Is online poker rigged?

Often one can read posts in poker forums where a person claims that the poker software is rigged, which means that it's random number generator is manipulated. Since the cards dealt are decided by the random number generator this also would mean that the cards one would be dealt wouldn't be random, but instead chosen by some insincere person.

This would be very neat if one could do it oneself. I shiver with excitement with the thought of letting myself be dealt pair of aces every time just as I get when I play live with my inattentive friends. No just kidding, back to reality.

Anyway, those who complain in forums usually complains about getting dealt really good cards! Yes that is right! Now why would they do that? Well it is because someone else gets even better cards, they lose money and are frustrated. When this happens a couple of times in a pretty short time period they get the idea that the poker site is rigged. Sometimes when they only get bad cards for a while this happens too. I would say most poker sites have been accused of being rigged.

The improbable is probable! Since there are so many improbable things that can happen in poker one is bound to experience quite a few strange events in one's poker carreer. You are bound to experience long periods, sometimes weeks, of being dealt bad cards sometimes and also to experience periods when everything goes your way. Of course poker is a skill game and the more skilled you are the more you will win in the long run and it is important not to get too carried away in the highs or too panicked in the lows. One must minimize the damage in periods of bad luck and maximise the profit when one is lucky. But in the long run it has nothing to do with luck, then it is only statistics and bad luck and good luck will cancel out each other.

Why they aren't rigged

Sure, if a poker site manipulated the random number generator so that better cards are dealt they would drive up the pots, at least until the players got used to it. This would mean a, increase in the collected rake ince the poker sites take roughly 3% of each pot to themselves. But why would they risk their entire reputation just for a marginal increase in profit for a shorter time? Believe me, in due time most of the money will end upp in their pockets anyway. I don't think it would be worth the trouble making a manipulated random number generator that is difficult to see through. Also most poker sites have an external independant organisation that controls the fairness of the games and also the random number generator. For example the ones who controls Party poker is iTech Labs you can see their logo at the bottom of Party's homepage, click it for more information.

So.. I don't think any poker site at all is rigged. There simply isn't any reason for them to do it.

Sabotage!

One also has to consider the possibility that a criminal that is employed at the poker company or someone else who can gain access to their computers can get inside and somehow manipulate the cards so that they win all the time. Well I'm no expert at this but I think it would be very difficult to do this and considering the high numbers of online players the risk of running into such a cheater is very very low. At the highest limits one might consider the risk even though I believe it is very low even there, and at any other limits the risk would probably be almost zero since no one would bother doing such a thing unless they could make big money.

Don't worry, be happy

Yes, I would say there is no reason to worry about whether online poker is rigged. So you can sleep tight every night and dream happily of all the money you have lost only due to your absent poker skills, no one has cheated you.

© Emil Svensson