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UK
Casino Times
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Articles
10 September
2006
Is Online Poker Rigged?
One of the main
attractions of online poker is that with time, skill and
practice, anyone can win. But is this really the case?
Allegations that online poker is fixed or 'rigged' are
commonplace. Do these allegations have any
merit?
Incentive To
Cheat?
Read any online poker
discussion forum and you'll come across a player alleging
that the game is fixed by the poker room itself. More times
than not, the player's opinion is shot down with the defence
that online poker rooms have nothing to gain from fixing
play as the poker room gets paid regardless of who wins and
who loses. Whilst that's true, this is a tired argument in
defence of the poker rooms because they definitely
would have something to gain by being able to
manipulate hands.
Think of it this way. Once
you've paid your tournament entry fee and are active in the
game, you are dead money to the poker room. As long as you
manage to stay in the game, you're no longer depositing
money. If the poker room is somehow able to put you out of
the game then you're likely to move onto another tournament
or cash game. Ka-ching for the poker room.
However, crossing the
fence again, even this argument can be easily countered. A
player who believes that the poker room is intentionally
putting them out of games is not likely to play there for
long and will, if they have any sense, move onto another
poker room. So the poker room loses - removing the incentive
to cheat.
Getting Answers And
Getting Ignored
For the purposes of this
article, we approached some of the biggest names in
Online
Poker and put to
them some of the most frequently raised questions regarding
online poker fairness. We approached Paradise Poker, Party
Poker, Poker Stars and William Hill Poker for their
comments.
Of the four poker rooms we
approached, only Paradise
Poker saw fit to
reply. Party Poker, Poker Stars and William Hill Poker all
saw fit to ignore our request to take part. Whilst this in
itself does not indicate by any means that Party Poker,
Poker Stars and William Hill Poker have anything to hide, it
does raise serious questions about their willingness to
discuss fairness of their online poker games. With
allegations of rigged games and security vulnerabilities
rife, these online poker rooms should in theory be very
eager to take any opportunity to put the record
straight.
In short, their lack of
transparency was shocking and very disappointing.
Paradise Poker's replies
came from someone called Tony (no surname was given) at
Paradise Poker Security. Our questions and their replies
make interesting reading.
Casino
Times: Given that many players report far
more 'bad beats' online than offline and other unusual game
patterns, how you do answer the concerns of players who
believe that online poker is 'rigged'?
Paradise Poker:
With the huge interest and growth of poker worldwide both
live and on the internet Paradise Poker has noticed a
significant increase in the numbers creating accounts and
playing on our site. The vast majority of these players are
recreational and inexperienced players and the tables they
choose to play on cover the entire spectrum of games offered
by Paradise Poker relative to their bankroll. This
subsequently will change the nature of the game online to
the point where there is likely to be many players on the
tables who don't understand pot odds, playing position, hand
rankings, folding equity or what even constitutes a good or
bad play.
To put it into context,
many of these new players believe that poker is played in
the way that they see it portrayed on TV. What isn't
understood is that these TV shows are edited highlights and
give the impression that every hand is an action hand. This
in addition to players such as Daniel Negreanu and Gus
Hanson who mix their game and will tend to play any two
cards creates a game where multiple players at a table will
regularly play cards that would be considered rags by the
more tight aggressive player and the majority of experienced
players for the matter.
So it is no wonder that
there are many complaints questioning the integrity of the
shuffle and claiming the game is rigged. The bare fact is
that if players are going to play in this fashion then they
will hit their cards from time to time. This will infuriate
the tight aggressive players who play a more consistent game
but the fact remains that these guys who play recklessly and
erratically will not be profitable and the more consistent
player will win in the end.
There is a direct
correlation between complaining players and the actual flop
percentage that they see. We find that players with a flop
percentage of 25% and lower tend not to let beats affect
them and just take it as part of the game, which, after all
it is. If a player is going to play and get involved in more
hands then of course there is more chance that he will be in
position to receive more bad beats especially since the game
is on average 3 times faster than a regular brick and mortar
card room. This and the aforementioned quality of players on
the site do greatly increase the likelihood of beats
occurring.
Another factor is the
actual definition of a bad beat, most inexperienced players
seem to think that a bad beat is any hand that a player
comes from behind to beat them when in actual fact it is
just an outdraw that happens. The majority of complaints we
receive concerning bad beats would not be considered bad
beats by the more experienced player and would simply be put
down as an outdraw.
Casino
Times: What measures are taken to prevent the
possibility of players being able to view other players'
current or future dealt cards?
Paradise Poker: In
one word it's a "myth". While Paradise Poker would never
endorse these sites that offer such software by suggesting
that one would purchase these products for yourself to find
out if it works, we would warn against it considering the
fact that it doesn't work. There are many sites who proclaim
to have some miracle software that can read other players
hole cards and cards to come. Unfortunately for the people
who buy such products, the usefulness of these programs
turns out to be a white elephant. To understand why such
programs can't actually work you must understand the
workings of our RNG and how cards are selected. The
following explanation may seem long winded and technical but
should be enough to make most people realize why such
software is completely useless in attempting to gain any
advantage over your fellow card players.
