Why do you say it isn't variance?

You ask how you would get real evidence and also mention that others who play on Bovada agree with you so why don't you get together and explain exactly what happens?

How soon after the rigged rant does the doomswitch happen? What effect does it have on the cards? Does your dealt card distribution change? Flops hit? Draws hit? How badly does it hit your EV? You have all seen it happen so you should be able to explain it and presumably it would be the same for all of you?

rotfl

Variance is a statistical term - it's not based on gut instinct, These things can be calculated.

First, let me tell you that I work in the Investigations division of a tax authority so I see a lot of the scams run by people and businesses and we get them because there is no other effective authority to address the crime, or the police don't have complainants or can't compile enough evidence to lay criminal charges. That's what scammers count on and we see it every day in the news.

Pokersites are happy to tell you that their random number generator (RNG) are audited by some independent organization, but we don't know anything about the auditors or who owns/runs that organization. I wouldn't be surprised to learn that the audit organization was established by Pokersite to audit itself. However, even if a RNG is legit, Pokersite only says it uses the RNG to virtually shuffle the deck. What they won’t tell you directly say is if the cards are dealt as shuffled. If you ask, they will tell you all about their RNG being audited and how they don’t have any interest in the outcome of a given hand but see if you get a straight answer about how the cards are dealt.

I'm working on a comprehensive theory that will address how and why Pokersite is motivated to manipulate the outcome of any given hand to maximize rake. For those who might argue that the rake is capped so Pokersite has no real incentive to interfere, do the math! Pokersite's rake is maximized when at least two players are nearly all-in.

For those who would argue that Pokersite wouldn't dare cheat for fear of getting caught and the damage to its reputation (or worse), I would ask why the Ultimate Bet, Absolute Poker, Full Tilt, and yes Pokersite too, scandals didn't hurt online poker?

For those who may not know it, every Pokersite that ever existed has broken, or at least been charged with, violations of one or more laws in at least one jurisdiction in which it operated. Why don't the licensors deal with the offenders? They don't care so long as they get paid and Pokersite doesn’t break the laws of the licensing jurisdiction. Why do you think all Pokersites are licensed by, and typically based in, legal and tax havens that protect big business from other legal and tax authorities? For those who would argue that the licensing authorities have an interest in preserving their reputations, please Google Ultimate Bet and/or Full Tilt and do you own research to see if the licensors ever cared about their reputation.

In 2011 The US Department of Justice shut down ALL Pokersites accommodating US players for violations of several laws including bank fraud and money laundering. These are major concerns for all governments and if you believe the US DoJ was able to shut down all Pokersites operating all over the world without solid evidence of criminal activity..... Did the DoJ allege cheating? Not directly, but then they have no compelling reason to pursue that aspect of it because it would unnecessarily complicate the prosecution. A couple of solid, provable, charges are all they need or want and there is no good reason to try to prove cheating, which could only ever be proved by seizing and analyzing the entirety of Pokersite's servers and software. And that's not realistically going to happen.

But let's suppose we could get a hold of Pokersite's servers and software and did find proof that the game is rigged. To what jurisdiction or authority would we complain? A licensing authority that is an Indian band or offshore business and tax haven? What court would hear our complaint? What judge would have any sympathy for you being cheated while gambling online, even if you don’t consider it gambling?

Pokersite rigging the game to maximize rake and profits is not only likely, it's inevitable. Pokersite has a legal obligation to maximize its shareholder's wealth and is therefore highly motivated to keep as many players playing as possible, spreading the money around until it can all be raked away. Investment dealers, banks, insurance companies, oil companies, all big business operates much the same way to realize astronomical profits by breaking every rule and law they believe the can get away with, or might still be profitable even if they do get caught (which happens more often than might imagine).

So why do some people supposedly win on Pokersite? Many of these players are relative geniuses playing highly aggressive and sophisticated ‘game theoretical’ poker, hoping to realize very small edges over a large sample size. If you don’t know what that means, I’m afraid you are the fish and will be exploited in the long run. If you expect to be profitable by being a solid player and winning with the best hand most of the time, Pokersite will not permit you to bust their fish that way because the fish will eventually run out of reload money and that hurts Pokersite’s traffic. Meanwhile, the game theory geniuses chip away at you until your deposit is eventually raked away.

