Quote:
Originally Posted by jjjou812
I agree that a properly run, non-shady company has the ability to operate profitably and can make changes to their models to become more profitable in ways that have nothing to do with rigging. But where are these companies in online poker? We have an industry in which the 3 major players are all caught up in a major corruption issues. This is not a case of a few bad apples spoiling the others, the entire bushel is rotten. What percentage of the online poker business did these companies represent? 90%? 95%? Iff Harrahs corp and MGM group were suddenly accused of cheating, would you be arguing that the land based casinos in Vegas can be trusted....what's left? 4-5 other casinos?
PS is the only site that I know of that does not have reported issues of executives directly stealing from the players...so where these companies could have increased profits by changing their model instead they superuse and steal players accounts after changing the terms of service about keeping segregated accounts.
It is these people who do not deserve the benefit of the doubt that they are not cheating through rigging, at least not when I have the choice to do business with them or not. Giving these companies my money is like agreeing to have Michael Jackson babysit my kids. Some one is going to get ****ed....
Whether it is the easiest or best practice or detectable can all be debated, but theft by rigging is, in my opinion, the best method of shearing but not skinning the sheep out of more money. Its would probably also be the slowest, least efficient and unreliable method of stealing from the players. And while each hand is recorded and preserved, no one has convinced me that this volume of information and analysis of hh's is anything but he least efficient and unreliable methodology to attempt to uncover such deception by a shady operator.
I guess that's the difference between our thinking then. Most scandals relating to on line poker or any other industry are "snatches", they may start small but, as often highlighted, scummy thieves are greedy and getting it slowly is just not how they work. I have a huge amount of distrust of the on line gaming industry because I expect there to be shady operators, but I also suspect, from what I have read, that rigging would be detected very quickly, whilst waking up one morning and finding that your account balance has disappeared would be far more likely.
That's why I never deposited on FT or Pokerstars before black Friday (despite ribbing in this very thread) and have only started to play on PS after they were kicked out the US market and quickly dealt with the whole player account issue. Prior (and still) I play the majority of my games, (not huge volume as I am only a recreational Player), on sites that have more to lose in business terms than their poker income, I.e. land based betting shops with an on line operation. Generally these all have more oversight as they a public listed operations and cannot afford the scandals (unless they are a bank, then anything seems to go but that's a different rant).
Anyway, have to agree to disagree on the rigging but 100% agree with the sceptical approach to the industry in general.
P.S. You are costing BR money debating in a reasonable manner, don't you know he's paid to scare guys like you from posting!