Are Online Poker Rooms 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.