If someone could determine
what was coming next - given the nature of the way that
random numbers are generated by computers, an improperly
implemented Random-Number-Generator (RNG) could be
compromised in this fashion. However, we have gone to great
lengths to make sure our RNG is completely non-deterministic
and that it has the ability to generate every possible
shuffled deck with equal chance. We've written in detail
about how we do that in paradisepoker.com/shuffling.html
and urge you to read that if you haven't already.
If someone could see
another players' cards - To do this, someone would need to
be able to "sniff" the data stream being sent from an
opponent's computer to our server (and vice-versa). To do
this, a hacker would need to know your specific IP address.
Unless you've previously had contact with that person,
there's really no way for them to know it. But even then,
knowing someone's IP address is a very small part of the
problem. Unlike phone conversations which are easy to
intercept, internet traffic only goes where it's supposed
to. Sometimes it will take a different path from source to
destination, and other times only parts of the same data
stream themselves take a different path. Someone tapping it
may only see half the data that's actually being
sent.
All of this aside, even if
someone were able to directly "tap" into one of our data
streams, what they'd see would be completely useless; the
data going to you (and from you) is encrypted with a
standard that renders the information entirely unusable. We
use a 128-bit encryption system between the server and the
client software, and in this context it is about as secure
as it gets. Supercomputers crunching through their attempts
to decrypt this standard take days or even weeks. A typical
home computer trying to crack it would take months or years.
Since it's information that's entirely useless about one
minute later, there is certainly no concern here. Note too
that our server was written as a custom application with
high security at the top of the list of priorities. In order
to even talk to it you must have an encrypted connection. It
is firewalled and protected with state-of-the art technology
and software and there has never been a breach of its
security.
Casino
Times: Is the use of an automatically playing
'bot' permitted? If not, how do you prevent their
use?
Paradise Poker:
Paradise Poker do not allow any form of automated assistance
programs (bots) to be used on the site. Unfortunately we
cannot disclose our methods for detecting such bots due to
the fact that public disclosure would render our methods
redundant. What we can tell you is that every account that
logs into Paradise Poker is monitored for bot activity 24
hours a day 365 days a year. It has even come to the stage
that our security department are so proficient and vigilante
against bot usage that the major bot manufacturers even warn
against using their products on our site.
Casino
Times: How can/do you prevent
collusion?
Paradise Poker:
Indeed, the concerns that you voice in this question have
been the preoccupation of not only Paradise Poker, but the
online poker community as a whole. Given the fact that
players in an online environment are not sitting within
sight of each other, this inherently gives rise to the added
possibility of collaboration between players. Our Security
Department is very aware of such a real danger to the
integrity of the game and accordingly has put in place
several measures to help guard against such
abuses.
Specifically, our Security
Department makes use of the following preventative
measures:
i. Tracking IP address and
matching historical playing patterns. This flags and
determines if certain players historically play on the same
table.
ii. Player trapping
monitoring. Historical hands are automatically reviewed and
if a weak hand was involved with raising and re-raising with
multiple players it is flagged and forwarded to
security.
iii. Strong hand folding.
If a player folds a strong hand before the flop such as AQ
when another player has AK it is flagged.
iv. Any player that
reports a suspicious hand, it is thoroughly reviewed by our
security dept. Security will also review the historical
hands of the players involved. It is this ability to see
every player's entire history that gives us the incredible
ability to combat collusion better than a brick and mortar
card room.
There are also additional
automated features that I have declined to mention, given
that making such measures public would again as in the case
of bot detection essentially defeat their purpose.
Nevertheless, it would be naive of us to suggest to you that
our system is flawless. While we devote a significant amount
of our time and resources to combating collusion, we are
aware that, be it in a real casino, or in an online casino,
unscrupulous players will continue to try and compromise the
game. Given this realization, we have adopted a strict no
tolerance policy for players that are involved in what so
much as amounts to a suggestion of collusion. If a player is
involved in such an incident the account, and all the
related accounts, are immediately closed, cashed out and the
player is barred from opening another Paradise account. We
are under no illusion that in order for us to be successful
we need to grow our client base and have positive word of
mouth, this could never be accomplished if the games were
not conducted in a totally fair and honest
environment.
So Is Online Poker
Fixed?
If you came into this
article convinced that online poker is rigged then nothing
you've read here is likely to change your opinion. Do
we believe it to be fixed? We have to say 'no' simply
because the poker rooms would have so much to lose by
offering anything other than a 100% fair game. Any proof of
wrongdoing would shut them down - they'd be out of the game
with no second chances.
In addition, the fall out
of solid evidence of game fixing by a poker room or players
having the ability to view other players' cards would be
more damaging for our industry than anything the US
government has been able to achieve to date.
We suggest you vote with
your wallet. If you find yourself suspecting that you're not
getting a fair game at where you're playing then simply
don't deposit there again. Uninstall the software. Close
your account if need be. Simply play elsewhere.
If you've been convinced
by Paradise Poker's argument and impressed by their
willingness to openly discuss the issue then you may want to
give them a try.
Click
Here To Open A New Account At Paradise Poker
We conclude with an open
request to those poker rooms who declined to answer our
questions: next time someone asks you if your games are fair
and secure, do us all a favour and prove that they are.
Ignoring these questions will do nothing but harm to us
all.
As always, feedback is
welcomed.
Also see:
Online
Poker
Guide for the best online poker rooms.
How
To Play Texas Hold Em
You don't need to be a rocket scientist to play Texas Holdem
Em Poker, and if you want to learn the basics just read
through this handy article.
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