I’ve noticed every time someone complains about online poker being rigged, they get mocked and belittled. A lot of people point out low sample sizes, people not understanding variance, the faster pace of online vs live play makes bad beats stand out more, etc.

But should all these accusations be dismissed so quickly?

In light of the obvious abundance of cheats, liars, and frauds in the poker world, why is everyone so quick to dismiss site operators as potential bad actors? Especially after the several instances of sites being taken down for fraudulent activity?

I would agree that they are most likely not cheating and the complaints are probably a result of variance due to low sample size but I just don’t know if it is wise to default to that answer so quickly every time the issue is brought up.

Commence with flaming my opinion.

Yes. There is cheating collusion etc but the games are not rigged for ****s sake.

Thank you for demonstrating my point.

You don't believe people, that's the problem. Look at crypto, great spirit, looking to future, addicted to revolutionary technology, decentralized with no oversight and they will not scam no matter what. In the same manner, albeit cheating would be easy, they simply don't do that in online casinos.

It’s funny that in GG most professionals have gone to bad runs they have never experienced before in their lives while playing against softer competition than in Pokerstars few years ago.

But there is no way to prove something shady is going on.

Kind of blows my mind that you have posted here 10 years you still somehow manage to believe that online poker is rigged. Thank you for demonstrating my point that all of you riggies are stupid.

If that’s your takeaway from what I’m saying, it adds all the more irony to your post.

We also have this dedicated thread for "rigged" discussions:
https://forumserver.twoplustwo.com/2...dition-255990/

They get mocked and belittled when they post without any evidence to support their claims of rigged. So yes, those claims should be dismissed without a thought.
When, if ever, I read a claim that a site is rigged, posted by a person who:
1: provides some evidence in the form of hand history analysis;
2: details what the rig is and how it affects hand outcomes; and
3:demonstrates that the observed frequency of said rig is statistically improbable enough to warrant suspicion.
Then I will expect that person would be taken seriously enough to warrant a closer look at the phenomenon they are claiming is occurring.
This has never happened in the riggie culture. When statistical evidence of shadiness is presented, people do take it seriously. Potripper, and the many, many instances of bot rings being discovered are examples.
Yes, sites can be shady. These sites have much easier ways to steal people's money than rigging the RNG. They can run bots, superusers, increase rake or simply shut down and take everything, all with impunity. A rigged RNG is far more difficult to program than a fair one; this costs money so it's a wasted investment if a site is already crooked.
Instead we get people who get sucked out on a few times, then start yelling at clouds that OMG RIIGGGZ is happening. Yeah, they should all be ignored for the internet static that they are.

The original post seems to be too difficult for some people to comprehend so I appreciate you addressing the issue I was bringing up.

Dr. Meh

Please simplify your original post into a couple of specific questions that you feel should be answered that Kalaea's response didn't cover.

Thanks.

The onus should be on the sites to prove their game is fair. However as long as people keep throwing money at them, they have no incentive to change.

To Kalaea's points, it doesn't matter if it's a superuser, house bot ring or dodgy RNG. A rigged game is a rigged game. The method is almost irrelevant. So yes, anyone complaining about online poker in 2023 being rigged should be ignored. Not necessarily because they are wrong but because they should know better. People with any doubts about the integrity of the game should not play. I don't.

It's also funny to see people refer to the 2007 Potripper scandal as some kind of proof that superuser cheating would be caught in 2023. Crooks learn from thier mistakes too.

Not sure if English is your second language or if you are deliberately misrepresenting what I wrote. In case it is the former, Potripper was my example of how carefully collected data properly analysed will not be dismissed but will be investigated more thoroughly. At no time did I suggest that it was proof a competent superuser would ever be caught, let alone in 2023. I know you have your agenda to push but please don't project it onto what I write.

Thanks for the clarification. We agree that a competent superuser would not be caught.

I don't have an agenda. On the contrary, it's the people dismissing "riggies" who likely have the agenda. In other words, you're looking in the wrong place. But just for fun, what did you think my agenda was?

Why? I liked the response. My response about some people not understanding was directed toward RandomLurker who is clearly too stupid to comprehend my original post.

Sites in my jurisdiction have to show their games are fair and their software is checked to ensure it operates to the standards they set. As far as cheating allegations are concerned I totally agree with Kalaea and allegations that meet his/her criteria would be taken seriously by the readers here but the vast majority of what we see are people banging on about being rivered or someone hitting their 3outer blah blah.

If any player has any shred of doubt of the integrity of the game they are playing then don't play. If they have evidence then present it to the regulator of said site instead of wasting their energy and time posting things that are meaningless.