As far as the details of the rigging are concerned, Pokersite is likely programmed to reward the worst hand, or caller, something like 60-70% of the time. That would explain why we see so many bad beats defying statistical probabilities, and why we are too frequently rewarded for playing equally bad from time to time. If you are good enough to know when you’re a 70% favorite, you are probably good enough to know when you are a dog so you’re rarely hanging on to realize your share of the bad beats.

We now know that every Pokersite that ever existed has broken, or been charged with breaking, laws in one or more jurisdictions. In recent years we learned that some Pokersites had superusers that could see all opponents hold cards. In 2011, we learned that the Full Tilt simply stole hundreds of millions of player’s money, but even that blew over and the crooks didn’t even have to pay back what they stole.

This is how big business operates in today’s world folks! Google ‘scams’ or ‘Ponzi schemes’ for endless examples. Remember Enron and its independent auditors? Know that white collar criminals will rarely do any jail time, unless they can’t pay court fines. And if they ever have to pay anything back it will be only a small percentage of what they stole because the prosecutor wanted a nice simple case with one or two provable charges – prosecutors and judges are people too and don’t like unnecessary complexity. Know too that criminal charges don’t affect career criminals whatsoever. S/he’ll be back with the same or different scam tomorrow under a different name.

Where they are no effective regulatory authorities overseeing online poker, who do you think is running Pokersite? Do you think a billion dollar company that can operate anywhere in the world, and has little to fear, wouldn’t break laws or rules to increase profit, especially if they don’t think they’ll be caught?
I can’t imagine a scenario where anyone will be permitted to analyze Pokersite’s proprietary servers and software so I doubt we’ll ever know if the games are rigged. I’m afraid we’ll just have to settle for personal experience and the debate will parallel religion. Some will believe based on personal experience and some won’t.

I am becoming very wary of Merge. I know I'm a winning player (~100% MTT ROI in mid stakes for past 5+ years) and I won at about the same rate early on at Merge as well. But for the past year or so, I believe I am very slightly down on the site, essentially breaking even. That's an awful long cold streak due to variance. Recreational players are winning every pot against me. My last dozen exits from tourneys have almost exclusively consisted of my opponent hitting 2 outers versus me. I have a math degree and am tempted to analyze my data if this continues. But I already sense something's not right. That or I just have so much bad luck lately that it's more likely I get hit by lightning.

You had me right up until this paragraph, which veers from the logical and factual into speculative at best and nearly conspiratorial, with shades of condescension. I don't play a "highly aggressive and sophisticated theoretical" game, and in tournaments since June, I've netted just over $2,000 in profit. I'm not a pro or even above average - I'm just a decent, regular player. The "long run" of which you speak, for me anyway, is largely truncated since I usually P2P transfer most of my winnings for real world needs. But even if I didn't, I think I'd still have the same runs, the same tendencies, and in the end, similar results.

So am I "busting the fish", as you put it? My sample size isn't huge by any stretch, but I'd consider my game decently solid and I tend to minimize risk in my play by being patient where some might get worried and shove at inopportune times.

Until I see some hard evidence with some factual statistical analysis that directly links a poker room manipulating results, I'm not going to buy into this theory that all rooms are "out to get you", even if their business practices may suggest their attempts to maximize profits. People complain about rigging all the time, and then continue to pour money into the cauffers. If they're that worried about it, wouldn't those people stop playing?

You're a tax fraud investigator but your approach to this problem centres solely on motivations?

Possibly you do not have the mental capacity to both play winning poker AND trash talk other players.

Just a thought.

^^^
This

Not sure how you can even make a claim like this accurately. What is this number even based on?

What are the obvious reasons for no p2p? The only logical ones i can come up with for making a very drastic decision to drop one of their biggest source of customers is either they don't have the $ to keep up with all the cashouts (which wouldn't be an issue if player funds are kept segregated), or that they want to force more players to deposit, which again, is a lack of funds issue. A site is not going bring in more customers playing games if depositing is made to be the only means of obtaining funds on the site, seeing as standard deposit options were always there. It just loses the customers that were unable to obtain $ to play on the site by means other then p2p transfers.


