As detailed in this thread Stars has admitted to rigging the deal in 27 triple draw games. After a reshuffle, if the RNG deals you a card that you had already discarded at another street in the hand - it will skip this card, and deal a different one to you. As an effect more people will have better chances of making better hands given that you can never pair again on a discarded card.

Stars has not hidden this information on these message boards and has been rather fourthcoming. See this post and thread for verification of the rigging by Poker Stars' Alex Scott. Quoting that exact post by Alex Scott:

He previously elaborated about the premeditation of the rigging:
Here is the 27 triple draw page on Stars' website: http://www.pokerstars.com/poker/games/draw/2-7/ Not a single mention of their unique 'modifications' to the game. So I decided to write an email to Stars support asking about the deal in 27 triple draw alluding explicitly to the fact that the server sometimes will skip the card selected by the RNG. Here is the email I sent and Poker Stars' prompt reply.

That is an absolutely blatant and explicit lie since the primary result of this rigging is that your discards are effectively not reshuffled. This is just shocking to me. Stars rigs their game, comes clean on a message board full of intelligent players fully capable of proving the rigging but is still trying to hide the truth outside of here. Very shady.

that's pretty bad, the first line of Stars support has definitely gone way downhill. If you keep asking "I'd like to talk to a manager/supervisor to confirm this" they will probably set you right though.

I'm also going to send an email and post the response here

Rigging implies the fix is in for certain players, clearly not the case here. It's fair, it's just not the same as live. It should be stated more clearly, but it treats everyone the same, and it doesn't even come up all that often (only when they run out of cards to shuffle and then only when you would have gotten one of your discards back again). Again, it should be more clearly stated, but I don't see this as a bad idea and certainly not an unfair one.

Stop calling this "rigging". Can a mod edit the title?

lol this whole thing makes no sense...... fyp title to "poker online is a lil diff than live"

in no way is it "rigged" its the same for all players

Rigged clearly indicates a benefit for one party at the loss of another party. This is not rigged. Im not sure what it is but its not rigged.

Also, your genius email was clearly written to trap them into making a mistake in the reply - it is simply a case of human error where the support guy did not know there was a difference in the rules.

If the method and reasoning of this change to the shuffle was shown on the website more clearly id love them more for it, but this isnt even close to being a scandal like you seem to believe it is. In fact i quite like the change and whilst it is a positive between online and live it is not a negative that benefits any one player.

I guess an analogy of comparison is offering crazy pineapple but having the discard on the turn instead of the flop. If they publicise this difference then its all good, but as it stands they can do more to make this well known to the players.

it is still "rigged" if it is the same for all players

if the flop in hold'em was chosen so that aces and kings appeared twice as often as they should, that would still be rigged even if it affected all players equally.

obviously the word "rigged" has connotations that might not make people take this thread seriously. but really, there are conspiracy threads about the game being "rigged" in a way like this almost every month. Action flops, setups, you name it, there are lots of people who believe those things happen and they would all imply the game being "rigged".

Rigged had no connotation of unfairness until Poker Stars admitted to it.

One of the oldest and most ridiculous 'rigging' theories has always been: "the sites are rigging the games for action so they can get more rake!" Now that Poker Stars admits to rigging a game for action, people want to redefine rigging. I find this intriguing.

Note I'm not even implying that Poker Stars did this to increase their rake revenue. In fact I have no idea what their motives are and I'm in position to even try to guess. I'm just discussing what I find to be extremely shady behavior.

You deserve to be rigged against if you play 2-7 triple draw. **** that game.

Probably would be enough to make Stars illegal in those states that have "if it's a representation of cards, the electronic game must follow the same odds as if real cards were being used" laws.

Rigged is not an exaggeration at all IMO. Hard to me to believe stars would do it or that any pro would seriously suggest it.

How can someone admit to something and hide it at the same time?

Also the notion of 'fair' rigging actually being inherently fair for all players is some really incorrect and warped logic. Imagine a rigging such that if there were any preflop raise, there would never be an ace or king on the flop. This would have radically different consequences on different types of players. It would be extremely unfair even if the rigging itself did not inherently favor one player or another.

