TvSa was just referring to the long running joke that the non-riggies here are in fact paid shills of online poker sites, and get paid for every post they make.

Sadly, I'm not in on this deal which is why I don't post as much.

Spadebidder, which site(s) did you do your analysis on ?

I think I've asked you before but I don't think you answered me.

have a word with our union rep
shurely shome mistake?

FTP is well aware of that joke, he mentioned it a couple of hours ago.

He just seems incapable of making the logical leap that it takes to realise that if it were true, every post he makes that gets a reply from a shill earns that shill money.

Here's a simple experiment that may disabuse you of that notion. Flip fifty coins and write them down, in order (site #1). Then do this again with the same number of coins (site #2). Write this sequence under the first. Then do it a third or fourth time. Now examine them for patterns. Highlight the patterns you notice. Each set will have entirely different "patterns" that your mind will recognize easily. Some of them will look amazing. Each set will also likely have a very different number of heads. Each set will have various lengths of runs. You probably won't see anything very consistent between the sets at all, they will each appear to have certain unique characteristics. That's randomness.

I answered that question, twice ... here is an edited version of the first reply (hint, click on the arrow in the quoted post to see the whole post)


I missed that ... maybe FTP is just a huge level?



.

Spadebidder, this is not true. One of the amendments to HR 2267 specifically required that applicants for licenses prove that their games are fair and random. For new entrants, an examination of their RNG programs should suffice. OTOH, established sites will be required to have audits of their hand histories. Also, the bill provides the Treasury with much discretion and power to determine licensing standards and standards for continuing licenses. IMO, periodic audits of hand histories will be required of all licensees.

In addition, the Treasury can rely on experienced state gaming commissions for licensing standards. State gaming commissions require the same sort of date for all slot machines.

It is possible that the current foreign licensing jurisdictions require the same thing, but such information has never been publicly released. I don't know what France and Italy now require, but the fact that they have granted licenses to the major sites is evidence that their deal of the cards is fair and random. OTOH, since those two countries are more interested in protectionism and tax revenue than customer protection, this evidence is not conclusive.

I completely agree. I never stated that online poker is rigged. In fact, I stated that my belief is that it is probably not rigged. However, I did state that my biggest fear of online poker is that it may be rigged. A fear is not a belief just skepticism. I fear this possibility more than bots or collusion. But I don't fear it so much that I stop playing.

Too many people who believe that online poker is not rigged do not have any skepticism just because no one has proved that online poker is rigged. Most just state it is not rigged; not that it is probably not rigged.

OTOH, you're right too many people that claim it is rigged do so without sufficient evidence and seem to be willing to accept any evidence that online poker is not rigged.

However, I do believe that audits of hand histories could prove either case beyond a reasonable doubt. A standard that neither side has yet reached.

If you fear a rigged deal more that robots or collusion you have a seriously skewed sense of threat.

Perhaps because they are sick to death of people positing riggedness when the raw evidence (hand histories) are available by the million, many people have analysed them and not one has come up with any evidence.

I've audited HH's and found nothing amiss. Spadebidder has done the same with a much larger sample.

But the rigtards will never be satisfied. How could they be? They will always want more histories, more recent histories, different sites, different games, different stakes, different anomalies checked for - it really would never end.

Asking for 'audited' hands is meaningless. You can get audited histories but you can't get completely audited histories.

I don't really fear bots much because they are only as good as their makers. I don't fear collusion much because the sites are good at detecting it and make serious efforts to curtail it. I fear rigging a bit because if true, then it ruins the whole game. But I really don't fear it that much.

Spadebidder's work certainly shows that the deal of the holecards and flop are fair and random. But the work is not complete on other factors. I agree that all the audits of hand histories that I have seen show that the sites deal is fair and random.

I disagree that more audits are meaningless. I understand your frustration with most poker rigged claimants. US regulation and audits by reputable auditing firms won't satisfy them. OTOH, they would satisfy some skeptics and would add credibility to the industry. They won't stop this thread.

I fall in the rigtard category because I believe its rigged to a degree. I don't know about bots or any of that stuff, but my belief is that the reason you see more bad beats is because the site wants to favor bad players. If there weren't as many bad beats then the idiots who go all in with crap cards would lose more often (as they should) and be discouraged from playing anymore. And since there are many more idiots online as opposed to people who know how to play it only makes sense that the sites would want to cater towards the bigger customer base.