You say it is people who dismiss these people that have an agenda which is bullshit and if a site is crooked I want to know so I can get my money out of there quick so why the hell would I defend a site against an evidence backed claim.

We don't live in a guilty till proven innocent culture thankfully.

Can you show me some of the certificates they have to prove that the game is fair? Tip, I've read all of them already and you're basically playing at your own risk.

Nobody claimed otherwise but I still want to know the restaurant I go to has passed the necessary hygiene checks.

It states on the sites who regulates them so go check each one out. As I said players should stop playing if there are any suspicions on their part about the site. 888s software was when I played there regulated by e-cogra. If you doubt the capabilities of these organisations to carry out their duties then don't play, it is as simple as that.

After reading Ts and Cs on anything you proceed at your own risk obviously. I don't expect the authorities to hold my hand crossing the street. I don't give threads like this much time and I am done with this one.

The theme of your original post has been asked dozens of times in the riggie thread over the years, although every time it is asked it seems the person asking believes they stumbled onto a magical question. In the end the riggies tend to demand that the sites prove to them (with their near infinite differing beliefs) that the site is fair, and when it is pointed out that the burden of proof is on the riggie (to define their rig and prove it in a verifiable way) the riggies simply call those asking that for proof shills for the sites, and then they repeat that they want the sites to prove it is not rigged. How? Who knows, the riggies never make that clear.

You can visit the riggie thread and see a large selection of riggies and many of their quotes (a lot of which echo your concerns). Here is a link to the most recent riggie list (which will also be the last one I post). Note, it make take a little while for that post to load when clicked.

https://forumserver.twoplustwo.com/s...ostcount=92755


As well, here are the riggie commandments that I created long ago

Commandment 1: Thou shalt ask others to prove it false

Commandment 2: Thou shalt state an opinion and declare it a fact

Commandment 3: Thou shalt hurl personal attacks

Commandment 4: Thou shalt assume

Commandment 5: Thou shalt have no time to test thy theories

Commandment 6: Thou shalt support thy brethren unconditionally

Commandment 7: Thou shalt believe anything is possible with software

Commandment 8: Thou shalt believe no one with knowledge of a rig willst ever speak of it

Commandment 9: Thou shalt watch Youtube

Commandment 10: Thou shalt present no data


There you go Dr Meh - a living history of your concern that has gone back many years, with some riggies being more interesting than others. Most are unmemorable, and none to date have presented a specific rig theory and proven it. A couple many years ago tried (and failed), but no recent riggies have made any effort and generally they will not even say what their rig is any more, they just go with the "something is wrong, prove to me it is not, why do you trust these sites yadda yadda"

The above is why riggies are not taken seriously, nor should they be taken seriously. They never have any evidence of anything. In contrast this forum (when it was actually relevant to the industry) has seen many bots and collusion and other forms of cheating exposed and discussed. I have linked some amazing work to riggies of cheaters being caught and they do not read it, nor care about it. Rogue sites have been exposed and discussed (Lock Poker Pitbull , UB etc.). If there was ever anything to an individual riggies belief, with data to back it up, then it would be taken seriously, however 15 years of that never happening have defined the riggie culture and why they never mattered and are essentially dead at this point.

Hope that helped answer what you believed to be your complex thread subject. I am pretty much retired from dancing with riggies as there have not been any particularly interesting ones here for years and their culture is quite dead. Still, they were an interesting study of basic paranoid human behavior, so if you find any value in the thread I linked above for you in helping you create some future complex thoughts, then I am glad I was able to help.

All the best.

Oh good, another thread for Beetlejuice to clog up with his nonsensical ramblings.

This one should have been for you Monty

No idea who you are, but the OP seemed to want information so it was given to him. Whether he uses it or not is his choice. I always assume riggies like you have no need nor interest for actual information, which I specifically stated in my prior post. It's just not the way riggies operate. No idea if the OP is a riggie or not, so if he is not then perhaps he will find the information useful.

All the best.

I appreciate your response although I am a little befuddled by your last paragraph which seems to take a more insulting tone. I never said I believed my thread subject was complex. Quite the contrary, I feel what I was asking was fairly cut and dry. Which is why RandomLurker’s bizarre emotional responses make no sense in the context of this thread.

As for me, I’m not a “riggie.” I’ve actually never heard the term “riggie” before and I haven’t played online poker in quite some time as I live in a part of the US where it is illegal and I’d rather not go through a Black Friday experience again.

The reason for the thread is I was reading another thread from an apparent “riggie” and he was mocked into oblivion for posting about it. It was as though people had no interest in ascertaining what the evidence (if any) was and just automatically assumed his post to be the ramblings of a delusion rec who got sucked out on once or twice.