Goes to show you can't & shouldn't trust any online gaming site, even with the reputation Pokerstars has.

If they are altering one game, there is no saying or proof they are not altering anything in Hold'em etc.

How so? I actually tried to phrase it to make it as easy as possible for them to answer honestly. I felt it was a reasonable interpretation of how somebody who had read a little about their rigging but didn't entirely understand (or believe) everything might have asked them.

Also, if you didn't notice - the title of the person who responded was not PokerStars Support Team. It was PokerStars Poker Room Management Team.

Unfortunately, you're correct. A new season of 60 Minutes starts today, and I'm looking forward to their segment on the Absolute/UB story (not airing today, but will be some time this season).

see, this is just wrong.

I know both I and the OP phrased it a little disingenuously. But both of us specifically mentioned Triple Draw. Surely somewhere in the support manual is a section on how the cards are chosen in TD.

I am kind of surprised that OP got an incorrect response from the "PokerStars Poker Room Management Team" but it's hard to know what that means, it might just mean a CS rep who's been there for > 1 year or something.

Changing the rules of triple-draw to be some screwier and stupider version of essentially the same game is NOT the same as rigging.

They should definitely NOT be doing it as they do as I think many of the players in those games who aren't aware of such threads will be assuming it is the same as the REAL version of triple-draw they are more familiar with. So I'm with you there. But this is not 'rigging' and I agree the subject line should be changed.

I also agree with Henry that it's kind of hard to 'hide' something and be forthcoming about it on the forums at the same time.

the rule seems dumb but calling this "rigged" is yet another way to make any future actual rigging cases that much harder to distinguish from noise.

I asked my guy a few more specific questions, he must have found the right page in the book and he actually handled it quite well imo.

What absolutely floors me reading you nimbicles day after day who use poker forums is the idiocracy behind people who DO NOT work for poker sites who think they have all the answers to the legitimacy or potential rigging or potential scamming involved.

In any type of business especially when you have a company making hundreds of millions like pokerstars does, why in the hell are you idiots so quick to defend the site and say oh in no way can it be rigged or programmed to their advantage to make more money?

get a freakin clue.....Of course it can't be rigged to favor any player BUT from what i see day after day on the site, it appears almost to the point it is conclusive that the pots are rigged to create full action to maximize rake thus making it that much more difficult to beat the game online where luck becomes a huge factor.

If your running up against flush draws on a board versus your overpair or pair against pair or whatever the scenario is over and over and over every flop, then straight up the damn site is flawed..

not rigged but FLAWED which pokerstars is VERY MUCH flawed in how it is programmed.

The chances of flushes showing up show up way more than it should...Pairs versus pairs show up way more than u ever see live and don't give me that bull**** logic oh you see more hands online......

But what will baffle me forever is you idiots who again do not work for pokersites or even better yet never were involved in the programming of the site yet come on these ridiculous forums and defend how they are so legitimate...Are you paid to give your pathetic 2 cents to make the site look better?

Why do you think there are such nicknames , i.e. jokerstars or "more bad beats occur here" or "riverstars" cause it is a damn fact...

and for all you idiots who sit in forums cause you have zero social life who come to defend how great the site is, let's face it, if a site can maximize the rake and make sure the flop hits every hand going into the flop THEN THE DAMN SITE IS FLAWED!!!!!!!!!!!!

and this bull**** about how the site has had independent sites review their algorythm is a bunch of bull**** as well, of course the turn and river is RANDOM, i agree, problem is it is impossible to prove how stars programs the starting hands and flop but when you have hundreds of posts about the same subject , then get a freakin clue you forum clowns, the site is misprogrammed.

not sure why i even wasted my time writing this as people love to defend these online sites that continually overrake, create maximized flops and starting hands and make it now damn well impossible to get our money in a timely manner....

