arthur Anderson'. There used to be but they had to surrender their CPA licence because they played a major part in a major financial scandal.

As they were one of the two entities whose employment you suggested would enhance the credibility of poker sites that was a pretty big fail on your part.

As I said it's not worth their while spending the money when the whole process is only in place to keep a few dork-brains happy. Anyone with any sense realises that the RNG is not the place where a site intent on dishonesty would tamper with the deal.

something about that site never sits right with me..just saying