I found that thread to be strange given the amount of shady behavior in the poker world and for a forum whose members seem to have a general mistrust of corporations to, essentially, give corporations who run online poker sites a free pass without further scrutiny.

It’s apparent from your post, the issue is the “riggies” have tried so many times to bring up the issue of potential wrongdoing and failed to provide adequate evidence to the point where it’s sort of a boy who cried wolf situation.

Basically, everyone is so sick of hearing the allegations without substantial provable evidence, that when the topic is brought up again, it gets dismissed. Unless, of course, there comes a time when someone lays out any incriminating evidence they may have in their original post so as to justify further scrutiny.

Sound about right?

If you were familiar with the riggie thread you would know that what you asked has been asked many, many, many, many times in a variety of ways from riggies over the years, generally with an agenda of how the sites are rigged against them. Given that none of them ever had anything of substance to back their concerns the reaction toward seeing the same questions asked over and over by new riggies tended to become a bit more jaded and mocking in nature.

His likely reality is that he presented what was to him a completely original idea, yet that same one had been droned on and on over the years by other riggies who again had nothing other than complaints and what they have seen with their eyes yet could not prove (which should be easy if they could see it with their own eyes). Riggies also tend to be dramatic and emotional, so odds are he was not tormented in anything other than the standard internet trolling manner.

Again, if you read the riggie thread here you will see dozens or over a hundred riggies make the complaint that seems to resonate with you, and you will see they generally overreact which makes sense since by nature most riggies are not the most emotionally stable in general.

Well, that is not really what that thread is about, other than maybe many, many years ago when there were more genuine industry issues being discussed in it. That thread essentially was a collection of riggies doing their whine of whatever their individual rig was to them. Many times riggies would have exact opposite beliefs of other riggies. It was kind of comical.

The thread very rarely dabbled in actual shady industry issues because those did not interest riggies as much as whether they lost to straight flushes too many times in their mind. I will give a quick example - when Lock Poker was still stealing people's money there was a rep here named Shane who would directly answer riggie claims of boomswitches and other nonsense and often give those riggies money (worth nothing since it could not be cashed out ever) in their accounts. The riggies loved that they were being listened to and they did not care in the slightest of the effort a poster had made documenting all the cashouts that had not happened in the prior year. Lock Poker was a criminal enterprise, but since the rep here was catering to the riggies - they loved him. It was frustrating to those of us trying to make people aware of how shady the site was at the time.

Topics such as bots and collusion have come up at times, and I have posted links to some fantastic work by others in finding them, but riggies did not care about that at all. They would ignore that then ask that the sites prove it was not rigged without explaining how they would do that.

Been nearly two decades where literally not a single riggie concern has been proven. Pretty sure it is way past the crying wolf stage, and most riggies these days do not even bother trying to explain how they think it is rigged. Years ago some riggies did actually make that effort. Guess I would ask you - how much weight would you put on their claims given their history with them.

It has been nearly 20 years where not a single riggie has proven a claim, so the default will be that if a new riggie makes a claim (rare these days) and their evidence is what they see with their eyes and anyone who questions them is a shill - been there, done that thousands of times.

Hope this answered your questions. I guess I would ask you to look at this thread of yours and see the rando that did a few posts demanding sites prove it is not rigged to him (a riggie commandment) and tell me what you think of his concerns. How much weight should be put on them and how much time should others spend (other than snarky quick replies) addressing them? If you feel they deserve more time and positive attention then my suggestion is you provide that to that riggie and others when you see their posts. Good luck if you choose to do that, and I say that knowing full well there is zero chance you will. That kind of shows why riggies are generally disregarded when they have no evidence of anything - they should be.

All the best.

Thank you, this adequately addresses my op. I guess I was very naive to the depth of the issue as I have been disconnected from the online poker world for some time. It makes perfect sense for why they get the responses they get now.

I would encourage “riggies” to provide adequate evidence of wrongdoing up front to allow people to determine if the allegations warrant further investigation. If such evidence is not present, seems the bad beat/variance section of the forum would be a more appropriate place for people to complain about their losses.

Thanks again for taking the time to address my questions.

FYI, I and others have given many riggies the link to the BBV forum many, many times over the years. Nearly all refuse to post there because they do not think they are whining about bad beats and losing, even when that is exactly what they are doing. Reality is pretty much anything you will suggest has been done by now (many times) and riggies as a species (with a few exceptions) refuse to do any of it to change how they approach this industry. Nearly all have quit as they could not compete and most now do not even play any more (likely the correct choice).