And NOW to read a thread about how the 2-7 game has potential flaws in it and have idiots defend AGAIN how legitimate pokerstars is in the programming, is it not possible to debate how could pokerstars MIGHT be misprogrammed to favor their revenue? is it possible?

there is no way one way or the other to prove it so unless you were involved in the programming or work for stars, shut the hell up sheesh..you dont know!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

but when you see hundreds of people making the same accusations, then it would appear that in fact this site is very misprogrammed.....

sheesh forum idiots

This just seems so weird.
If that's really the case then why do they do it that way in the first place?

And I also take issue with the idea that it doesn't create any more or less action. Unless they have studied the implications of the different rules they simply shouldn't be saying that.
There seem to be some triple-draw players who believe such rules where it's impossible to get back the same card actually DOES increase the action and their logic seems to make sense to me.

When you have a pair you are going to be interested in discarding one of those cards. If it's now impossible for that same card to be returned to you then the long-run expectation is for players to all end up with better hands (slightly less possible to get 're-paired').
I'm not a triple-draw player but it makes sense to me and I disagree with their customer-support's stance that it can't possibly create any more or less action.

There was a different series if e-mails with support from a couple months ago where the support poerson told the player that the shortstack in the heads-up game was at a distinct disadvantage for some reason or another. This support person was flat-out wrong (and shouldn't be giving tips to beat a certain other opponent anyway...especially if they are giving WRONG information).

I understand that Stars support needs to explain various basic things to their customers over and over again such as how the odds of the flush draw hitting actually ARE the same on their site as in a live room and stuff like that.
But it seems they overstep their bounds occasionally by saying things that they either cannot prove to be true (their rules of triple-draw create no more action than 'regular' triple-draw) or are simply wrong (shortstack is at some super-huge advantage in a heads-up cash-game).

So while I do think that using the term 'rigged' in this situation is really incorrect and ridiculous I also think there are other aspects of this that I'm not thrilled with.

Because you can 'just tell', right?

If they are openly willing to admit to altering the games rules there is no saying or proof they are altering other games and not telling us.

I dont know if this would have been spotted had they not said it happens, but it should tell you a lot that they did tell you imo.

Im going to step back slightly from what i said earlier. I agree there is a slim chance this could increase rake in the games by you not pairing your hands or hitting bricks less often (though by no means am i 100% accepting that this actually happens) however i do not believe this to be the initial intention and i think the negatives of "increasing rake" is balanced by you not getting a busted 7 draw by getting the same king you discarded on draw 1.

I guess what im saying is there could be a side effect of increasing the action and thus increasing the table rake. (please dont misquote me on that and make me look like a conspiracy nutter later in the thread if this blows up)

However what i 100% know is that this rule has no higher effect on one type of player versus another (lag v tag etc). In holdem as your example there would obviously be a gross advantage for the lag if there is no ace on the flop when the preflop is raised however in this specific case you are not getting back cards you have already discarded - and unlike high draw games you cannot start going for a flush then find yourself going for a boat after the second draw where the card you dropped on the first draw could make you quads (as a gross example with no hint of accuracy of strategy). What im saying is if you drop a card on draw 1 you will never want that back on draw 3, you are never starting on a 23452, drop a 2 on draw 1 then get a 9 and then decide to drop the 2 and hope to get back that first 2. Similarly if you start with 2345T you wont drop the T on draw one, then get a 7 and drop the 3 hoping to get back a T.

Cliffnotes on my views, Stars should be more open (this is news to everyone it seems and it shouldnt be) but there is no advantage from this for one type of player. There is a possibility this is advantagous to the site to generate more rake but if it does and what degree i cannot possibly answer as ive only played it a couple times in my life. I 100% do not believe there was some kind of conspiracy but i 100% expect more people like OP to show up and claim there was.

Because people who are making hundreds of millions don't typically decide to put that at risk to make a little more. Given anyone with a stats background could detect any cheating.

I'm assuming you have something you can share with the rest of us where you've taken your hand histories and done an analysis of them or is this just based on your anecdotal observations?

Because people who suck at poker and are losing players rather blame the site and claim it is rigged than admit they simply can't play poker.

Actually that isn't true. Given the size of hand history databases that exist there is no form of cheating I could not test for.