Yeah no way a sudden appealment drop in mtts and the fact that a lot of the guarantees aren't even going off due to lack of registrants would cause higher traffic in ring games/sngs then had there been no appealment drop in the mtts and lack of mtts starting up. Also i'm not quite convinced of what you say when i read posts like this asking how come the sudden drop in cash game traffic (http://forumserver.twoplustwo.com/sh...&postcount=529), however i am convinced you ignore a lot of basic fact when coming to some of the conclusions that you do. That just makes you smarter though i guess.

It will be interesting to see if what has been a 6month+ steady decline in paying customers (which no way played a causing role in network restructuring) continues to slide after people aren't crunching in hand requirements so they can move their funds off, and when customers who are wondering what is going on with merge lately no longer care about the issue and move on elsewhere. Good thing they're having that big tournament series way ahead of schedule eh?

The purpose of reasearching info, which public forums can play a huge role in, is to obtain a more clear view of something. If there is a myopic view of the industry, it is hardly a result of these people who want to know more but instead the cause of people wanting to know more.

If merge did not care at all what the 2+2 community thinks (which happens to be nothing more then a community of people who have interest in the game of poker), there would not be 2+2 reps representing the majority of the major merge skins, along with several of the smaller skins. There wouldn't be skins purchasing private sections of the forum to appease the crowd. Closed merge security investigations wouldn't be reopened due to a thread about the issue being made on 2+2, which was no doubt the case in my AJB4 thread. There wouldn't be 2+2 community only promos. I will agree that to some degree/areas/topics merge does not care at all what the 2+2 community thinks, but for you to make a general statement that they don't care at all what the community thinks, well...that's just nonsense.

Take care.

I have an abundance of personal experience as evidence but no viable way to produce it.

I have absolutely no idea if internet poker is rigged or not, however I do find it amazing that there are people who are 100% convinced it cannot be rigged with absolutely NO evidence to support that claim. Their argument is, and always has been, "if you can't prove its rigged then we have to assume it isn't"

I would like any one of those players that say it isn't rigged to provide me with conclusive evidence that it isn't rigged, that all is 100% random and pokersites do not set up the system to ensure there is action between hands and players who deposit regularly are not penalised against to ensure they keep depositing.

When I say "conclusive evidence" please do not come back with the "but they are independantly audited" crap.. Pokersites are NOT independantly audited. They pay companies to give them a certificate to say they have had their systems tested. Those companies rely on the funds that the pokersites pay them, and therefore have a vested interest to make sure that the pokersite is kept onside. How many "independant auditors" would remain on the payroll of poker sites if they came out and said "we think there are anomoalies".. The first auditors that suggested pokersites rigged their games would be hoofed off the pokersites payroll and lose a substantial amount of money.

What you have to consider is that the whole enchilada relies on computers providing the gameplay. Like a fruit machine, or a blackjack gane, they can be set up to work in favour of the owners. Why is it completely impossible for pokersites to set up their program so that they can create a system where player rankings are set up and the software can decide who is a better investment.

I would ask people to consider this. Sites like Sharkscope have software that can monitor results instantly. They have access to the databases and from that they can tell you the results of the games the moment they are complete. How do they get that information ? You can all use software that monitors players playing habits. How does that software get that information..

If supposedly independant software can get access to the "secure" databases, then why is it completely impossible for the sites themselves to get that same information and work it to their own advantage.

Last sunday I happened to mention in the chat during a game, that I was sick of the bad beats on PS and that I'd stop depositing and move to Ipoker. It was a joke made to another player, with no serious intention. I went on the sickest run of hands you have ever seen. I ended up cashing in excess of $3k which is the highest amount I've ever won on ANY poker site. It was almost comical what happened. I hit everything I could play. I hit one outers, gutshots, runner runner flush draws.. You cannot make that kind of **** up.

Had I triggered something that the system decided was an alarm, and they let me go on a run of good hands to ensure my interest in PS was maintained.

I am not saying its certain, but its most certainly a possibility.

There is no evidence to say pokersites are rigged, because the pokersites will never let you get access to their software to prove it.. However, I would say there is also nothing available to any of us to tell us they don't rig it.

Finally I'd say this. People say "why would they do it, why would they run the risk". At a time when PS and FTP are under investigation for fraud and money laundering, I'd be very wary of anyone that suggests pokersites won't take risks to increase their profit margins. If sites will run the risk of prosecution for that then rigging games with no fear of retribution because no one is allowed to gain access to the information is not beyond the realms of possibility.

