Ever since the first online poker games launched back in the early 2000s, players around the world have been asking the same question. Is online poker rigged, or are the games actually fair?
Poker operators have been advertising their games as safe and completely random, but the seed of doubt has existed with many players over the years.
While being skeptical and investigative is always a good idea, players have often gone way beyond healthy skepticism and into conspiracy theories when it comes to the idea of online poker fairness.
So, is online poker rigged or not? We delved into all the key ideas in an effort to find out once and for all, and decide if playing the game online is actually safe.
Why Players Often Feel That Online Poker Is Rigged
The idea of online poker being rigged has been around for as long as the game itself, and it stems from the simple fact that poker results are partially impacted by luck.
No matter how you play, your results will eventually be impacted by luck, which goes both ways. When players run well, they often feel they played better than they actually did, and when they run badly, they often feel cheated.
For example, anytime a player loses with pocket Aces to pocket Tens, they might start wondering if the hand was fair. Lose a few times in a row, and the doubt goes deeper.
Players often start believing online poker is rigged during long losing stretches, also known as downswings, which are an unavoidable part of any poker career.
Over the years, there have been very few examples of players actually showing up with any evidence of online poker games being rigged, but thousands of examples of players using small samples or anecdotal evidence to “prove” a certain poker site is rigged.
For example, you will find countless poker forum posts where players post a single hand history or two and proclaim one of the biggest online poker operators to be a scam.
Small Sample Size Can Make Online Poker Seem Rigged
Almost every claim of online poker, or particular poker sites, being rigged, we’ve seen over the years has been levied by poker players who simply experienced some bad luck.
Poker is a game of fine edges, and equities often run much closer than one would imagine. A flush draw has over 35% chance to beat two pair, while small pocket pairs run a 20% chance of beating pocket Aces.
Events with these kinds of frequencies can often happen many times within a short span of time, without any interference or cheating happening.
When players run badly over a small sample size, such as a few hundred hands of cash games, it can seem that every time they get it in against a flush draw, the flush simply gets there.
This kind of bias is extremely common among online poker players and has largely been the basis of all “online poker is rigged” accusations.
What poker professionals know is that the only way to know if a game is rigged or not would be to look over the results over a large sample of hands. This means at least a few thousand cash game hands, or hundreds of online poker tournaments.
The sad truth is that most of those claiming online poker is rigged never even get to play that much poker on a single site, but rather bring up any bad luck they have as evidence of the sites cheating them.
Why Online Poker Isn’t Rigged at Regulated Sites
The real truth is that, as long as you play it at regulated poker sites, online poker is not rigged at all. The games are just as safe as those played in brick-and-mortar poker rooms, if not safer.
All major online poker sites use a software algorithm known as a “random number generator” to generate all cards, from hole cards to the river.
Each player receives completely random cards, and the boards are dealt randomly, with no relation to the hole cards or any other elements.
The fairness and safety of the random number generators used in online poker have been confirmed by countless independent auditors over the years, and all major RNGs are known to be perfectly safe.
The poker operators don’t just keep the games safe out of the kindness of their hearts, but also because keeping the games fair protects their reputation and keeps the players coming back.
A single scandal involving cheating or rigged games is enough to make a poker site shut down for good, which is why operators have entire teams dedicated to making sure the games are always on the up and up.
Since online poker games make money by charging rake from every pot played and every tournament entry, the operators also have no real interest in any particular player winning or losing.
Instead, the integrity of the games is placed above everything else, and running fair games for everyone becomes an imperative for any serious online poker runner.
Poker sites like GGPoker, PokerStars, and CoinPoker all put in the extra effort to make sure that their games are neither rigged, nor hacked or exploited in any way, with the latter becoming a much bigger problem in recent years.
How You Can Prove Online Poker Isn’t Rigged
The way most accusations of rigged poker sites over the years have been “proven” is by posting one or two hand histories with “suspicious” results.
You will often see a player on Reddit showcase how they lost with pocket Aces in two key tournament spots and claim the entire site, or even the entire online poker industry, is rigged.
Instead of doing this, the way to prove online poker is rigged would be to showcase significant statistical anomalies over a large sample of hands.
All major online poker sites give players access to all their hand histories, which are saved on the device for users to access at any time.
Hand histories are very important learning tools, and are often used together with various poker training software to study the game, find leaks, and improve poker strategies.
These hand histories are also the best way to prove whether an online poker site is rigged or not, as they allow the player to extrapolate real data.
Using poker software like Hold’em Manager or Poker Tracker, players can get a full rundown of all key statistics. For example, you could isolate all the times you were all in with pocket Aces before the flop, and see just how many times you have lost.
If you have a sample size of six all-ins with pocket Aces against a random hand, the sample won’t be enough to show any significant statistics. You may have lost twice, for a 30% loss rate, or won all six, for a 100% win rate.
In both cases, the numbers prove nothing, as the sample is simply too small. However, if you play enough hands and have access to hundreds of such examples, you will notice the numbers getting closer and closer to the true statistical probability.
Hundreds of such studies have been conducted by poker players, independent auditors, and the media, and the results have always been completely clean at all major poker sites.
When Online Poker Is Rigged
When we say online poker is not rigged, it’s important to note that we are simply referring to the fact that all cards in online poker games, at licensed poker sites, are dealt fairly and randomly.
This doesn’t mean that there is no cheating in online poker, as activities such as collusion, ghosting, botting, and real-time assistance (RTA) are very serious concerns.
With the development of various RTA tools in recent years, the prevalence of this type of cheating in online poker has grown significantly. Many poker players use software to try to inform their decisions, thus gaining unfair edges.
In the past, we have seen serious allegations levied against poker sites like Ultimate Bet Poker, which proved to be real, as certain player accounts were seen winning at much higher rates than theoretically possible.
The way the super user scandal at Ultimate Bet was discovered was through the use of poker stats, as other players discovered the “super user” was winning at a rate not achievable by any poker player.
More recently, we have seen some players abuse a leak in the GGPoker software to gain an unfair advantage as well, but this group was also discovered by the operator and banned.
These kinds of situations make the answer to the question, ” Is online poker rigged?”, a bit more ambiguous, as cases where online poker games become unfair do exist in the modern game.
So, Is Online Poker Rigged or Not?
The short answer is no, online poker is not rigged, as long as you play at licensed poker sites with a strong reputation and brand.
The idea of poker games at sites like GGPoker, WPT Global, or 888poker being rigged is absurd, as these operators go out of their way to maintain the integrity of their games.
On the other hand, smaller and unregulated poker sites may run rigged or unfair games, but playing at such sites is an unnecessary risk you probably shouldn’t take.
The only times when poker at major poker sites can be considered “rigged” are when you encounter RTA users, botters, and other cheaters, who find ways to exploit fair games and cheat other players.
Yet, online poker operators work diligently to make sure all cheaters are removed from their platforms, and your help in discovering cheaters is greatly appreciated.