The way it is now an idiot can have a great experience online and have many thrilling come from behind all in victories, thereby encouraging the idiot to keep playing.

If an idiot entered a SnG and was all in 3 minutes later with A7 up against AK and they lost they would possibly decide that internet poker isn't that fun and would never come back. But, make it exciting and have the lead change hands 3x on every all in and next thing you know the idiots are having a great time and sticking around to spend more money.

This is a very old theory and has been put forward by many in this thread.

However, if they were actually doing this to the extent that the 'idiots' would notice the difference in the time it took them to lose money it would stick out like a massive, swollen, illuminated, sore thumb in the hand histories and would have been discovered long ago.

It's not more audits that are meaningless, it's the idea that there is such a thing as 'an audit'. I see you agree with that.

So you've directed me to where it tells me........ absolutely nothing ??!?

Is that right ? You directed me to where it doesn't tell me what site(s) the investigation came from ? Or have I missed the bit where it tells me ?

That's why I am asking Spadebidder himself, so he can tell me directly.

Is your plan to become so unbelievably annoying and pathetic that people start to lose their temper with you and get themselves banned?

How can you be so mind numbingly stupid and yet continue to breath unaided?

OB actually quoted the relevant clause for Spadebidder's site:

"We will not reveal from [which] PokerSites these hands were obtained".

Got it now?

I can't find any amendment like that. I see 12 amendments that are now part of the bill. Link?

Correction, there are 13 attached to the bill (of I think 17 proposed). None of the passed ones have anything like that in them that I can find. I didn't read the full text of all of them, but looked at the summaries.

From Spadebidder's site, 'We will not reveal from (which) Pokersites these hands were obtained.' I can't find anywhere else on the Spadebidder site that states otherwise, but apologies if I've missed it.

So..... what use is the investigation at all Spadebidder ?

I'm not having a go, I'm just asking you.

What you are saying on your site is, 'I have analyzed hand histories and there is a poker site out there, somewhere, whose dealing appears to be fair, as far as I have analyzed. I'm not going to tell you which poker site though.'

Exactly what use is that ? You could have investigated some little known poker site that has 10 customers.

Many people here keep holding up your investigation as some sort of conclusive investigation of 'online poker,' yet what you have done is investigated 1 (a few ?) site(s) and don't appear to even tell us which one(s).

Can you make things a bit clearer for us please ?

Thankyoooooo

They shouldn't. I never said anything like that, or called anything I did an "investigation". You may have missed the point of the data I posted. The stuff I published was from two major sites. Major. And they are sites I've played on, from the US.

10 players who played 50 million hands each? Use your head.

Why do you have to post such moronic nonsense?

Why would he say he's not going to reveal the sites and then reveal them?

Yeah, because, of course a site with 10 customers has a billion hand history available.

No, they don't.

The whole problem with dealing with rigtards such as yourself is that there is no 'conclusive investigation of online poker'. Whatever is done the true rigtard will find a way of calling it unsatisfactory and/or incomplete.

LOL, beat me to it by a minute.

Sadly, there seems to be very little evidence of FTP using his head for anything useful.

Maybe he employs it for banging nails in from time to time, I don't know.

Why would you 'leave it at that' ?

Your analysis is clearly one of the most important pieces of evidence available in this debate so far, assuming you tell us which two sites you analyzed.

I'm also assuming you analyzed the hand histories of each site separately ?

I don't see the need to be guarded or mysterious about this, surely that's not helping matters at all ?

Meant to be an exaggerated example.

Because for anyone with an IQ struggling into double figures that is enough to infer the sites.

I see why that excludes you.

Look on the bright side, though, at least it leaves the window open for you to keep whining and wheedling.

I'm not allowed to by the agreement that I received the hand histories under. Obviously I didn't collect them myself.

I also have lost interest in putting in the substantial effort it takes to write the code and perform the studies. It also takes a lot of CPU time (days worth in some cases) just to run them. I don't need to burn up my hardware on that. I satisfied myself that I get a fair game.