No one, but no one, has the authority to get access to the software that the pokersites use. There is no regulatory body that can walk in and force a site to provide it with the full database and analyse their software. IF that were ever to happen, and sites had to allow 100% independant scrutiny I can assure you that some sites would be in a whole lot of trouble.

I'm almost ashamed to agree with most of your rant but I wanted to point out that you tripped over my theory that bad play is probably rewarded most of the time regardless of the player. That way the variance looks fairly normal with a large sample size. You too might win by playing like a donk, if you dare.

Arguing that no one can prove online poker isn't rigged is a pretty sad opening. I hope you'll see that in the morning.

The old "reverse the debate back onto the non-believer" tactic...alive and well I see...

Why would I need evidence to defend a position that "not all of online poker is rigged" like the tax guy basically insinuated? I'm not accusing them...the accuser presents evidence of wrongdoing. These room owners aren't saints by any stretch. But using the logic as stated above is like saying people that believe in God are just stupid. If it's tilted in someone's direction, then why I am I doing okay overall? I'm not a hardcore reg or grinder. Just an average player.

The theory falls apart when you can't explain instances where no rigging takes place over a six-month or longer period...unless you think everyone is designated a status by these rooms and some are just relegated to "regular play". I want proof a place is rigged - or evidence thereof. Then we can talk. Until then...I'm not going to start stocking my bomb shelter waiting for the bomb to drop.

It ain't you they want to prevent from winning, it's everyone that would bankrupt the fish and affect overall traffic to rake

Where's the line drawn though? They just pick a random monthly amount someone makes and says "okay - them and up...start drilling them so they don't scare the fishies". It's a little wacko...all due respect.

The fish are fish - they aren't going to stop playing or else then they wouldn't be fish, would they? New fish come along every day.

Watch this multi part video all the way through

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lX94fV4TWbc

If my theory is right we should expect occasional windows where we are 'allowed' to win. If not, we'd never reload and keep feeding the rake

Much simpler than that.

The bad beat machine is always on such that the worst hand/player is rewared maybe 60% of the time, or thereabout. The only long term winners are those who can force opponents to fold before they get there or know about the bad beat machine and can 'dodge bullets' because they know what's coming from experience, unlike some of us that might get felted because we can't believe they can catch runner runner or a two outter on the river that often.

At risk of fingering the winning sharps here, also remember that they want you to stay and play so their comments may be disingenuous

Stop doing stupid stuff like this. Most players who can't control their emotions make the claim that they're trying to tilt the fish. But even if that's true in your case, stop. Berating the fish is a bad idea.

No matter how many? Um, no. People will claim it could be variance when...it could be variance.

Even more amazing are posters like you that come up with fictitious people and then claim to be amazed by them. Where are all of these people who are "100% convinced it cannot be rigged"?

BBV and here. They simply assert that it can't be rigged cause they'd never risk it. That's just naive and some of us know that they've all cheated in some fashion to access more players, realize more profits, or evade taxes. Some even bought into banks so they could process illegal payments and launder money.

Ya can't. That's the elegance of it. If the bad beat generator is always on to rewards bad play 60% of the time, they can always point to where you had equal opportunity to win if you'd stayed in for the gutshot or two outter. That's brings variance in line as well if you analyze a large sample size.

It's not Pokersite's fault you didn't hang around for the outs.

I think the key might be to just believe they got there and fold everything but the nutz, then value bet and watch them runner runner anyway. Would that be proof?

That isn't what most people here say.

What we say is that there are far easier and less risky ways to cheat your customers and it is thus unlikely that anyone would undertake to use a method so complex and easily discovered.

Who said "most". You're overstating for drama, which diminishes credibility.

Not so complex.

How would it be easily discovered?

FT got so greedy it simply stole player's accounts thinking they wouldn't get caught cause no one is watching. Pokersite is far from innocent as well but had the good sense to appease the US DoJ before things got out of hand on that front as well.

I did.

This does not make any sense. Since I cannot remember every post made in this thread I simply stated that 'most' people do not say what you asserted they said. (Rather than saying nobody says it and having some nit dig up a solitary post from years back where someone did.)

Says someone who clearly doesn't have a clue.

Because all the evidence is easily publicly available and there are thousands of people watching and analysing their results. Many of whom are extremely well qualified to use the statistical tools that would lay any rigging bare.

Yup.

Notice: "they stole the money".

Not: "they rigged the deal".